Does Jericho have astronomical alignments?

From Barkai and Liran, Time and Mind 1, 273-284 (2008).


Barkai and Liran (2008) suggest the stone tower at Jericho was an astronomical observation platform, used primarily for tracking the setting sun on the summer solstice.

Jericho, an early Neolithic town excavated by Kathleen Kenyon's team in the 1950's, is famous for its massive stone tower and walls. The tower was built around 8000 BCE, meaning it overlapped with Gobekli Tepe. A remarkable feat for the time.

The tower, like the great Pyramids of Egypt, is penetrated by a shaft with apparent astronomical alignments. In this case, the shaft forms a set of very steep stairs. Their orientation (azimuth) is around 290 degrees, quite close to the summer solstice sunset at this latitude and time (299 degrees).

However, anyone climbing the stairs would have exited at the top and faced almost directly towards  Mount Quruntul with its conical peak at 1300 m. In fact, the sun sets on the shoulder of Quruntul, at azimuth 293 degrees, only a few degrees from the orientation of the steps. Probably, then, the tower was use for astronomy, and especially observation of the summer solstice sunset. The same purpose is suggested for the entrance of Lascaux Cave (see Hayden and Villeneuve, 2011).

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