Biblical Hebrew Forum

[John Ronning <ronning AT ilink.nis.za>]

Peter Kirk wrote,

> How about a straight archaeological question concerning the MB walls
> of Jericho which Ian mentions several times. For I am confused about
> the detailed scenario here. Do these walls now survive? Are they now
> standing upright, or have they fallen down, or are they partly
> upright?

Kenyon found a huge pile of bricks at the bottom (on the outside) of the
MB stone lower revetment wall (the 1st line of defense), and theorized
naturally that it came from above (i.e. they fell down) - either from on
top of the revetment wall, or from a wall farther in (up the slope of
the rampart), or both.  All 3 past archaeological expeditions (Kenyon,
Garstang, and Sellin/Watzinger) found remnants of a brick wall on top of
the revetment wall.  The quantity of bricks was sufficient for a 6' by
12' brick wall on top of the revetment wall.  You can see from Kenyon's
section map (reproduced in BAR, Mar/Apr 1990, p. 55), that the bricks
would have formed a ready-made "ramp" for the conquerors to "go up" (as
described in Joshua) over the lower rampart.  Note that the place where
the upper city wall stood has been almost entirely eroded away, or
removed by excavation.  (Between the two walls on the sloping rampart
were a
number of houses, evidently occupied by relatively poor people).

This revetment wall is "standing" but buried.

Garstang had excavated another wall - a double city wall at the top of
the tell and mis-dated it to the late bronze age - Kenyon showed that it
was early bronze.  In analyzing Kenyon's and Garstang's reports, Wood
found plenty of examples of LB I pottery in both (Wood also found LB
pottery in museum collections of Garstang's finds that haven't been
published), and so has called into question Kenyon's dating of the final
destruction of city IV to 1550 BC.  Wood also pointed out that both
Garstang and Kenyon found large quantities of stored grain at the site,
a fact which implies several things that are also implied or stated
directly in the biblical account, as I've pointed out before.

It's my understanding that the current Italian expedition has also
uncovered the (same) MB stone revetment wall, and has also found
remnants of the mud brick wall that was on top of it.



Yours,

John Ronning