Kathleen Kenyon

Kenyon's legacy in the field of excavation technique and ceramic methodology is attested to by

"The first event was the refinement of stratigraphic techniques that Kathleen Kenyon's dig at Jericho catalyzed. The strict separation of earth layers, or archaeological sediments, also allowed the strict separation of ceramic assemblages".[9]

Herr detects Kenyon's powerful indirect influence in the second event that promoted advance within ceramic methodology, namely:

"the importation of Kenyon's digging techniques by Larry Toombs and Joe Callaway to Ernest Wright's project at Balata. Here, they combined Wright's interest in ceramic typology in the best Albright tradition with Kenyon's methods of excavation, which allowed the isolation of clear, stratigraphically determined pottery assemblages".^[9]

Herr summarises the somewhat mixed nature of Kenyon's legacy: for all the positive advances, there were also shortcomings:

"Kenyon... did not capitalize fully on (the) implication of her stratigraphic techniques by producing final publications promptly. Indeed her method of digging, which most of us have subsequently adopted, causes a proliferation of loci that excavators often have difficulty keeping straight long enough to produce coherent published stratigraphic syntheses. Moreover, her insistence that excavation proceed in narrow trenches denies us, when we use the Jericho reports, the confidence that her loci, and the pottery assemblages that go with them, represent understandable human activity patterns over coherently connected living areas. The individual layers, insufficiently exposed horizontally, simply cannot be interpreted credibly in terms of function. This further makes publication difficult, both to produce and to use".^[9]

From 1948 to 1962, she lectured in Levantine Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. Kenyon's teaching complemented her excavations at Jericho Jericho and Jerusalem. In 1962, she was appointed Principal of St Hugh's College, Oxford.^[6]

Awards and commemoration

In the 1973 New Year Honours, following her retirement from Oxford, she was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) "for services to archaeology".^[10] She was an elected Fellow of the British Academy (FBA) and of the Society of Antiquaries of London (FSA).^[11][12] She was made a Grand Officer of the Order of Independence by the King of Jordan in 1977.^[11]

The British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem, amalgamated within the Council for British Research in the Levant (CBRL) in 1998, was officially renamed the Kenyon Institute on 10 July 2003 in honour of Kathleen Kenyon.^[6]

Kenyon Collection

The Kathleen Kenyon Archaeology Collection, a collection of Kenyon's books and papers purchased from her estate in 1984, is housed at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.^[13]

The finds from her excavations are held in a number of collections, including the British Museum,^[14] the British Institute for Libyan and Northern African Studies^[15] and the UCL Institute of Archaeology,^[16] while the bulk of archive material is located at the Manchester Museum.^[17]

Published works

• 1942 The Buildings at Samaria, [Samaria-Sebaste I], London, 1942 (co-authored with Crowfoot, J.W. & Sukenik, E.L.)
• 1948 Excavations at the Jewry Wall Site, [Reports of the Research Committee of the Society of Antiquaries of London 15], Leicester, London : Society of Antiquaries, 1948.
• 1949 Guide to Wroxeter Roman City, London, 1949.
• 1951 "Some Notes on the History of Jericho in the Second Millennium B.C.", PEQ 83 (1951), 101–138.
• 1952 Beginning in Archaeology, London, 1952.
• 1952 "Early Jericho", Antiquity 26 (1952), 116–122.
• 1953 Beginning in Archaeology, second edition, London, 1953.
• 1954 Guide to Ancient Jericho, Jerusalem, 1954.
• 1957 Digging Up Jericho, London, 1957. (also published in Dutch, Hebrew, Italian, Spanish and Swedish editions).
• 1957 The Objects from Samaria, [Samaria-Sebaste III], London, 1957 (co-authored with Crowfoot, J.W. & Crowfoot, G.M.
• 1958 "Some Notes on the Early and Middle Bronze Age Strata of Megiddo", Eretz Israel 5 (1958), pp. 51–60.
• 1959 Excavations at Southwark, [Research Papers of Surrey Archaeological Society 5], 1959.
• 1960 Archaeology in the Holy Land, first edition, London, 1960.
• 1960 Excavations at Jericho – Volume I Tombs Excavated in 1952–4, London 1960.
• 1961 Beginning in Archaeology, revised edition, London, 1961.
• 1965 Archaeology in the Holy Land, second edition, London, 1965.
• 1965 Excavations at Jericho – Volume II Tombs Excavated in 1955–8, London, 1965.
• 1965, "British Archaeology Abroad – Jerusalem", Antiquity 39 (1965), 36–37.
• 1966 Amorites and Canaanites, (
  Schweich Lectures
  Series, 1963), London : Published for the British Academy by Oxford University Press, 1966.
• 1966 "Excavations in Jerusalem, 1965", PEQ (1966), 73–88.
• 1967 Jerusalem – Excavating 3000 Years of History, [New Aspects of Antiquity], London, 1967 (also published in a German edition).
• 1969 "Middle and Late Bronze Age Strata at Megiddo", Levant 1 (1969), pp. 25–60.
• 1970 Archaeology in the Holy Land, third edition, 1970 (also published in Dutch, Danish, German, Spanish and Swedish editions).
• 1971 Royal Cities of the Old Testament, London, 1971.
• 1971 "An Essay on Archaeological Technique: the Publication of Results from the Excavation of a Tell", Harvard Theological Review 64 (1971), 271–279.
• 1974 Digging up Jerusalem, London : Benn, 1974.
• 1974 "Tombs of the Intermediate Early Bronze – Middle Bronze Age at
  Tel 'Ajjul
  ", in Stewart, J.R. (ed.), Tell el Ajjul – the Middle Bronze Age Remains, [App. 2. Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology], Göteborg, 1974, 76–85.
• 1978 The Bible and recent archaeology, London : British Museum Publications Ltd, 1978.

See also

• Archaeology of Israel
• Kursi, Sea of Galilee
• Plastered human skulls
• Pre-Pottery Neolithic A

References