Date of Jericho’s Destruction. The view that the archaeology of Jericho supports the biblical account of the conquest of Canaan, based on Garstang’s work at the site, suffered a major blow after Kenyon published the conclusions from her excavations at Jericho. Kenyon argued that the final Bronze Age city was from the Middle Bronze Age in the 16th century bc, not anytime in the Late Bronze Age, and thus the Israelite conquest narratives must be merely legends since they contradict the archaeological findings (Kenyon, Digging Up Jericho, 213–18, 257–58).

According to Kenyon, Jericho was unoccupied in the Late Bronze Age, so a historical conquest in either the 15th century bc or the 13th century bc did not fit with the data. Kenyon’s conclusions were widely accepted and unquestioned for decades. Recently, Wood re-examined much of the pottery excavated at Jericho and agreed with Garstang’s earlier view that the archaeological evidence pointed to a Late Bronze Age occupation and destruction of Jericho around 1400 bc (Wood, “Did the Israelites Conquer Jericho?”, 44–58; Garstang, “The Story of Jericho,” 368–72).

Using pottery chronology, Garstang interpreted the date of the destruction of Jericho as not earlier than 1426 bc or later than 1385 bc—approximately during the reign of Amenhotep III (ca. 1400 bc), but before that of the next pharaoh, Akhenaten, since no scarab seal bearing his cartouche has been found (Garstang, The Story of Jericho, 135; Garstang, “The Story of Jericho,” 370–71). Garstang also found imported wares from the Late Bronze I—specifically the Cypriot ware that Kenyon supposedly did not find in her excavations (Garstang, “The Story of Jericho,” 369–70; Garstang, “Jericho: City and Necropolis,” 111; Wood, “Dating Jericho’s Destruction,” 48). Wood, in a re-examination of pottery from Jericho (local wares in particular), agreed with Garstang and argued that the pottery demonstrated that the city was occupied into Late Bronze I (Wood, “Dating Jericho’s Destruction,” 47–48). The most recent excavations at Jericho have affirmed that Late Bronze I pottery was found at the site in past excavations (Nigro, “The Built Tombs,” 362).

Besides evidence from pottery found at the site, 18th Dynasty scarabs and a seal that are particularly relevant to the date of destruction were discovered in the tombs. A scarab of the Pharaoh Queen Hatshepsut, another scarab, and a seal of her co-regent and eventual successor Thutmose III were found, along with two scarabs of Amenhotep III (Garstang, The Story of Jericho, 126). Scarabs of the two Pharaohs in between Thutmose III and Amenhotep III—Amenhotep II and Thutmose IV—have not yet been found at Jericho. However, the nearly continuous nature of the scarab series stretching back hundreds of years suggests that the cemetery was in active use up to the end of Late Bronze I, sometime during the reign of Amenhotep III. The end of the scarab sequence suggests, in agreement with the pottery, that the city was destroyed around 1400 bc during the reign of Amenhotep III—the same pharaoh to whom were written many of the Amarna Letters from Canaan describing attacks on the cities.

A final piece of chronological information comes from a cuneiform tablet discovered near the Middle Building at Jericho and dated to the 15th century bc, further suggesting occupation of the site until around 1400 bc (van der Toorn, “Cuneiform Documents,” 98). Ultimately, the archaeology of Jericho does not unequivocally rule out a destruction around 1400 bc, and Kenyon’s assertion that there was no evidence of occupation from the Late Bronze Age is contradicted by pottery and Egyptian scarabs that can date only to Late Bronze I.