Excavating Jericho

The Bible is sometimes taken for granted by Christians as being a history book of sorts, especially concerning the Old Testament. By examining the archaeological evidence, the Bible starts to come alive concerning the actual events and history. However, unearthing this type of information is often met with great resistance by some, despite the evidence pointing to the contrary modern archaeological opinion. By continuing to research the evidence, it becomes clear that historical places, such as Jericho, what archaeologists have unearthed in the ground is actually confirmed by the Bible.

There are two sites associated with biblical Jericho. The “OT city was situated on a mound now called Tell es-Sultan, on the NW outskirts of the modern town. NT or Herodian Jericho was located on a higher elevation one mile W of the modern city in the ruins on both banks of the Wadi Qelt; this site is known as Tulul Abu el-Alayiq.”1 The “earliest evidence of settlement on Tell es-Sultan is dated to the seventh and sixth millenia B.C., when a prepottery Neolithic town was built there. A surprisingly strong city wall, mud-brick and stone houses, plastered floors with reed mats, and clay figurines of animals and the mother goddesses show that the civilization was not crude.”2 This “Neolithic settlement at the site goes back to about 8000 B.C.E., thus giving Jericho the distinction of being the world’s oldest city. At 670 feet below sea level, it is also the lowest city in the world.”3

The archaeological investigations of Jericho have been conducted by various groups and individuals, with the “first documented excavation was undertaken in 1867 and 1868 by the famous British engineer Charles Warren. Jericho was one of nine tells, or mounds, he excavated in the Jordan Valley in an effort to determine if they were natural or artificial.”4 It would not be until the early 20th century that a major excavation would take place, conducted “by an Austro-German expedition under the direction of Ernst Sellin and Carl Watzinger from 1907 to 1909 and again in 1911.”5 Even then, the most significant discovers and debate over the site would not take place until John Garstang (1930-36), and then later, Kathleen Kenyon (1952-58) excavated at Tell es-Sultan.6

John Garstang questioned the results of the excavations performed by the earlier archaeologists in the late 19th century and set out to gain further evidence in Jericho. Digging from 1930-1936, Garstang was the first investigator to use the most modern methods available at the site, and although WWII would prevent him from publishing a final report on his work, after the war he would publish a popular account of his findings with his son.7 Garstang “excavated a collapsed double city wall on the summit of the tell that he dated to the late-15th to early 14th-century B.C.E. (the Late Bronze Age).”8 He also “excavated a residential area on the southeast slope of the mound which he believed was part of the city fortified by the double wall.”9 He would designate this "City IV" and he determined that it had been thoroughly destroyed in a violent matter.10 Garstang concluded that City IV came to an end about 1400 B.C.E, “based on pottery found in the destruction debris, on scarabs recovered from nearby tombs and on the absence of Mycenaean ware.”11 Based on his analysis of the pottery, Garstang “strongly maintained that the city was destroyed at the end of Late Bronze I at the hands of the Israelites.”12 Garstang believed that “he had found ample evidence of Joshua's destruction of the Late-Bronze-Age city, which he labeled 'city D' and dated to the fifteenth century B.C.”13 Specifically, he found that the walls “had been violently destroyed and had toppled down the slopes of the mound. Layers of ash and charcoal testified to the burning of the city by its captors, and great amounts of charred grain and other foodstuffs suggested the total destruction of which the Bible speaks.”14

After several years had passed, Garstang would pass his findings on to a British archaeologist named Kathleen Kenyon. He asked for her review of his work, and to possibly update it due to the further advances that had been made in the knowledge of Palestinian archeology.15 After reviewing his findings, Kenyon came up with more or less the same conclusion that Sellin and Watzinger had reached 25 years earlier: “Jericho was destroyed at the end of the Middle Bronze Age in the mid-16th century B.C.E. and was unoccupied throughout the Late Bronze Age, except for a very small area occupied for a short time in the 14th century B.C.E.”16 This would present a serious problem for the Biblical dating, as according to Kenyon the city of Jericho would have been completely different looking during the time of the Conquest recorded in Joshua. After extensive field work, Kenyon concluded that the “double city wall Garstang associated with the Israelite invasion in about 1400 B.C.E. in fact dated to the Early Bronze Age some 1,000 years earlier. The destruction of Garstang’s City IV, which he had dated to about 1400 B.C.E., occurred, according to Kenyon, at the end of the Middle Bronze Age, about 1550 B.C.E.”17 The problems with her findings, however, would not begin to be noticed until some time later.

Archaeologist Bryant Wood takes certain exceptions with the work that Kenyon conducted. Wood believes that there “little doubt that Kenyon was correct in dating the double wall on top of the tell to the Early Bronze Age. In this she was right and Garstang wrong.”18 His main problem lies with the methodology used by Kenyon to support her findings. Wood states that it is “clear that Kenyon based her opinion almost exclusively on the absence of pottery imported from Cyprus and common to the Late Bronze I period (c. 1550-1400 B.C.E.).”19 Another problem with Kenyon's work according to Wood is that she based her “conclusions on a very limited excavation area – two 26-foot by 26-foot squares”20 and that she “based her dating on the fact that she failed to find expensive, imported pottery in a small excavation area in an impoverished part of a city located far from major trade routes!”21 A careful examination of the “Jericho excavation reports as a whole, moreover, makes it clear that both Garstang and Kenyon dug in a poor quarter of the city where they found only humble domestic dwellings.”22 By limiting their search to such a small area, it is now apparent that some of the available data was missed by both Garstang and Kenyon, but new archaeological expeditions have begun to shed even more light on the ancient city.

An excavation by La Spienza University in Rome has also come to some interesting conclusions concerning the Biblical city of Jericho. Starting in 1997, and continuing until 2000, these joint expeditions contained two main areas of interest: the southern foot of the tell, where a major Middle Bronze I-II building was discovered (Tower A1), and the so-called Spring Hill overlooking ‘Ain es-Sultan, where the Early Bronze Age Palace (Palace G) was identified. Starting from these two spots, up to eleven different areas of the tell were excavated, restored and rehabilitated to be visited by tourists, illustrating the ten millennia-long life of Jericho from the Epipaleolithic to Islamic Period.”23 The “investigation of the earliest Early Bronze II city started from its fortification wall, which was detected all around the tell...The north-eastern dwelling quarter was re-examined, with a number of storage installations (silos, mudbrick-lined cists, storerooms) for accumulation of agricultural surplus...The effects of the violent earthquake struck which brought to a sudden end the Early Bronze II city were identified in several spots, and this catastrophic event was studied as a factor prompting a further development of building techniques and social organization.”24 The excavations also “provided new data on the non-urban interval of the Early Bronze IV. The site was reoccupied in the Early Bronze IVA starting from the summit of the Spring Hill, and expanding into a huge village on the lower terraces over the collapsed ruins of previous fortifications in the following Early Bronze IVB.”25

The attempts to uncover the correlation between the archaeological Jericho and the Biblical Jericho continue, with the big question being: How do we interpret the data? Even though some scholars do their very best to dismiss the Biblical narrative of the conquest of Jericho, they all agree on several main points: 1) At some point in time, the city of Jericho had two walls made of stone, an upper wall around the central part of the city and a second wall lower down the slope of the hill. On top of both walls was a wall made of clay bricks. (2) Jericho was destroyed. A wall made of mud bricks that was built at the top of the stone revetment wall collapsed and contributed to the destruction of the city. (3) They found many jars full of grain in various storage rooms in Jericho.26 But what does all this mean for the Biblical account of the destruction of Jericho? An understanding of the conquest must further be brought into light. Massive “physical destruction of the whole of Canaan was neither the goal nor the outcome of the conquest. The 'ban' (sentence of destruction) under which Canaan was placed by God applied to the Canaanite populations within their cities, not the cities themselves, except for Jericho, Ai, and Hazor.”27 So when looking at Jericho, it is important to note the destruction layers that have been found by all of the above archaeological teams and excavators. Secondly, “if we did find evidence of a massive destruction along the Conquest route at the time that the Bible gives for the Conquest (1400 BC), it would actually cause a greater problem for the Bible.”28 Christians ought to view history with the Bible as their lens, and not try to rely on archaeology to prove the Bible, but the other way around. As excavations continue, more and more data will be revealed, which will also reveal the accuracy and authenticity of the Bible.




BIBLIOGRAPHY

Grisanti Michael A. “Recent Archaeological Discoveries That Lend Credence to the Historicity Of The Scriptures.” Journal of Evangelical Theological Society 56 no. 3, 2013.




Nigro, Lorenzo. “Tell Es-Sultan – a Pilot Project for Archaeology in Palestine.” University of Rome La Sapienza, http://asorblog.org/tell-es-sultan-a-pilot-project-for-archaeology-in-palestine/.




Price, Randall. The Stones Cry Out. Eugene, Or.: Harvest House Publishers, 1997.




Wood, Bryant G., “Did the Israelites conquer Jericho? A New Look at the Archaeological Evidence.”, Biblical Archaeology Review 16 no. 2, 1990. http://www.basarchive.org




Wood, Bryant G., “Researching Jericho”, Biblical Archaeology Review 22 no. 3, 2009. http://www.basarchive.org




Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary. [rev. ed.] Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2011.


1 Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary, [rev. ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2011), 718.


2 Ibid., 719.


3 Bryant G. Wood, “Did the Israelites conquer Jericho? A New Look at the Archaeological Evidence.”, Biblical Archaeology Review 16 no. 2, (1990) http://www.basarchive.org


4 Ibid.


5 Ibid.


6 Michael A. Grisanti, “Recent Archaeological Discoveries That Lend Credence to the Historicity Of The Scriptures.” Journal of Evangelical Theological Society 56 no. 3, (2013) 478.


7 Bryant G. Wood, “Did the Israelites conquer Jericho? A New Look at the Archaeological Evidence.”, Biblical Archaeology Review 16 no. 2, (1990) http://www.basarchive.org


8 Ibid.


9 Ibid.


10 Ibid.


11 Idid.


12 Bryant G. Wood, “Researching Jericho”, Biblical Archaeology Review 22 no. 3, (2009) http://www.basarchive.org


13 Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary, [rev. ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2011), 719.


14Ibid., 719-720.


15 Bryant G. Wood, “Did the Israelites conquer Jericho? A New Look at the Archaeological Evidence.”, Biblical Archaeology Review 16 no. 2, (1990) http://www.basarchive.org


16Ibid.


17Ibid.


18Ibid.


19Ibid.


20Ibid.


21Ibid.


22Ibid.


23 Lorenzo Nigro, “Tell Es-Sultan – a Pilot Project for Archaeology in Palestine.” University of Rome La Sapienza, http://asorblog.org/tell-es-sultan-a-pilot-project-for-archaeology-in-palestine/.


24Ibid.


25Ibid.


26 Michael A. Grisanti, “Recent Archaeological Discoveries That Lend Credence to the Historicity Of The Scriptures.” Journal of Evangelical Theological Society 56 no. 3, (2013) 478.


27 Randall Price, The Stones Cry Out ,Eugene, Or.: Harvest House Publishers, (1997) 157.




28 Ibid., 157.