People have lived at Jericho for around 11,000 years without a break. It holds the oldest known town wall and tower on Earth, and some of humanity’s first portraits — the haunting plastered skulls of its Neolithic dead.

Mohenjo-daro, one of the great cities of the Indus Valley Civilization, had grid streets, covered drains, and clean water more than 4,000 years ago — yet we still cannot read a single word its people wrote.