Jim West notes that Kathleen Kenyon was born 100 years ago today, three days after my wonderful grandmother. His tribute to the dead archaeologist is a little bit kinder than mine. I recognize that her contribution is significant, and I also recognize that she made major, significant mistakes at all three sites at which she dug in Palestine (Samaria, Jericho, Jerusalem). My “tribute” is to cite from a letter to the editor of BAR magazine from July/August 1990.
Kathleen Kenyon deserves some of the archaeological sainthood conferred on her by fellow archaeologists for improvements in methodology, but she was better at “collecting infinite amounts of useless detail” than she was at analysis. A noted archaeologist made the following comment a few years ago about the time he, as a graduate student, had worked under her direction at Jericho:
“Sometimes we were trying to trace charcoal lines from a destruction level or accidental fire for our site drawings. The line sometimes would disappear, and then a few meters away there might be two or three or four charcoal lines, any (or none) of which might be the continuation. Ms. Kenyon would scan the nominations, then imperiously point to the ‘correct ‘ one. She walked away oblivious to the snickers of the grad students.”
I have long thought that Ms. Kenyon drew mountains of conclusions from the tiny unrepresentative area she actually dug at Jericho.
Dr. Erich A. von Fange
Tecumseh, Michigan
And here are a few quotes from the Dame herself.
“Our trenches…all produced unambiguous evidence that there was no occupation before the first century A.D. Early Jerusalem was confined to the eastern ridge” (Kenyon 1974: 93).
“I believe that our excavations have produced a plan of earliest Jerusalem that can only be disproved if further excavations produce more factual (by which I mean stratigraphical) evidence. I do not believe that opportunities for such excavations survive, mainly because of ancient quarryings, but also modern building activities. If they do, I wish the excavators luck” (Kenyon 1974: 94).
This is the classic methodology of the minimalists (though she was a different kind of minimalist): base your (strongly worded, unambiguous) conclusion on absence of evidence. Even when evidence to the contrary is revealed, maintain your position!
“An intriguing new possibility has been introduced by Israeli excavations in the area of the Jewish Quarter on the eastern slope of the western ridge. Here houses were located, assigned by the excavators to the eighth century B.C., built on bedrock. The second stage is a wall which from its massiveness and width, 3 metres, can reasonably be interpreted as a town wall” (Kenyon 1974: 148).
Yep, you read that right. This wall which is clearly 7-8 meters wide is only 3 metres wide when it completely contradicts the “factual evidence” already “proven” by Miss Kenyon. Unfortunately, her legacy lives on.
Dear Todd,
I am sorry to read your statements about Dame Kathleen Kenyon. Her contribution to the archaeology of the Holy Land, Biblical Archaeology and archaeology in general are of great importance. I wish your statements cannot be interpreted as chauvinistic towards a female archaeologist. If you find a few errors, some maybe printing errors, in her immense publications, I think it is only human – and above all we are all human.
Yours, Female Dr. in archaeology
Female Dr., I must disagree. Just the opposite, actually — he’s treating her work as that of a peer, open to criticism and scrutiny. He actually says very little about her, and what he does say makes not the slightest reference to her gender.
I’m afraid you might be looking for bias where there is none. As a Ph.D. in archaeology, I’m surprised you need to be reminded that neither gender should be shielded from peer review.