Queries & Comments

Conquest Evidence From Jericho

To the Editor:

I am puzzled by a comment in your obituary of Kathleen Kenyon (“Kathleen Kenyon 1906–1978,” BAR 04:04). You report that her Jericho excavations found no evidence of a Late Bronze Age city on the tell and further that she rejected the theory that erosion had eliminated the evidence.

Dame Kathleen’s book Archaeology in the Holy Land, 3rd Ed. (1970) indicates that she thought just the opposite. In the discussion of Jericho, on pages 209–211, the finding of a portion of a Late Bronze Age house is described with the further information that the modern surface is lower than this level. This evidence plus that of the tombs leads to the conclusion that Jericho was reoccupied about 1400 B.C. and abandoned in 1325 B.C. “Subsequently erosion removed nearly all trace of it”, she states.

I would be interested in having this point clarified since the existence of a Late Bronze Age occupation at Jericho is so important for the dating of the Israelite invasion of Canaan as reported in the Book of Joshua.