Oldest City
What Is the Oldest City Built by Humans?
The debate is far from settled.
When we think of the oldest city in the world, the answer should be straightforward. The winner is the city that can be traced back the furthest in time using radiocarbon dating.
But, the answer is not as simple as it appears. What do we mean when we talk about the “oldest city”?
Is it the world’s oldest continuously inhabited city? Or the first city built by humans that no longer exists?
What about cities that began as small settlements but grew into cities much later? At what point in time do we consider them as a “city”? You may also wonder, did any of these cities get depopulated, cease to exist as a “city” and again re-built?
“What is the world’s oldest city built by humans?” has several layers of hidden questions.
To keep things simple, let us discuss the world’s oldest inhabited cities which exist even today, and the first-ever built city. But, before we go into cities, let’s talk about what a city is and how to tell it apart from early human settlements.
Early human settlements, the prequel to cities.
Jericho, a city in Palestine, is often referred to as the world’s oldest city. This is because archaeological evidence shows human habitation in Jericho dating back 11,000 years. Around 9,000 B.C., hunter-gatherers settled, and by 8,000 B.C. we see farming develop in Jericho.
This must imply that Jericho is the world’s oldest city, right? No, not exactly.
In 7,000 B.C., Jericho still hadn’t developed pottery, although humans who lived there made walls and houses using stones. Jericho was depopulated later. Towards the end of the 4th millennium B.C., we see walls re-appear, but it wasn’t until 2300 B.C. that Jericho started developing an urban life.
Jericho wasn’t the oldest human settlement. Çatalhöyük and Göbekli Tepe in Turkey showed the earliest signs of proto-cities. There is evidence of pillar construction in Göbekli Tepe. Çatalhöyük didn’t have streets; people traveled on rooftops to enter homes.
These ancient settlements reveal significant information on the emergence of cities. But, they lacked public buildings, well-maintained streets, and full-fledged complex urbanization. It would be a few millennia until the world’s first city arose on the banks of the Euphrates river in present-day Iraq.
Uruk: The first city in the world.
Uruk, built on the banks of the Euphrates river, is a strong contender for the title of the world’s first city. It was the capital city of the legendary king Gilgamesh, whose tales are immortalized in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Between 4000 and 3200 B.C., Uruk experienced rapid expansion from agricultural village settlements to a sophisticated urban civilization.
Uruk was a big city with public buildings, a full-fledged bureaucracy, a military, streets, public sanitation, and class-based society. It was the largest city in the world, with a population of 40,000 people living within the city and another 80,000 in the adjoining areas.
Farmers didn’t live inside the city. Uruk’s populace was comprised of scribes, artisans, construction workers, laborers, bakers, butchers, priests, and government officials. We see a writing system emerge with the growth of Uruk as an urban center.
Uruk’s dwellings were courtyard houses. The city had a canal system for transportation, similar to Venice.
Uruk had temple complexes devoted to the goddesses, Inanna and Anu. The most famous building was the White Ziggurat dedicated to Anu. This magnificent structure was built around 4,000 B.C.
The temple complexes served both religious and administrative functions. Uruk began declining in the early fourth century. By the eighth century, it was abandoned.
Uruk was the world’s first city, but which is the oldest continuously inhabited city?
Who is the winner?
Before we reach a conclusion, let’s have a look at some of the top candidates for the oldest continuously inhabited city.
Jericho, Palestine
As we discussed earlier, Jericho had some of the oldest human settlements, but this doesn’t necessarily make it the oldest city. It still is one of the oldest cities in human history.
During the Bronze Age, around 2500 B.C, Jericho had an established palace and city walls. During the late Bronze Age, Jericho was one of the victims of the Bronze Age collapse. The city was sacked, destroyed, and depopulated.
Jericho was again re-built during the early Iron age( 1100 B.C.) only to be destroyed by the Babylonians. When the city was conquered by the Persians they restored its former glory.
Alexander the Great used to have a private estate in Jericho. The city stood the trials of time and is still inhabited by a population of around 20,000 people.
Aleppo, Syria
Damascus is often mentioned while discussing the world’s oldest city. While the oldest settlements in Damascus date back to the 7th millennia B.C., there was no large-scale habitation until the early 2nd millennium B.C.
Aleppo, Syria’s other well-known metropolis, is the country’s oldest city and one of the world’s oldest inhabited cities. In ancient times, the city was known as Ebla, and by the end of the third millennium B.C., it was a thriving city. It was the city of Hadad, an ancient storm god. The ruins of Hadad’s temple can be seen even today.
During the Bronze Age, Aleppo was governed by the Amorites, Mittani, and Hittites. The Assyrians took control of the city around the eighth century B.C., but later the Persians conquered the city.
Aleppo was an important commercial center during the Greco-Roman period(323 B.C.- 5th century). Under Islamic rule, the city flourished. It became the third-largest metropolis in the Ottoman Empire, after Constantinople and Cairo.
Unfortunately, Aleppo experienced a significant loss of life and property during the recent Syrian civil war. Today, the city has a population of 1.8 million people. Aleppo is known for its silk weaving and textile industry.
Byblos, Lebanon
Byblos is a city in Lebanon with settlements dating back to 8800 B.C. By 3000 B.C., Byblos was a thriving metropolitan center and a key source of papyrus trade for the ancient world.
In the ancient world, papyrus was the favored medium for writing, and the Greeks named the city after their word for books, Biblos. The word “Bible” is taken from the name of this city.
The Phoenicians called the city Gebal, and it was an important religious center. In the ancient world, several peoples ruled the city, including Canaanites, Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians, and Greeks.
Byblos lost its rich trade with Europe after the fall of the Sassanid Persian empire and the rise of Islamic caliphates. Following the First Crusade at the end of the eleventh century, commerce with Europe was re-established.
The Ottomans and later the French conquered Byblos.
As one of the world’s oldest inhabited cities, it has withstood the test of time. Today, the metropolitan region of Byblos has a population of 100,000 people.
Varanasi, India, Plovdiv, Bulgaria, and Athens, Greece, are also worthy of mention. These cities date back to the Late Bronze Age ( 1600-1200 B.C.) and are still inhabited.
But do we have a definitive answer for which is the oldest city in the world? Since we cannot exactly prove the year in which a human settlement transformed into a bustling urban center, the task becomes difficult.
As per the World Bank definition for a city, a population of at least 50,000 is needed. Jericho falls short of this number, hence it can be ruled out as the world’s “oldest city”.
Aleppo is a close contender for the oldest city, with Mesopotamian records suggesting the city was a bustling urban center by the end of the 3rd millennium B.C, around 2100–2000 B.C.
Based on the criteria of having a sophisticated urban culture that survived and evolved with time, Byblos is the winner. Byblos was a full-fledged city by 3000 B.C. giving it a head start over other cities of the world which are still inhabited.
Uruk was the world’s first city, and Byblos is the oldest inhabited city in the world. It is rare for a city to continue existing for thousands of years, and only a handful of cities in the world have the honor.
Aleppo, Damascus, Jericho, Athens, Plovdiv, and Varanasi share the podium with Byblos for the title of the oldest inhabited city. We can only hope that with rising urbanization, human migration, and globalization, these old-timers will be able to continue on their timeless legacy.
The birth of civilizations began with the rise of cities. Conflicts increased as civilizations advanced. If you want to learn more about a Bronze Age clash between two ancient superpowers and the first recorded peace treaty in human history, be sure to read the story below.
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References.
- Dumper, Michael; Stanley, Bruce E.; Abu-Lughod, Janet L. (2006). Cities of the Middle East and North Africa
- Charvát, Petr; Zainab Bahrani; Marc Van de Mieroop (2002). Mesopotamia Before History
- Gates, Charles (2003). Ancient Cities: The Archaeology of Urban Life in the Ancient Near East and Egypt, Greece and Rome.
- Trevor Bryce (2014). Ancient Syria: A Three Thousand Year History. Oxford University Press.
- Paolo Matthiae; Nicoló Marchetti (2013). Ebla and its Landscape: Early State Formation in the Ancient Near East
posted by Aloyzio Achutti at 10:32 PM
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