The oldest cities in the world
The ancient city of Jericho, located in the West Bank on the shores of the
Dead Sea, is widely considered the oldest in the world. First settled by
Neolithic hunter-gatherers, by 8000 BCE Tell es-Sultan—as it is also
known—had grown to a sizable town enclosed by a stone wall. The wall would
be rebuilt many times as successive civilizations rose and fell, providing
an important window into the evolution of humanity’s earliest urban
settlements.
The ancient city of Damascus in Syria, a World Heritage Site, is one of
the oldest in the world. Evidence of human settlement may date as far back
as 10,000 BCE. Seated at the crossroads between Asia and Africa, Damascus
rose to prominence as a trade centre around 3000 BCE. Despite receiving
little precipitation, it has been called “the Pearl of the East” thanks to
its lush vegetation, sustained by a complex irrigation system set up more
than 3,000 years ago.
Human habitation of the modern Iranian city of Rey (Ray, Rayy or
Shahr-e Rey) dates back some 8,000 years. The city was sacred to the
Zoroastrians, mentioned in the Avesta (as well as the biblical
Apocrypha), and remnants of a Zoroastrian Tower of Silence and Fire
Temple still stand. Under Muslim rule in the eighth century, Rey became
a major centre in Western Asia, famed for its decorated silk textiles
and glazed earthenware before being largely destroyed by Mongol invasion
in the 13thcentury.
Susa, in Iran—known as Shushan in the Bible, now occupied by the modern
city of Shush—was founded roughly 6,500 years ago. Situated along
ancient trade routes, it became one of the most important cities in the
region as the capital of the Elamite and Achaemenid Empire. A tomb
believed to be of the prophet Daniel remains intact, enclosed within a
mosque in Shush. The remains of the ancient city are now a World
Heritage Site.
The ancient Phoenician town of Byblos, in Lebanon, has stood on a cliff of
sandstone overlooking the Mediterranean Sea since at least 5000 BCE.
Emerging from longstanding Neolithic fishing settlements, the port
town—then Gubla—became a key shipping centre for timber to Egypt, and
papyrus to Greece. (The name Byblos is derived from the Greek word
papyrus, as is “bible.”) Another important export was the highly
influential Phoenician alphabet, which quickly became the writing system
of choice in Mediterranean trade.
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