Jericho and the argument about its walls
Jericho has fallen walls and a burn layer; the date of that destruction, and whether anyone was living there when Joshua is set, is disputed.
ContestéSite fouilléBronze Age
One of the oldest walled towns on earth, dug four times over a century. Garstang found collapsed walls and a burnt layer and dated them to about 1400 BC. Kenyon re-dug the site with tighter method and dated that destruction some 150 years earlier, concluding the town was small or empty at the time Joshua is usually placed.
So the people shouted… and the wall fell down flat.
- Découvert
- Tell es-Sultan (Jericho), West Bank, 1907 — Sellin and Watzinger; then Garstang (1930s), Kenyon (1950s), Italian–Palestinian expedition
- Conservé à
- In place
- Comment il nous est parvenu
- Fouillé, ou encore debout là où il fut bâti.
Ce qu'elle montre
This is a real disagreement, not a settled case either way. Kenyon's dating is the majority position; a minority argues from pottery and radiocarbon for the earlier reading. We include it because leaving out the hard sites would make the rest less trustworthy.
Ce qu'en font les historiens
A textbook case in archaeological method — how stratigraphy and ceramic typology can overturn an earlier excavator's conclusions.
Dans l'Écriture
Se rattache à
Sources
- Kenyon, Digging Up Jericho (1957)
- Wood, "Did the Israelites Conquer Jericho?", BAR 16 (1990), and Bienkowski's reply
Ces textes sont pour l'instant en anglais. Les traductions suivront.