Kathleen Kenyon: Life, Methods, and Archaeological Legacy

Introduction

To many observers, it seems almost predictable that Kathleen Kenyon would become one of the great archaeologists of the twentieth century. Born on January 5, 1906, she was the eldest daughter of Sir Frederick Kenyon, a prominent theological scholar and director of the British Museum for more than twenty years. Like her father, Kathleen developed an appreciation for order and meticulous attention to detail — qualities that would prove invaluable throughout her career. Also like her father, however, she could be reserved and was not naturally inclined to delegate. These latter traits would at times hinder her ability to efficiently analyze and publish her discoveries. What follows is an account of the life, work, and legacy of Dame Kathleen Kenyon, archaeologist.

Kathleen's introduction to archaeology came at Oxford, where she became the first woman president of the Oxford University Archaeological Society. After graduating in 1929, she was able — with some assistance from her father — to participate in an archaeological project at Great Zimbabwe in Africa, where she worked initially as a photographer under Gertrude Caton-Thompson.

Early Life and Entry into Archaeology

Returning to England, Kenyon joined Mortimer Wheeler's team at the Roman site of Verulamium (St. Albans), roughly twenty miles north of London. Working there during the summers of 1930 to 1935, she studied under Wheeler and learned his rigorous approach to stratigraphic excavation — a foundation that would underpin what became her greatest contribution to the discipline. In the years 1931 to 1934, Kenyon also worked simultaneously at Samaria, then under the administration of the British Mandate for Palestine, alongside Grace Crowfoot and John Crowfoot. There she cut a stratigraphic trench across the summit of the mound and down its northern and southern slopes, revealing the Iron Age II to Roman-period stratigraphic sequence of the site. In addition to providing vital dating evidence for the Iron Age stratigraphy of Palestine, Kenyon obtained key stratified data relating to the study of Eastern terra sigillata ware.

Throughout the 1930s and much of the 1940s — slowed only by the outbreak of World War II — Kenyon accumulated extensive experience not only at ongoing excavations in England but also at Samaria and at Sabratha in Libya. She taught for much of this period at the newly established Institute of Archaeology at University College London and served as District Director of the Red Cross in Hammersmith, London, during the war years. In 1934, she was closely involved with the Wheelers in founding that same Institute of Archaeology. From 1936 to 1939, she carried out significant excavations at the Jewry Wall in Leicester.

After the war, Kenyon excavated at Southwark, The Wrekin in Shropshire, and other sites in England, as well as at Sabratha in Libya. As a member of the Council of the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem (BSAJ), she also participated in efforts to revive the School following the disruption of World War II. In January 1951, she traveled to Transjordan and undertook excavations at Jericho on the West Bank on behalf of the BSAJ.

Meanwhile, another British archaeologist, John Garstang, had set out to excavate Jericho with the aim of finding evidence to support the biblical account of Joshua and the Israelite conquest of Canaan. Over six years beginning in 1930, he removed approximately a thousand tons of earth and examined some 200,000 artifact fragments. By the end of his project, he had established that Jericho had been occupied before pottery was invented — yet he never found the proof of Joshua and the Israelites he had sought.

In 1949, Garstang invited Kenyon to review his extensive findings — a moment that would prove pivotal in her career. Kenyon concluded that Garstang's work required significant modification and that a more thorough excavation was necessary. She began this work in the 1950s, bringing with her a refined version of the excavation technique developed by Wheeler. The Wheeler-Kenyon Method, as it came to be known, was perfected during her excavations at Jericho.

The Wheeler-Kenyon Excavation Method

Many specialists describe it as a vertical, rather than horizontal, approach. In the earlier horizontal technique, layers were simply peeled away across an archaeological site. As each layer — sometimes only inches thick — was removed, a critical dimension was lost: time. By contrast, Kenyon's technique involved digging trenches or squares arranged in a checkerboard pattern, with standing walls or "balks" left between them. These balks exposed the successive layers of time and human activity at a given location. From the soil profiles visible in the balks, archaeologists could record the vertical relationship of one soil layer or time period to another, as well as the relationship of any structures or features to each phase of occupation.

This approach greatly enhanced the ability to date finds and provided a level of control over the site that had not previously been possible. It considerably improved the capacity to date artifacts and gave archaeologists far greater interpretive control before large-scale clearing of a site was undertaken.

Kenyon left Jericho in 1961 and then excavated in Jerusalem until the 1967 Six-Day War brought the project to an end. This was her final major excavation. Her stratigraphic innovation has been acknowledged by Larry G. Herr, one of the directors of the Madaba Plains Project, who credits her directly with catalyzing major advances in the understanding of pottery in the southern Levant:

"The chief event was the modification of stratigraphic methods that Kathleen Kenyon's excavation at Jericho had actually catalyzed. The strict separation of earth layers, or archaeological deposits, also promoted the strict separation of pottery assemblages."