Tower of Jericho belongs to the years before the Common Era — dated here to c. 8000 BCE at Tell es-Sultan. The date is a scholarly centre of gravity, not a foundation-stone timestamp.
An 8.5-metre stone tower with an internal stair is among the oldest monumental buildings known — Pre-Pottery Neolithic.
How it was made
A wall and ditch accompanied it. Whether it was defence, flood control, or ritual is still argued.
Why it still counts as a wonder
It never needed a Greek list to be a wonder: the labour, the alignment, or the survival is enough.
Jericho’s fame is biblical; the tower’s fame is chronological. It is a wonder because almost nothing else that old is this deliberate.
On dating
BCE in this series means years before the traditional birth of Christ, counted backward. A monument listed as c. 8000 BCE may have been founded earlier, rebuilt later, or famous only in one phase. Where ancient writers disagree — as they do for Babylon’s gardens — we say so.
This is story 51 of 100 in The Trend Ledger’s illustrated desk on world wonders raised before the Common Era.