During its 45th session held in Riyadh, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee has added the ancient ruins of Tell es-Sultan (Ancient Jericho) in Palestine to the World Heritage List. The majority of member countries supported the inclusion of Tell es-Sultan in the list. Ernesto Ottone Ramirez, UNESCO's Deputy Director-General for Culture, described the site as the prehistoric archaeological site of Tell es-Sultan, situated outside the ancient city of Jericho.
Tell es-Sultan is located in the Jordan Valley, 1.5 kilometers north of modern-day Jericho. The site comprises an oval-shaped mound containing archaeological artifacts from thousands of years of human habitation, as well as the adjacent Ein Al Sultan spring. While UNESCO states that a permanent settlement in ancient Jericho dates back to the ninth or eighth millennium B.C., some scientists believe the site may date back to the tenth millennium B.C. or earlier.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry welcomed UNESCO's decision, stating that it confirms the unique value of the site and Palestine as a whole, emphasizing the longstanding presence of Palestinians on their land. In contrast, the Israeli Foreign Ministry criticized the inclusion of Tell el-Sultan in the World Heritage List as a cynical use of UNESCO and politicization. Israel expressed its intent to work to rectify such decisions.
The 45th session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee took place in Riyadh from September 10 to 25. Notably, this marked the first visit of Israeli representatives to Saudi Arabia, a country that does not officially recognize Israel and has no diplomatic relations with it.
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Photo: A. Sobkowski/Public Domain
Based on materials from TASS