Explore 9 Of The Oldest Buildings In The World
The Wall Of Jericho, West Bank
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The Wall of Jericho, of Battle of Jericho fame, didn’t actually come tumbling down — or at least, not this one. The wall that the Israelites reportedly destroyed in the Book of Joshua would have been a construction from the Bronze Age.
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The original Neolithic Wall of Jericho is considerably older, dating perhaps as far back as 8,000 BCE, when the end of the Ice Age made it possible for migrating nomads to settle there permanently. Archaeologists suspect the construction was designed primarily to protect the emerging city of 2,000 from floodwaters. It may be the oldest city wall ever discovered.
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Archaeologist Ran Barkai is confident the wall was constructed to inspire awe and unified inspiration to forge ahead as a society.
“We believe this tower was one of the mechanisms to motivate people to take part in a communal lifestyle,” he said.
The 28-foot stone tower was first discovered by archaeologists in 1952, at which point the structure was dated to be over 11,000 years old. Using advanced computer technology, scientists have found evidence it was likely used to commemorate the summer solstice and urge people to leave their nomadic lives behind in favor of settling in the region.
“The tower was constructed by a major building effort,” said Barkai. “People were working for a very long time and very hard. It was not like the other domestic buildings in Jericho.”
“The tower is an indication of power struggles at the beginning of the Neolithic period and of the fact that a particular person or people exploited the primeval fears of the residents and persuaded them to built it.”
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Göbekli Tepe, Turkey
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Göbekli Tepe, Turkish for “Potbelly Hill,” boasts the world’s oldest megaliths, constructions of giant rocks joined without concrete or mortar. Massive stone T’s circle outward from a central point, all buried deeply in sockets that the site’s ancient inhabitants carved out of bedrock around 9,000 BCE.
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Göbekli Tepe predates Stonehenge by a margin of 6,000 years, and it’s even more mysterious. Its stones are decorated with indecipherable pictograms and animal reliefs, with a particular emphasis on vultures.
Discovered by University of Chicago and Istanbul University archaeologists in the 1960s, the structure was dismissed as nothing greater than a medieval cemetery long abandoned.
According to The Smithsonian, German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt made his own archaeological investigationin 1994 and took the time to properly assess the site for the first time in recorded history. It was only then, in the mid-1990s, that the historical community was forced to reassess its timelines regarding early civilizations.
Nobody knows what the structure was used for, but the recent discovery of skulls with mysterious holes suggests to some, including archaeologist Klaus Schmidt, that the temple might have been home to a kind of death cult.
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