Jericho Brick

On Dec 26 we traveled over to Jordan but before we did we stopped at Jericho. What is often not known is there are two Jericho’s. Old Testament Jericho and New Testament Jericho. We first visited Old Testament Jericho which is the oldest city in the world at more than 10,000 years old. During our visit we noticed some beautiful mud brick which was made with straw. I’m holding one of the ancient mud brick in my hands and you can see the straw which acts as rebar to hold the bud brick together. By contrast the mud brick from Tall el-Dabe in Egypt was made without straw as this was the punishment enacted against the Israelites. They had to produce the same amount of mud bricks but without the material to hold them together.
Then we drove about 2 Km west of Old Testament Jericho and explored the New Testament site. We climbed up Herod’s palace (our third of the trip) to view the Roman ruins below. This was the place that the New Testament stories about Jericho and Jesus took place.