Jericho

Jericho sat on the west bank of the Jordan, close enough to the cliffs behind it that the site is traditionally linked to Christ's temptation centuries later. Walled and gated, ruled by its own king, it was the first city Israel took after crossing the Jordan, and the plunder found inside it, Babylonian robes and hoarded silver, became the reason Achan was executed for taking what belonged to God. Long before any of that, Jericho had already been standing for millennia: archaeologists have found remains at the site predating the Neolithic period, roughly ten thousand years old, making it one of the oldest continuously occupied settlements ever excavated.