Jericho: A Case Study
Evidence
Traditional dates for Joshua’s destruction of Jericho (Tell es-Sultan) are c. 1406 BC or c. 1230/1220 BC. However, there is no evidence of an occupation or destruction level at Jericho (Tell es-Sultan) at any time in the Late Bronze Age (1550–1200 BC) to support for these traditional dates. But there is evidence of a Iron I (1200–1000 BC) occupation/destruction consistent with the Bible’s Conquest account dated to the latter 12th century BC (c. 1135 BC).
While not widely known or discussed in academia, Jericho was reoccupied in the Iron I period (after c. 1200 BC)—having lain fallow for a century, if not more. Likely related to this Iron I occupation, Kathleen Kenyon’s excavation in the 1950s found a toppled outer defensive wall that appears consistent with the Bible’s account of Joshua’s destruction of the site.
This fallen wall is overlain by deep layers of erosion material, attesting to a long period of abandonment of the site after the collapse of the wall. Above this erosion material is an Iron II reoccupation.
Ernst Sellin and Carl Watzinger, who excavated Jericho from 1907–1909 recorded little-noted evidence of an Iron I (1200–1000 BC) occupation of the site in their 1913 excavation report. These pioneer excavators had little grasp of the importance of identifying discrete strata of successive occupational periods. In their wide-area exposure of the central and northern part of the Jericho mound they evidently dug through the Iron II to the Iron I occupation stratum in some areas, believing what they uncovered was a single occupation of the Israelites.
Kenyon’s Composite of Excavations (1907–1958)
Iron I and II pottery from Jericho discovered by the Sellin/Watziner Expedition (1907-1909)
Almost 70 years after this excavation two German scholars studying the Sellin-Watzinger excavation report found that the report included both Iron I and Iron II vessels on the same depiction (apparently assuming all the vessels came from a single occupation level). But these vessels did not come from a single stratum. Sellin and Watzinger had conflated three strata. It is the presence of the Iron I vessels that testify to a reoccupation of the mound that may date to the end of the late 1200s BC.
The Bible’s “stratigraphy” of the Jericho mound lists three successive strata associated with the Joshua story: 1. The stratum Joshua destroyed (Josh. 6:26). 2. The stratum of abandonment. 3. And the stratum of reoccupation in the reign of Ahab (1 Kgs. 16:34). Evidence of this sequence may appear in Trench I of Kathleen Kenyon’s excavation reports from the 1950s.
Iron I and II pottery from Jericho discovered by the Sellin/Watziner Expedition (1907-1909)
In her deep vertical cut through the tel (Trench I), Kenyon depicted an outer defensive city wall of mudbrick that had toppled outward (presumably by an earthquake). The fallen brick material forms a ramp of debris leading up to the rampart of the mound, matching the picture recorded of Josh. 6:20 (which says the Israelites climbed up this debris into the city).
The date of this fallen wall is the key to associating these remains with the Bible’s account of Joshua’s conquest of Jericho. Unfortunately, there is no definitive evidence for dating the construction of this wall nor the date of its collapse. But if we allow the testimony of the biblical account and the circumstantial evidence at a dozen other archaeological sites in Canaan and the Transjordan, we can draw a reasonable conclusion: The wall’s collapse likely occurred in the latter 12th century BC (c. 1135 BC).
Since Kenyon’s time, there has been general agreement that the mound was uninhabited in the 13th century BC. (There are only sparse indications of sedentary occupation at any time during the Late Bronze Age [1550–1200 BC]). The next period of occupation dates to the Iron I period (after c. 1200 BC) (this is based on the discovery of Iron I pottery in the Sellin-Watziner excavations). This makes sense in light of the Settlement phenomenon.
The Settlement was occurring throughout the highlands of Canaan in the latter 1200s BC and early 1100s BC. This dramatic influx of newcomers from the north into Canaan was triggered by the collapse of the Late Bronze Age civilizations of the eastern Mediterranean. In this period, the population density in the northern highlands tripled.
These newcomers destroyed towns in their path but also built many new ones. Importantly, they reoccupied long-abandoned sites like Ai, Hebron, and very likely Jericho, a prime site for these new settlers. The mound of Jericho had ready-made defensive structures (based on the massive 15-foot high cyclopean revetment wall (built in the Middle Bronze Age) that braced steep defensive ramparts; the site had a prolific spring within the eastern defensive perimeter capable of irrigating the surrounding fertile fields; and it was strategically located along commercial roads.
The Settlement people had only to clear the face of the Middle Bronze Age revetment wall down to bedrock and construct a mudbrick wall atop this structure to establish a virtually impregnable defensive system. (Kenyon calculated the size of the mudbrick wall to be 12 feet high and 6.5 feet thick based on the volume of the mudbrick debris she identified in Trench I.) Arguably, the mudbrick wall the Settlement people built collapsed outward during the Israelite assault c. 1135 BC.
Over the remains of this toppled wall, deep layers of erosion were deposited during several hundred years before Jericho was again rebuilt. According to 1 Kgs. 16:34, the mound of Jericho (Tell es-Sultan) was abandoned until the 9th century BC during the reign of King Ahab; this reconstruction explains the profile depicted in Kenyon’s Trench I.
This scenario also dovetails with evidence of a latter 12th century BC Conquest at a dozen other sites. It is the only reconstruction consistent with the Bible’s account of Joshua’s defeat of Jericho.
For an extended discussion of the evidence (including an assessment of datable pottery sherds within the strata), see the chapter on Jericho in The Bible and the Origins of Ancient Israel.
Trench I excavated by Kathleen Kenyon in the1950s. #1 and #2: Middle Bronze Age sherds within and below the fallen wall material.
MB, LB, and Iron Age sherds appear in the erosion above the fallen red bricks.