This integrated process is made possible by the creation of an Archaeological Park[3]. The Park should orient and coordinate the objectives, strategies and actions implemented by different institutions and actors, both public and private, in order to produce knowledge, protection, conservation, enhancement and development in the Oasis territory.

In this perspective the Park should be an autonomous institution composed of members of local and national institutions and should guarantee management, control and monitoring of the enhancement and development process[4].

The formation of the Park depends on the initiative of a promoting subject/group[5], that will have to provide:

-    to identify the Park on the base of data related to geographical, environmental, cultural, historical and social aspects of the territory;

-    to involve the public and private actors operating in the territory, interested in participating in the process of development;

-    to identify the juridical-institutional form of the Park, according to the opportunities of the existing legislation or appraising the possibilities of a new specific provision;

-    to individualize the existing and/or potential financial resources for the launch of the Park.

The creation and the management of the Park ask for specific tools to enhance the cultural resources, to improve the territorial resources and to develop the local economic system:

�         management framework, necessary to ensure the functioning of the Park both in the phase of constitution and in the phase of ordinary management;

�         action plans:

- knowledge plan;

- protection/conservation plan;

- enhancement plan;

- development plan.

The management framework of the Park will have to ensure the following functions: orientation and political-administrative coordination, technical-scientific support, consultation of the involved subjects. These functions can be developed by:

�         committee of coordination, composed by the public actors competent on the territory, eventually presided by a representative of an institution of government level (Ministry, etc.);

�         technical-scientific committee, which, in close contact with the committee of coordination, attends to defining the planning contents of the different plans necessary to provide information and data for the subjects operating in the territory, with the purpose to ensure the achievement of the shared objectives;

�         organism of consultation, that is the space of the comparison and the sharing with all the public and private actors, as well as with the local community, involved in the process of development, useful to communicate the initiatives and the choices of the Park, but also to listen to necessities and desires of the local population and the civil society.

The way of creation and development of the Park, as said, foresees the predisposition of four different action plans, purposely separated to promote its realization according to the articulation of the competences of the involved public subjects, but conceived in an integrated way for maximizing the synergies between the interventions and the use of the available financial resources.

The four plans mentioned above will be expressed in terms of addresses, guidelines, actions and projects for:

�         protection policies;

�         conservation and enhancement intervention programs;

�         cultural heritage management;

�         territorial and urban planning and management;

�         landscape planning and management;

�         economic and social intervention programs.

The knowledge of the territory, the interpretation of its values and its identity, the evaluation of its points of weakness and its risks are at the base of any process of local development that aims to the environmental sustainability and to the socio-cultural and economic compatibility of its initiatives. Also in the case of the Jericho Oasis it is necessary to achieve a knowledge and an evaluation of the territorial realities that are the common base on which to found the strategic choices of intervention. The Knowledge Plan has the following contents:

-    characterization and interpretation of the territory according to different criteria (historical/cultural, landscape/environmental, etc.);

-    analysis and evaluation of the cultural and territorial resources (for instance through the creation of a register/catalogue based on a Gis system);

-    evaluation of the risks and definition of the opportunities.

In particular, the evaluation can be carried out through the SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) which allows to build an actual scenery, comparing points of strength and weakness, risks and opportunities of the resources and the territory taken into consideration, useful to have meaningful data and information to define choices and contents of the plans of protection, enhancement and development. In this sense, the register/catalogue can be used to define the physical relationships and the relationships of sense between the cultural resources and the territory, but also to identify the relationships between the different resources and the uses of the territory, the regulatory system constraints, and it can be the basic of future town-planning schemes and landscape planning of territorial actions compatible with the resources.

The protection and the conservation of the cultural resources, main asset of the Park, needs diversified actions at the level of the whole Park and at the level of every resource/site, finalized to create the minimum conditions for their enhancement:

�         for the whole Park:

- new protection law (national level): the present regulatory constraints are not sufficient for the sites protection because no specific rules have been developed until now;

- new land use and landscape master plan at Jericho Oasis (local level);

�         for each site/resource:

- definition of the protection area;

- conservation and restoration interventions;

- protection systems for archaeological and architectural remains (protective shelters, water drainage, etc.).

In the Jericho Oasis the valorization of the cultural heritage aims: to favour the usability, the knowledge and the understanding of the resources; to support the relationship among the material and immaterial resources; to facilitate the communication of the intrinsic meanings to the cultural heritage; to arouse the growth of the identity sense of affiliation of the cultural heritage to the territory and the communities in the present; to increase the ability of attraction of tourism. Also the Enhancement Plan has to operate according to actions related to the whole Park and to the single resources:

�         for the whole Park:

- improvement actions of accessibility and usability of the territory;

- organization of the visiting routes and transports according to a specific project of knowledge of the territory and its cultural heritage;

- promotion of activities aimed to maintain and to strengthen the different forms of immaterial cultural heritage;

- realization of the new visitor and information centre of the Park;

- communication and cultural activities promotion (publishing, medias, schools, etc.);

�         for each site/resource:

- improvement actions of accessibility and usability;

- organization and improvement of visiting pathways;

- presentation tools aimed to know and understand the site;

- services and facilities for visitors.

The Development Plan has the task to create the conditions of territorial and socio-economic context able to favour the full valorization of the cultural heritage and to increase its benefits to the advantage both of the visitors and, above all, of the local economic system and the inhabitants.

The actions and the projects foreseen in the Development Plan concern on the one hand the improvement of the territory and of its infrastructures and equipments, on the other hand the development of the local economic system, and the involvement and the qualification of the existing human capital.

The main actions for the development of the territory and of the city of Ariha are:

-    urban renewal and buildings rehabilitation;

-    improvement and equipment of urban public spaces;

-    increase, qualification and differentiation of the reception and welcoming facilities for tourism and commerce;

-    increase, qualification and differentiation of the facilities for leisure time and sport;

-    increase, qualification and differentiation of the territorial service (healthcare, education, public centres, administration and institutional office, etc.).

The main actions for the development of the local economic system, the human capital and the forms of participation are:

-    marketing and social enjoyment and tourism promotion on the Park (organisation of tracks, itineraries, information facilities, etc.);

-    integration and development of the economic strands that are involved or can be involved in the enhancement process;

-    creation of opportunities to attract new economical activities;

-    increase training for the local population in the field of cultural heritage, research, conservation, tourism, etc.;

-    interventions for local contractors (empowerment, capacity building, incentives for local entrepreneurship, etc.).

The whole of the actions of the four plans represents the operational translation of the joint integrated strategy which is at the base of the process of valorization and development that is possible to start in the Jericho Oasis through the constitution of the Archaeological Park.

The actions, as said, will have to set up addresses and orientations for every actor present on the territory who, according to his own competences and tools, is called to bring his contribution through the definition and realization of the interventions included in every action (for instance, UNESCO; Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities; Local Government; Municipality of Ariha; private economic businessmen; etc.)

The actions and the related interventions that today appear priority for the creation of the Park of the Jericho Oasis (pl. 2) and the start of the process of valorization and development, from the different competent subjects, are the followings:

�         for protection:

- implementation of landscape-environmental and historical-archaeo-logical regulatory system constraints through: geographical definition of landscape-environmental constraints and definition of historical-archaeological protected areas (constraints of territorial uses);

�         for accessibility:

- improvement of accessibility and mobility of the territory through: improvement of main roads; definition and organization of the accesses to the Park; improvement of relations between heritage resources; definition and realization of a new road system around the site of Tell es-Sultan;

�         for conservation and enhancement:

- increase environmental, historical and archaeological researches;

- increase restoration activities of remains;

- realization of visit pathways;

- realization of visitors services and facilities;

�         for territory development (urban renewal of Ariha town):

- rehabilitation and improvement of public buildings and social services;

- rehabilitation and restoration of historical buildings;

- improvement of public spaces;

- rehabilitation of Ariha central square;

- realization of Archaeological Park visitor centre and tourist services and facilities;

- realization of commercial and reception facilities;

- realization of Park transport system;

�         for management:

- cooperation and coordination among territory and heritage managers to program and plan the integrated development process of the Park;

- definition of territorial integrated actions compatible with the environmental and archaeological resources (territorial urban planning scheme and landscape planning).

Among the priorities of the program for the formation of the Park of the Oasis the archaeological site of Tell es-Sultan has a primary position. Main resource and tourist destination of the territory, the ancient city needs a specific integrated project that allows it to fully develop, and in a state of effective protection and conservation, the role of historical-cultural centrality and image of the foreseen Park. The integrated Tell es-Sultan Project, as it will be seen in detail below, will have to face particularly the following themes:

-    definition of interventions for the protection and the rehabilitation of the neighbouring areas to the site (territorial and landscape context of the site);

-    historical-archaeological research;

-    organisation of accessibility from outside (displacement of road between the site and �Ain es-Sultan);

-    restoration of archaeological remains (with particular attention for Kenyon�s Trench I and the finds brought to light by the excavations of Rome �La Sapienza� University);

-    organization of the accessibility and the usability inner to the site (new main entrance, new pathways, safety devices, etc.);

-    improvement of the equipments for the visitors (site presentation tools, visitor centre, museum, bookshop, etc.).

Within the proposal of institution and launch of the Archaeological Park of the Jericho Oasis, the archaeological site of the ancient city of Jericho requires, as said, a particular care and attention both for its historical-cultural value, not completely disclosed if we keep in mind the information that still miss for reconstructing its history (related, for instance, to the real dimensions of the city in the period of its maximum expansion or to the exact location of the city-gates), and for the problems of protection and conservation that its material structure (it deals with very ancient archaeological remains above all in mud-bricks placed inside trenches of very friable earth) and its immediate territorial context (urbanized areas characterized by the constant settlement growth of residences and equipments for tourists, as well as the road that crosses the archaeological site cutting the tell on its oriental slope) set to any serious initiative of interventions of search as well as of restoration and valorization[6].

For these reasons it is necessary that the Project for Tell es-Sultan faces in a general and integrated way all the matters and the existing and potential problems through the contribution of the different involved disciplines (archaeology, urban planning, archaeological restoration, architecture, cultural heritage management, etc.) of the different competent public actors (Department of Antiquities, Department of Tourism, Local government, Municipality, etc.) and the potential public and private financiers, in order to realize an archaeological site able to act at the same time as �place of the culture� but also chance for the rehabilitation and the development of the territory.

In this vision, the Tell es-Sultan Project is finalized to guarantee the protection of the archaeological site in its largest extension, to increase its historical-archaeological knowledge, to ensure its conservation and valorization, to develop its accessibility and availability, to do of it an occasion of landscape rehabilitation and socio-economic development for the whole Oasis, as well as the centre of the proposed Park. It appears therefore useful, before illustrating possible solutions, to point out some main matters and priorities that inevitably characterize and direct the definition of the present guidelines for the Project and that, for this reason, are expressed in very operational form.

To sum up, the main themes for the Project and its interventions are:

�         research

- limited knowledge of the archaeological site (for instance the city gates and the temple remain undiscovered);

�         protection

- from �human action� (construction of buildings and roads next to the site; conditions of degrade of the context; the current applied law protects just inside the physical borders of the site; there is no law or regulatory system constraints to protect the overall site or the environment and the relationship of the site with the outside);

- from natural action (atmospheric agents: constant sunlight, wind action, rainfalls, water erosion);

�         conservation

- the uniqueness and vulnerability of the materials (different kinds of mud-bricks: variety of physical-chemical characteristics, different mix, etc.);

- the uniqueness of the �monuments� to preserve (deep trenches of excavation; high archaeological earthen section; mud-bricks wall; stone wall; etc.);

- lack of conservation, restoration and conservation interventions;

�         enhancement

- visitors� difficulty to understand the archaeological remains;

- need of visitors� pathways and presentation tools;

- need of visitors� services;

- need of structures and panels for archaeological materials and objects conservation and valorization (pottery, stone objects, etc.);

- need of visitors� and workers� safety devices;

�         management

- cooperation among the different site managers;

- cooperation and organisation among site managers and the different institutions working in the territory (central and local government; municipality).

According to these main themes it is possible to point out some priority actions which constitute the base of the program of interventions of the Tell es-Sultan Project and that can be indifferently inserted inside the two options related to the reorganization of the territorial setting of the site, that will be illustrated below.

According to the action-lines already mentioned, these priority actions are:

�         research

- increase historical and archaeological investigations, researches and excavations (research activity is basic for the site understanding, conservation and development, also for attracting public interest);

- increase analysis and research activities for mud-brick restoration;

�         protection

- definition of protected archaeological area and rules of regulatory system constraints;

- definition of land use and territorial constraints of the areas immediately surrounding the site;

- displacement of the road in both sides of the site (the road to Nablus and Jenin cuts the eastern slope of the site and has created physical separation between Tell es-Sultan and the spring of �Ain es-Sultan);

�         conservation

- definition of restoration interventions type and methodology;

- restoration of the mud-brick and stone structures which have been brought to light;

- Kenyon�s Trench I coverage and accommodation of the area to visit and understand the archaeological complex;

�         enhancement

- accommodation and equipment of the new main entrance to the site;

- realization visit pathways whit safety devices (they have to be both flexible and reversible closely following the progress in excavation);

- realization of presentation tools for visiting and understanding the site (panels, brochures, informative stations, etc.);

- realization site office, site information centre, museum and restoration laboratory, tourist police office and visitors� services (services, bookshop, etc.);

- improvement of the �Ain es-Sultan area in direct connection with the site;

�         management

- co-operation and co-ordination between site�s managers;

- co-operation and co-ordination among site�s managers and territory and land use managers for urban and landscape planning, development policies and actions for the economic local system, etc.

In order to build the minimum conditions to start the Project it is priority to clearly define the real extension of the archaeological site, that for archaeological evidence and historical reasons has to include the area of �Ain es-Sultan, as well as to individualize a buffer zones of protection to submit to cultural heritage regulatory system constraints and to rehabilitate and to assign to compatible uses and/or services for the same archaeological site. This involves on the one hand to get the availability of the neighbouring areas (whereas they are private ownership), but, above all, to remove the road for Nablus-Jenin, that separates the site from �Ain es-Sultan, defining an alternative by-pass passage to east of the site.

The shift of the road would allow to widen the protected area of the archaeological site and, together with a series of interventions of improvement of the roads and of the existing crossroads to south, west and north of the tell, to organize the accessibility from the outside to the site through the creation of new green areas of parking lot and the establishment of the main entrance to the site with services for the visitors.

The two solutions proposed in this place, as it concerns the alternatives of road by-pass and the consequent enlargement of the archaeological site, can also respectively represent a background of brief-middle period (pl. 3 and fig. 1) and a background of long period (pl. 4 and fig. 2), according to the administrative, legislative and financial possibilities that will be available during the process of formation and realization of the projects of the Archaeological Park and of Tell es-Sultan.

Solution 1 (pl. 3 and fig. 1) foresees the shift of the road through an eastern by-pass mainly to existing roads, that joins again to the road to Nablus-Jenin to the north-eastern corner of the tell. The boundary of the archaeological site could be widened, in this way, to include the area of �Ain es-Sultan to be retrained and to be equipped with services for the visitors. At the same time, without the separation caused by the road, it would be possible to reorganize the access to the site in the same position of the exiting entrance.

Solution 2 (pl. 4 and fig. 2) also foresees the shift of the road with an eastern by-pass that joins again to the road to Nablus-Jenin to the north of the tell, and the reunification to the east with �Ain es-Sultan, but, above all, it proposes the enlargement of the archaeological site in the areas to the west of the same tell delimited by the existing viability. The new areas included in the archaeological site would guarantee a best physical and landscape protection of the site itself, offering new spaces for archaeological investigations and, according to the results of these last investigations, for services and equipments of the archaeological site. In particular, it would be possible to locate the new main entrance to Tell es-Sultan in axis to Kenyon�s Trench I and to the Neolithic tower, with undeniable advantages from the point of view of the accessibility and the organization of the visits, as well as of the suggestive image that the visitors would have of the site entering it. In both cases, according to the differences just described, the actions to be foreseen in the Tell es-Sultan Project have to consider interventions of different nature both inside the archaeological site and in its immediate proximities (pls. 3-4).

As it concerns the surroundings areas, besides the definition of specific rules of restraint of the transformations and uses of the territory also for the landscape-environmental protection of the archaeological site, it is necessary, for instance, to foresee interventions of rehabilitation of the refugee camp immediately to north of the site and rehabilitation of the free areas as green areas eventually equipped for the site (parking areas), as well as improvement of the existing roads.

As it concerns the archaeological site, interventions are finalized at the same time to the conservation of the finds, to the accessibility and usability of the site, to the understanding of the visible archaeological remains, to the communication and divulgation of the cultural contents, to the comfort and the safety of the visitors, to the endowment of services and equipments (museum, bookshop, offices, laboratories of restoration, etc.), to the best organization and management of the cultural activities of the site itself.

Beside the whole of the general interventions (parking areas, entrances, pathways, information view points, services and equipments of the site, etc.) there are five priority projects concerning the main areas of the site, that need a specific planning of integrated actions of conservation, restoration and presentation of the archaeological finds (pls. 3-4). The most important contents for these projects are pointed out:

1.   Kenyon�s Trench I

- creation of the new site main entrance (only in the case of the described Solution 2);

- restoration of the Neolithic tower;

- regularization of the trench excavation limits;

- realization of water drainage system;

- realization of roof-covering the whole area;

- fixing the archaeological sections;

- realization of pathways with safety devices and presentation structures.

2.   Kenyon�s Trench II

- continuation of the archaeological research;

- restoration of the existing Early Bronze Age city-wall section;

- realization of water drainage system;

- fixing the archaeological sections;

- realization of pathways with safety devices and presentation structures.

3.   Kenyon�s Trench III

- continuation of the archaeological research (stone wall rampart);

- restoration of the mud-bricks structures;

- realization of water drainage system;

- fixing the archaeological sections;

- realization of pathways with safety devices and presentation structures.

4.   Early Bronze Age residential quarter (Area F)

- restoration of the mud-bricks structures;

- realization of water drainage system;

- fixing the archaeological sections;

- realization of pathways with safety devices and presentation structures.

5.   Eastern slope and �Ain es-Sultan

- continuation of the archaeological research on the removed road;

- rehabilitation of the removed road area;

- direct pathway connection between site and �Ain es-Sultan;

- realization of presentation structures;

- rehabilitation of �Ain es-Sultan area with visitors facilities.

Fig. 1 - The Tell es-Sultan Project. Solution 1: the new eastern by-pass road and the new accessibility to the archaeological site.

Fig. 2 - The Tell es-Sultan Project. Solution 2: the new eastern by-pass road and the new accessibility to the archaeological site.

The proposals, outlined in this paper, for the creation of the Archaeological Park of the Jericho Oasis and the preparation of a specific Project for Tell es-Sultans, want to be an operational contribution to the reflection on the numerous issues and hierarchies involved in the realisation of the Park, which envisages the active cooperation among the interested administrations and institutions.

The arrangement of a way of sustainable development for the Jericho Oasis, in fact, has to pass through a careful and integrated scheduling and planning of the conservation, valorization and development of the existing resources. The success of these proposals depends, anyway, on some conditions that can not be given up:

-    the sharing of the objectives and choices of development among administrations, institutions and local civil society;

-    the shared definition of the interventions of the Plan for the Archaeological Park and the interventions of the Tell es-Sultan Project;

-    the cooperation, collaboration and coordination among the actors involved in the scheduling, planning and realization of the interventions;

-    the search of public and private financings for the arrangement of the Plan of the Park and of the Tell es-Sultan Project;

Nigro, F.

1998            �Il Parco Archeologico per la conservazione e la valorizzazione di Tell es-Sultan, antica Gerico�, in N. Marchetti - L. Nigro (eds.), Scavi a Gerico, 1997. Relazione preliminare sulla prima campagna di scavi e prospezioni archeologiche a Tell es-Sultan, Palestina (Quaderni di Gerico 1), Roma 1998, pp. 205-229.

2000  �The 1998 season at Tell es-Sultan: measures for protection and development of the site. A project for the ancient Jericho�, in N. Marchetti - L. Nigro (eds.), Excavations at Jericho, 1998. Preliminary Report on the Second Season of Excavations and Surveys at Tell es-Sultan, Palestine (Quaderni di Gerico 2), Rome 2000, pp. 287-295.