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‘And the Walls Came Tumbling Down’ – The History and Historicity of the Biblical Account of Jericho

Khalid Elhassan May 16, 2025 16 min

Jericho - Depiction of the Old Testament's description of Jericho's walls miraculously falling down — Depiction of the Old Testament's description of Jericho's walls miraculously falling down. Pinterest

3. Archaeological Excavations

Archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon at the ruins of ancient Jericho. Durham University

In 1868, British Army officer and archaeologist Sir Charles Warren conducted initial surveys that identified Tell es-Sultan’s potential significance. In 1907 – 1911, German archaeologists Ernst Sellin and Carl Watzinger conducted excavations that uncovered fortification walls and other structures. Next was British archaeologist John Garstang, who discovered collapsed walls and a destruction layer that he dated to around 1400 BC, which aligns with the biblical account of Jericho’s fall. Fellow British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon showed that Garstang’s dating was wrong.

Her excavations, 1952 – 1958, used modern stratigraphic methods, which demonstrated that the significant destruction layer dated to around 1550 BC. That undermined previous correlations with biblical narratives. The most thorough and most recent excavations were those of the Italian-Palestinian Expedition, 1997 – 2000 and 2009 – 2023, led by Lorenzo Nigro and Jehad Yasine. They uncovered several Bronze Age monuments, including palaces and city gates, providing deeper insights into ancient Jericho’s urban development.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.