The Walls of Jericho and the Structural Overload Hypothesis

An Interdisciplinary Exploration of Internal Crowd Loading and Fortification Instability at Tell es-Sultan

Abstract

Historical and archaeological analyses of the collapse of ancient Jericho’s walls (Tell es-Sultan) have traditionally divided into two broad interpretive domains: natural destructive mechanisms such as seismic activity, or literary-theological interpretations emphasizing symbolic and ideological meaning. This paper proposes a third exploratory framework: the Jericho Structural Overload Hypothesis.

Rather than treating the fortifications exclusively as passive barriers responding to external forces, this paper examines whether internally generated human loading may have contributed to structural instability under specific behavioral and architectural conditions. Drawing upon archaeological reconstructions of Tell es-Sultan, principles of crowd behavior, and the mechanical limitations of sun-dried mudbrick fortifications, the paper explores whether synchronized crowd convergence onto elevated perimeter structures could plausibly have reduced the stability margins of the upper wall system.

The central proposal is not that the biblical narrative can be conclusively verified through engineering analysis, but rather that the described sequence of events may contain a mechanically plausible internal-loading scenario that has received relatively little interdisciplinary attention. Particular attention is given to the potential interaction between crowd concentration, eccentric live loading, sloped revetment geometry, and the low tensile strength of mudbrick superstructures.

The present analysis should therefore be understood as a hypothesis-generation exercise intended to invite further scrutiny, refinement, criticism, and testing by specialists in archaeology, structural engineering, geotechnics, crowd dynamics, and ancient Near Eastern studies.