Strata: Biblical Archaeology Dying at Oxford University

Will the archaeology of ancient Israel no longer survive as a field of academic study at Oxford University?

Oxford has a long and distinguished history in the study of the ancient past in the Holy Land. Dame Kathleen Kenyon conducted pioneering excavations at Jericho and Jerusalem in the 1950s and 1960s. Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum accumulated important study collections of artifacts from the area. Kenyon’s successor at Oxford, Roger Moorey, was involved in the work of a number of major research institutions in the ancient Near East. Oxford’s Levantine Archaeology Laboratory continued after Moorey’s retirement and subsequent death in 2005. Unfortunately, the only remaining faculty member in this field, Professor Andrew Sherratt, moved to another university and then passed away in 2006.

As observed in the most recent report of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, “The scholarly legacy of Dame Kathleen Kenyon, Roger Moorey and Andrew Sherratt in Levantine archaeology at Oxford University [is] in sad decline. With no Levantine archaeologists on the faculty and without stronger interest shown by the University, it is questionable whether our experiment in creating the Oxford Levantine Archaeology Laboratory can continue much longer.”

Where will help come from?