When I saw this stuff in September 1997 I was blown away.  I remarked later that day to the IBEX students that it was one of my greatest days in Israel.  I still think that's true.  There's got to be a reason why someone gets so excited over stones, mudbricks and walls.  Let me explain...

 

Stone revetment wall closest to the Israelites as they marched around the city 13 times.

 The Bible says that Joshua and the Israelites marched around the walls of Jericho before the walls fell down before them in an obvious display of God's power.  Archaeologists haven't always agreed that the evidence at ancient Jericho agreed with the biblical account.

History

The earliest excavators of Jericho, Sellin and Watzinger (1907-11), concluded that Jericho had no evidence of any Canaanite settlement in the time that the Bible says Joshua conquered it.  In the 1930s, John Garstang contradicted their conclusions with evidence of a collapsed city wall on the summit from 1400 B.C.  Other material demonstrated Canaanite inhabitation of Jericho up until the time of the Israelite invasion.  In the 1950s, Kathleen Kenyon rejected Garstang's work and concluded that Jericho was destroyed 150 years before Joshua and there was no city that could have been conquered by the Israelites.  This has been the consensus conclusion, and is still believed by many today.

 

 

Kenyon was Wrong!

Recent analysis of Kathleen Kenyon’s excavation reports and notebooks by Dr. Bryant Wood have shown significant mistakes to have been made in her work at Jericho (note that while Kenyon made significant contributions to archaeology, her work at the other two sites she excavated in Israel - Samaria and Jerusalem - have been greatly criticized by scholars recently). Dr. Wood has shown that there was a significant Canaanite settlement at Jericho until 1400 B.C. and that the city was destroyed as the Bible indicates.

Evidence of the Canaanites (Rahab's Neighbors)

The primary argument against the accuracy of Scripture was (and is) that Jericho was not inhabited in 1400 B.C. (date of conquest according to the Bible; cf. esp. 1 Kings 6:1). Dr. Wood has presented four lines of evidence that the city must have been in existence 150 years after Kenyon had it finally destroyed (see full article by Bryant Wood in Biblical Archaeology Review, Mar 1990).

1. Pottery: Kenyon didn’t find any imported Cypriote ware (common to LBI - time of Joshua) and so on the basis of this absence concluded that the city didn’t exist in LBI. Problems: a) any argument is weak based on lack of evidence; b) one wouldn’t expect to find expensive imported pottery in a poor section of a backwater town; c) Garstang earlier did find some of this type of pottery; d) Kenyon ignored lots of local Canaanite pottery which can now be dated to LBI. This argument is very compelling.

2. Stratigraphy: Kenyon’s conclusions placed 20 phases in a timespan of 100 years! Much more likely that these 20 phases lasted 250 years.

3. Scarabs: Continuous series of datable seals from Egypt indicates inhabitation until 1400 B.C.

4. Carbon 14: A piece of charcoal that Kenyon had analyzed dated to 1410 B.C +/-40 years.

 

Evidence of the Destruction

What got me so excited however was the new but clearly visible evidence of Joshua’s destruction! (which Kenyon misdated by 150 years). That’s what these pictures show.

The first thing we found that September 1997 morning was the lower revetment wall of the city. This wall supported the slope and kept it from collapsing. It would have been the closest wall to the Israelites as they marched around the city thirteen times. We found large stones of the top of the wall at various places around the tell. We stopped and took several pictures of three-four stones in a row. But when we came around the southern side of the tell, we were astonished to see the entire revetment wall uncovered! The 1997 Italian-Palestinian expedition had apparently fully uncovered what Kenyon had already described. This is pictured on the top picture and on the one on the left.

 

Amazing Connection

This is a huge wall composed of massive "Cyclopean" stones as is typical of Canaanite city walls. It stands over 15 feet high with what has been excavated to present (as of May 98).

Obviously this wall didn’t collapse - this wasn’t the city wall, but simply the revetment wall. But in our searching, we quickly found remains of the lower city wall, made of mudbrick (again already described thoroughly by Kenyon, just misdated). We could see the only a few mudbricks of the lowest layer of this city wall right). Kenyon’s reports depicted the total collapse of this wall. Her drawings showed how the wall collapsed outward at every point, forming a ramp, as it were, of mudbricks leading over the revetment wall, by which the Israelites entered the city. This fallen mudbrick and "ramp" is visible in the picture above - look for the dark red earth at the bottom of the trench next to the stone wall.

What Kenyon had described, and Bryant Wood brought to light, was now obvious to any passer-by. This was almost too good to be true. Needless to say, later that week, IBEX students got an earful (and a roll full) of the latest at Jericho.

I’m pointing at the mudbricks at the bottom of the city wall that collapsed when the trumpets sounded.

 

Links on Jericho

Associates for Biblical Research - Dr. Bryant Wood is the director of this organization which has done much of the work on Jericho.  Its current project: finding the Ai that Joshua destroyed.  Read about that and more here.

Now there's a good video by ABR on the conquest of Jericho, the archaeological evidence that supports the biblical destruction of the city, and it has the latest finds described above.  It's called the "Second Great Battle of Jericho" and is available from ABR.  Luke likes the video because it has his dad's video debut appearance, as well as that of IBEX students.

I have a new page on this at www.bibleplaces.com/jericho.htm