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One of the most intriguing cities for archaeological study is the ancient city of Jericho. It has both Biblical and historical importance.
Jericho is probably most famous for its Bible stories, most notably when the city was captured by the Israelites under the leadership of Joshua. According to the account found in Joshua 6, Joshua is instructed by the Lord,
See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men. March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days. Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams' horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets. When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have all the people give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the people will go up, every man straight in (Joshua 6:2 - 5 New International Version).
The results of the expedition were as expected:
When the trumpets sounded, the people shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet when the people gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so every man charged straight in, and they took the city (Joshua 6:20 New International Version).
Naturally, questions concerning the validity of this event have been raised. John Goldstein attempts to answer the debate using science.
Geological evidence suggests a possible explanation for the miraculous elements in the Jericho story. The tumbling of the city's walls was preceded, a few days earlier, by the crossing of the Jordan on dry land. A comparable phenomenon has been witnessed in modern times. The Jordan valley lies on a major geological rift, subject to frequent earthquakes. Quake-induced mudslips have been known to dam the river on a number of occasions, most recently in 1927. Some scholars have speculated that the same phase of earthquake activity damned the Jordan and destroyed Jericho's walls (Goldstein 52).
The crumbling of the walls triggered the excavations of the historical city of Jericho. Other Biblical stories for which Jericho is famous include Elisha's blessing of the spring (II Kings 2:19 - 22), Hiel's refounding of the city at the cost of his sons (I Kings 16:34), and the story of Jesus and Zaccheus (Luke 19:1 - 10). Early archaeologists were either looking for treasure or trying to prove the Bible correct with their findings. The site of Jericho falls under the latter category.
Jericho has been excavated four times. The site was first excavated by Charles Warren in 1868. He "directed attention toward the mound only" (Thompson 1802). "Most of the mound is sixteenth century B.C. or earlier; indeed, the major depth of the mound is actually Neolithic" (Buttrick 836). Then it was excavated by Ernst Sellin from 1907 to 1911. Contrary to the results from the first excavation, he "made sufficient discoveries to arouse widespread interest" (Thompson 1802).
Some of Sellin and Warren's evidence for the Israelite Jericho of the monarchic and post-exilic period have been re-examined and found convincing. But their interpretation of the earlier walls and periods has been totally revised by the later work of Garstang and Kenyon (Bartlett 31).
This paper will be devoted mainly to the last two excavations which are the most accurate and famous. During the time of the second dig, the science of archaeology was continually improved creating new possibilities for the site of Jericho itself. The third excavation was done by John Garstang from 1929 to 1936. However, it wasn't until the fifties that archaeology really became a science. Shortly thereafter, Kathleen Kenyon excavated Jericho from 1952 to 1958.
Professor John Garstang is the ideal Biblical archaeologist. The main purpose of his excavations was to prove the Bible correct. His findings, many of them later disputed by Kathleen Kenyon, provide a start for scholars to understand the civilizations of Jericho.
From his excavations, Garstang discovered that there were actually four civilizations built on the site. The first city, he determined, was one of the oldest in the world. He said, "They [the excavations of Garstang] show that the city destroyed in the 14th century B.C. occupied the site of one of the oldest known communities of Palestine, indeed one of the earliest settlements of man found anywhere" (Garstang 6). This discovery alone raised questions from many people. Although it is now commonly known that the world is over six thousand years old by means of dating methods (Carbon-14, Potassium-Argon method, etc.), that was not the common belief held by those in the fourteenth century. Many people - Jews, Muslims, and Christians - believed that the world was created in c.4000 B.C. They calculated this date using the genealogy found in the book of Genesis and other Biblical texts.
The theme of Garstang's findings centered around the walls of the city. He wanted to prove the Biblical text correct and therefore searched for the walls that may have crumbled as Joshua entered the city. In the early settlements, which Garstang dated in the Late Stone Age, c.4500 - 3000 B.C., he learned that no walls were used. He said, "So far as we know they found no need to protect their settlement with enclosing walls, but lived there securely generation after generation for more than a thousand years" (Garstang 43). One can conclude several things from this discovery. Garstang commented, "It seems as though warfare was so little known as to call for no special weapons or organization" (Garstang 53).
There were also other aspects of society, such as domestic life and the arts, not directly related to the walls. "Domestic life seems to have been well established at Jericho from the beginning . . ." (Garstang 52). This can be seen by looking at the houses and the items found inside. When excavating ancient civilizations, it is important to look at the arts. Of these, pottery is the most copious. Therefore, it is an easy way to compare civilizations at similar time periods. "The beginnings of pottery making were indeed primitive, but the art soon developed as experiment proved the advantage of using clay" (Garstang 55). They soon discovered that mixing straw with the clay would make the pots stronger. Eventually, they moved into the firing stage. "It was accident, no doubt, that showed the hardening effect of fire, after which the laborious efforts to secure a watertight surface by pigments and burnishing were rewarded with more rapid progress" (Garstang 55).
The primitive aspects of the society are seen in other ways as well. While other civilizations from that time experimented with metal, the people of the Last Phase of the Stone Age at Jericho did not. They continued to use stone for tools and clay for pots. However, the later part of the Stone Age saw the culture of Jericho improve. Advances were made in agriculture, the arts, as well as housing.
Improvements in agriculture allowed the people to be less nomadic. As Garstang pointed out, ". . . the people were becoming more agricultural . . ." (Garstang 61). He proves this fact with the fewer number of arrowheads. However, he also warns that this one factor may not be a true indicator since many of the arrowheads would have been taken away from the site for hunting.
The arts advanced as well. The largest category of art was pottery, which underwent a change during this time. Garstang said, ". . . the art of painting pottery seems to have been less practiced than in the previous period, while decoration by molded and incised motifs tended to develop" (Garstang 60).
Housing also progressed during the Late Stone Age. Houses were better built and better equipped. Since agricultural methods were improving, means for storing the additional grains were necessary. There were built in storage areas in the house. These were "sunk in" spots in the houses to hold the grain.
The first city is marked by the first wall. The wall was built about 3000 B.C. for protection. "The main wall of the First City seems to have followed generally the outline of the earlier Neolithic settlement, and enclosed an area of four or five acres toward the northern end" (Garstang 69). By looking at the wall, one can see that the people had advanced in the region of using weapons. The wall also changed the inside of town As a result, the houses were arranged differently than before.
To judge by such of the original buildings as we have examined, it was laid out with houses or rooms along the city walls, separated by a narrow street four or five feet wide from a double row of houses in the middle (Garstang 70).
Society seems to have advanced. "Agriculture now evidently became an established and successful industry" (Garstang 73 - 74). However, there still existed a "cultural lag". It was the Early Bronze Age of Palestine, but the citizens of Jericho and other regional cities used only copper.
The second city was built in 2500 B.C. and lasted until 2000 B.C. Advancements of this society were evident in the military and the arts. This society was, "distinguished by a notable development of military architecture" (Garstang 78). Valuable pieces showing in the arts were discovered by Garstang's archaeology team. As the sitewas excavated, he found over 800 vases, some trinkets, amulets, flutes of bone and other small objects illustrating the arts.
The third city is where the first Bible correlations are found. However, there are some rumors as to who dwelt in Jericho. Garstang suggests that it was Lot's descendants.
The statement (Genesis 8:10 - 12) that Lot, though a nomad chieftain, resided with his family in Sodom is not inconsistent with the possibility that detachment of his tribe made their center upon the site of Jericho (Garstang 88).
According to the book of Genesis, there were also Canaanites there. Although these two groups had no relation, they seemed to live together in harmony judging by the advancements of their culture. During this period, called the Hyksos period, they developed a system for running water. There were, "stone-lined drainage systems connecting with a water canal, a novel feature which finds contemporary parallels in Babylonia" (Garstang 94). Rooms were built on the wall for protection. However, these rooms were used mostly for storage. As storage became more neccessary, they also used "store-jars". These jars were about three feet high, but were buried in the ground floor with only the mouths of the jars sticking up. This method allowed the grain to be kept in a safe place away from the dangers of fire which were rampant in the hot Jericho sun.
Pottery also improved during this time. The finish became smoother, but the pots were mostly undecorated. "Scarabs, which were in common use at the time, were found in abundance" (Garstang 101). These vessels were used as an emblem of a Royal Mandate since they were rare and lacked duplication. Overall, the third city contained mostly the same type of people and the same customs as the previous cities, with a little influence from Egypt.
The fourth city was established about 1600 B.C. This is the city which has generated the most debate. According to Garstang, this is the city which was conquered by Joshua and the Israelites. The city had a double wall of brick which may have taken close to one hundred years to complete. The inner wall followed the pattern of the wall of the Second City. However, this wall was not as perfect as one would like to believe. "Although so massive, this new wall shows defects both of material and in construction" (Garstang 110). It was built with weak sun-baked bricks, not fired. In addition, the wall was weakened by houses leaning against it. There was an earthquake which caused major destruction of the city. "There we found that the Hyksos Palace itself was not rebuilt after this earthquake; the royal family seem to have lived in a new and smaller building . . . down the slope" (Garstang 117). This topic becomes the central issue of debate. When was the city actually destroyed? What destroyed it? These questions are answered differently by scholars, particularly Garstang and Kenyon.
According to Garstang, "The Fourth City was destroyed after 1400 and before 1385 B.C." (Garstang 125). The evidence for this reasoning comes from the fact that a scarab was found containing a picture of a pharaoh. It is known that this ruler reigned from 1412 - 1384 B.C. by himself and from 1384 - 1375 B.C. alongside his father. Therefore, he concludes that the date of destruction must lie within these limits. This date is important to the Biblical story. According to archaeologists, the date of the Joshua story must be about 1400 B.C. This date was confirmed by tree of Plestine's top archaeologists - Pere Vincent, Clarence S. Fisher, and Alan Rowe - which Garstang called in to date the site. Therefore, Garstang's hypothesis fits neatly within these boundaries.
The next question to be answered is, "What destroyed the city?" Garstang believes that it had to be an earthquake.
Wherever the walls of the Fourth City have been disclosed, they are found to be deeply fissured as it were dislocated. These indications point to an earthquake, and the native workmen, who have suffered from this cause in the Jordan Valley and know the results, interpreted the signs without hesitation. That the walls should have fallen mostly outwards, down the slope, was the natural consequence of its situation and of the defects already described in its foundations on that side (Garstang 135).
Garstang provides further evidence for his hypothesis by claiming that if the events were natural, then that would take away from the power of God.
Briefly it is suggested that the miraculous phenomenon which facilitated the Exodus was nothing more nor less than a violent and widely-extended volcanic upheaval. Let it be said at the outset that there is no direct proof that this interpretation is correct (Garstang 160).
Garstang then summarizes his hypothesis in a few sentences.
What happened on that fateful day? We cannot know for certain - but, if we feel any confidence in our interpretation of the stories of the Exodus, we can picture the scene and know in our hearts that our picture is correct. For what reader, who has assented to the theory advanced in this chapter, will suppose that the walls of Jericho fell by the hand of man? Only the miracle of an earthquake shock will justify the description of this event in the Book of Joshua (Garstang 173).
Miss Kathleen Kenyon also addresses these topics. The differences between her discoveries and Garstang's are the main componets of her book. Her first contradiction concerns the age of the site. Kenyon found evidence in Trench I suggesting that the site was of the pre-pottery Neolithic settlement. "Since these sites appear to date to the fifth millennium B.C., we can on this evidence alone fairly confidently place the end of the pre-pottery stage at Jericho round about 5000 B.C." (Kenyon 52). She claims there were three successive periods of activity based on the silt build-up. According to Kenyon, evidence is shown that there must have been some trading going on between the cities about 9000 to 10,000 years ago! (Kenyon 76). This is a huge contradiction to Garstang's hypothesis.
Kenyon modified the first city, or first Jericho. She found additional things not discovered by Garstang and applied new meanings to these findings. The largest room she found was 6 meters by 4 meters and located in the temple. It was a small room likened to a family chapel with a water basin in the center. One of the interesting finds dealt with human skulls. "In some cases these heads seem to be those of vereated ancestors, in others those of enemies preserved as trophies" (Kenyon 64). There is evidence for both theories, but Kenyon believes that they were skulls of ancestors. She makes this claim because they found the bodies beneath the surfaces of the houses. They even found thirty at one place.
She also found new evidence about the wall of "First Jericho." She found it to be 20 meters tall, 25 meters wide, 2.5 meters thick, and 7 meters deep. It was free-standing only on its outer side. The inner level was 2.8 meters higher than the external wall. She is not sure if the wall surrounded the whole town. However, she is sure of one thing:
After a period, this wall apparently collapsed. After the first collapse, it was rebuilt on the same line. But after a second collapse, a new wall was built 6.5 meters in advance (Kenyon 67).
In 1954, her archaeology team found that these walls were not the first walls. "Beneath the first of them was a deep tipped fill, partly bricky and partly ashy" (Kenyon 67). The wall was 6 meters high with 15 meters beneath the ground. This is another contradiction to Garstang's beliefs.
Kenyon dates the Second Jericho in the second half of the fifth millennium B.C.. She concludes this from a Carbon-14 dating of c. 4750 B.C. from Jarmo (in north-east Iraq). This is still in the Pre-pottery age, or Late Stone Age as Garstang called it. The findings were of a very primitive site. The architecture consisted of wood and clay, which was primitive even for that time.
The pottery stage starts. There is no clear-cut date for the beginning of this. One can place it approximately in the late fifth century B.C..
The first city of Jericho, which she calls the First Stage, came about 3200 B.C. The actual date calculated by Kenyon was 3260 B.C., plus or minus 110 years. This date is slightly different from Garstang's. He estimated that the date of the city was from 3000 B.C. - 2000 B.C. During this time, the people of Jericho were probably nomads from a desert or semi-desert region. The best evidence of their nomadic lifestyle is their cemeteries. Today the burial customs of these early settlers may be considered primitive or grotesque. They would throw many bodies into one place. At one site were found 113 bodies in one hole.
Kenyon dated the second city of Jericho from 2900 B.C. - 2300 B.C. Again, Garstang's dating differed slightly. He placed the time of the city between c.2500 B.C. and c.2000 B.C. It was probably during this time period that many Biblical cities, such as Jerusalem, were founded. Miss Kenyon makes an interesting statement about this time period. When talking of the tell, she claims the latest wall is sealed by the bank of the Middle Bronze Age. Because of this fact, she concludes,
It results from this identification that no fragment of the walls of the Late Bronze Age city, that of the period within which the attack by the Israelites under Joshua must fall, survives. This is in contradiction to the interpretation made in the 1930 - 1936 excavations (Kenyon 170).
A number of walls were discovered with the second city. These walls were destroyed by some means. With so many walls collapsing, one has to ask the question, "What caused the destruction of the protective walls?" Miss Kenyon answers in this way,
It is quite impossible to guess what passage of time is represented by these successive collapses and rebuilds. The first two phases may, from the way the bricks fell bodily outwards, have been destroyed by earthquake, and one phase was destroyed by fire. There is nothing to suggest that the other collapses were not due to gradual decay, which would indicate a longer interval than is necessarily the case for walls violently destroyed. With each collapse, the level of the tell gradually rose (Kenyon 179).
She also talks about several other walls. One was a triple wall which eventually collapsed.
The transition into the Middle Bronze Age was marked by major changes. Major erosion throughout Jericho and the surrounding area caused the need for improved building construction. There was also a major change in the population demographics. This can be easily seen in the makeup of everyday pots. In the Early Bronze Age, it is seen that a slow wheel was used to make the pots. In the Middle Bronze Age, however, it can be seen that a much faster wheel was used. The technology had changed. Strangely enough, the key to this immediate change came from Egypt. It was c.1990 B.C. when the twelfth dynasty was established in Egypt. This dynasty provided stability for its neighbors, including the people of Jericho. Pottery of Egyptian origin was discovered at the Tel el Yahudiyeh in the Nile Delta. Although some of it was original Palestine, most of it were probably imports. One strange fact about this time period was that 248 of the 363 tombs found in the area were from the Middle Bronze Age period. The tombs were preserved although the conditions were far from ideal. They contained much wood, but were found in good condition in an area that receives violent rain in the winter months. This is highly unusual. When Kenyon excavated the site, there was little gold found in the tombs. However, there was evidence that they believed in life after death.
As far as the Joshua debate, Kenyon strongly disagrees with the views of Garstang. She claims that his interpretation of the evidence was incorrect. In discussing the findings she says,
In Trench I, therefore, the layers of debris represent at least four missing stages between the last visible wall on the inner line and the first of three stages on the outer line. This is important, since the two highest walls on the inner and outer line had been considered to represent a double wall, and had been ascribed to the Late Bronze Age, and to be probably the wall destroyed by the Israelites under Joshua. The clearer stratigraphical evidence now obtained makes it quite certain that this is not so. The two walls are not contemporary, and the material associated with them is entirely of the Early Bronze Age. Moreover, the latest of the walls on the outer line is securely sealed by levels of the Intermediate Early Bronze-Middle Bronze period, and by the great bank of the Middle Bronze Age (Kenyon 181).
Interesting enough, not a stone remains of the wall that was attacked by the Israelites.
Not only is the city which Joshua conquered largely missing, but the next two cities that succeeded it, according to scripture, do not appear anywhere on the mound (Buttrick 837).
The archaeological site of Jericho continues to be debated today. Perhaps, sometime in the future, someone else will excavate it and be able to answer the questions raised by these archaeologists, but one will have to wait. However, future excavators will be hampered by past actions. "Not even a century of excavation has been enough to answer all the questions raised by this site" (Bartlett 36).