Kathleen Kenyon excavated Jericho in the 1950’s.  Kathleen Kenyon found that the city was destroyed at the end of the Early Bronze Age about 2200-2100 B.C. the walls were fallen down and the city was burned.  It was rebuilt later about 1900 B.C.   During the Hyksos times it was fortified with a sloped hillside coated with plaster sloped at 35 degrees and 15 feet high.  According to Kenyon sometime after or coinciding with the Hyksos expulsion from Egypt in 1575 B.C. the upper most layer of town with fortification walls was burned.  Pottery found in erosion gulleys on the mound and in nearby tombs was found to account for Jericho regional occupation until about 1350 with partially rebuilt Hyksos palace storage rooms (as proposed by Garstang) were reused by about 1450.  A scarab of Thutmosis III was found in a cremation pit.  The area may have remained in use until about 1400-1350 as two scarabs of Amenophis III were found in a tomb in the necropolis.  A single dipper juglet dated by Kenyon to 1350-1325 was found on the western acropolis.  The necropolis was mainly MBA with a little early LBA usage.  The only part of the town of the LBA that was occupied was the probable reuse of few of a few of the houses or storerooms of the MBA Hyksos period.  Kenyon excavated a wider area and described that these storerooms of a Hyksos palace described by Garstang were private houses instead of storerooms of a palace, yet was able to explain there were 42 storage jars (3-6 ft. tall jars?) taking up an entire house.  Both Garstang wrote the walled MBA city was destroyed c. 1500.  Kenyon wrote the walled MBA city was destroyed c. 1575.  They both attributed the devastation to attacks occurring as the Hyksos rule ended.  Their dates did not agree due to differences in chronology theory.  There was widespread destruction of cities in Canaan coinciding with or sometime after the expulsion of the Hyksos from Egypt close to the end of the MBA.  Most of the Jericho Hyksos houses remained wrecked in the LBA, only a few were rebuilt.  Soundings of the erosion gullies did not produce LBA pottery after c. 1350-1325.  The soil eroded towards the eastern side of the tell.  The evidence from the tombs indicates the site may have been abandoned during the time of Amenophis III or Amenophis IV.  The Hapiru were making trouble for people in the north and the status of groups in Jordan is unknown.  The mound was nine acres at its zenith in the MBA.  There was no evidence of large scale mudbrick building projects in the LBA found by Garstang, this may account for the lack of LBA soil on top of the mound.  Only some evidence of a few storerooms being rebuilt were indicated.  There were EB walls on the mound that Garstang thought might have been extended and reused into the LBA until about 1400 when he determined the place was destroyed again and that these walls were reported as being collapsed outward due to an earthquake.  Kenyon stated that they were EB walls and found no LBA walled city.  A small section of wall near the southeastern base of the mound labeled as 1400? on a map by Garstang is currently exposed on the ruin for tourists to see and is labeled as 1550 on a sign.  The town was reinhabited by Jews after 800 B.C.  By digging around the base of the mound the remains of the Iron Age II town were found outside the walls of the collapsed MBII town and the smaller EB town towards the center of the mound.  Joshua did not likely take LBA Jericho as it was not a walled city at that time and was small in its dimensions.  It was abandoned when historians claimed Joshua's campaign c. 1200 took place.  

Archaeology in the Holy Land, Kenyon, 1960.  Jericho, Holt, 1995, Amorites and Canaanites, Kenyon, 1963, 1966.  Digging up Jericho, Kenyon, 1957.  Recent Archaeological Discoveries, Dever, 1990. The Story of Jericho, Garstang, 1948.  Timnah, Kelm and A. Mazar, 1995.  Other references not cited.

Further up from the Jordan Valley towards Bethel north of Jerusalem there were the ruins of Ai near Bethel.  Bethel near Ai was supposed to have been destroyed and burned about 1200 B.C.  In Joshua both the men of Ai and Bethel had run out and attacked Israel (8:17),  Joshua defeated the people of Ai who along with the people of Bethel had attacked him. Joshua was credited with burning Ai.  J. Callaway dug at Et Tell (Ai) and found the third city was destroyed about 2400 B.C. and not rebuilt until about 1220 B.C.  (Biblical Archaeologist 1976 Calloway).  The current evidence indicates that Jericho and the town of Ai were destroyed during different centuries.    

A more recent theory placed Ai about a kilometer away from Et Tell (Ai) at Khirbet el-Maqatir.  Pottery from 1400 was reported there.  This was about the time Egypt had numerous officials in Israel and Amenophis II was campaigning against rebellious cities in Canaan.  Again the destruction of the walls of Jericno happened about 1550;  a hundred and fifty years earlier  

Hazor was occupied from the Middle Bronze Age until it was destroyed about 1200 B.C.  (Hazor, Yadin).  Joshua was reported to have destroyed this city about 250 years after Jericho fell.   

Heshbon in Jordan was supposed to have been destroyed by Israel in Numbers 21:25, yet there were some remains from the Iron III published in an expedition report published by S. Horn.  Later some pottery dated to no earlier than 1000 B.C. was published. No pottery earlier than Iron II was published for Heshbon.  The destruction of Heshbon by Israel could not be confirmed as Israel being in the vicinity of Canaan was mentioned in an Egyptian stele about 1200.  

Mereneptah mentioned a campaign where he destroyed Israelis (Isr-r) in the Mereneptah Stele.  The Egyptians did not have a sound for the character "L" in their alphabet, so they used "R."  The stele was from 1209-1208 B.C.   Since the reign of Merneptah began about 1213 B.C.  the battle against Israel must have been about 1213-1208.  The Philistines established Ekron about 1185 B.C.  In Joshua (13:3) it was mentioned that Joshua was not able to take Ekron, Gaza, Ashdod,  Ashkelon, and Gath the cities of the Philistines reckoned as Canaanite, while in Joshua 13:3 it was written that Joshua had taken Ashdod.  This is an obvious error in the Biblical account of Joshua.  .

The story of Joshua did not even mention encountering any Egyptian troops in his campaign, yet Merneptah reported encountering Israel.  The Egyptian army of Merneptah took credit for destroying Gezer and the writer of Joshua gave Joshua the credit for destroying the army of Gezer, after the supposed destruction of Gezer (Stratum XIV described by Dever, 1990, Recent Archaeological Discoveries- Dever presumed Philistine destruction of site) .  Israel was supposed to have already taken control of the hill country by about 1200 as archaeologists indicated that there was a taboo against the use of pork from about 1200 onward.  The "laws of Moses" advised the Hebrew not to eat pork.  According to Herodotus and other evidence the priestly class in Egypt did not favor the use of pork.  Egypt had long controlled or influenced cities in Israel during the Egyptian Hyksos Avaris dynasty during the Middle Bronze Age and the Theban dynasty during the Late Bronze Age. 

The book of Joshua stated that the royal city of Gibeon surrendered to Joshua, yet the city was not occupied until the Iron Age about 1200 and reached status as a royal city during Iron Age II after 1000.  One grave with some LBAI pottery and a scarab was found in a tomb below the IAII walled city of Gibeon by Pritchard.  There was no LBAII pottery or scarabs found on the hill of Gibeon.    

Based on these and other findings, Joshua is not a credible account, nor was there credibility of an army numbering 600,000 fighting men crossing the deserts of the Sinai and Negev with their children and livestock.  If they had crossed the desert and then lost even one battle at Ai (Et Tell - "The ruined village") by a handful of men who had been dead for hundreds of years, while Jericho behind them had been destroyed about 1550, and Hazor claimed to have been destroyed by Joshua in 1200 B.C. was to thrive for another few centuries, then there is some sort of calamity in this historical fiction.  In as much as the battle accounts were faked, God's role in the politics of that era may have been faked also.

Of the city states in Canaan described in correspondence between the city rulers and Akhenaten (Amenophis IV) in Egypt there was no mention of any of the tribes of Israel.  There were numerous regional Canaanite powers; some trying to remain in the sphere of Egyptian protection while they were threatended by the advance of Semitic/Hapiru  forces operating in Syria.  No mention of Gad, Asher, Judah, Benjamin, Dan, and no report of cohesive tribal alliance to meet the threat.  The Canaanite city states had been conquered by Thutmosis III of Egypt, subdued by campaigns of Amenophis II & III and remained subject to Egypt until c. 1350 the times of Amenophis IV when Egyptian control was threatened by forces to the north.  In the next century Seti I, and Ramesses II reported to have control as far north as Kadesh in Syria.  Ramesses II fortified the port of Joppa/Yafo in Israel.  Towards the end of the 13th century, just before 1200, Merneptah campaigned in Canaan and there was a mention of a people named Israel.  None of these events are recorded in the book of Joshua as those who prepared the text lacked knowledge of what had happened.  The early Israelis may have encountered Egyptian forces, but not of Philistines as the Philistine migration was to happen nearly 30 years later than the people of Israel was reported to have been badly beaten in battle by Merneptah.   

One may reject parts of the Torah-Pentateuch and support a theory that God was not a genocidal God, nor should God be blamed for the execution of all the first born males of Egypt with extreme prejudice in order to appease those who thought God was responsible for the outcome of all military conflicts.  For all intensive purposes Moses was a novelist with a need to preserve his law.  Moses' laws of hygiene are woefully inadequate and obsolete in the light of scientific achievement and true historical record, including the work of Louis Pasteur and other medical pioneers.    

Tel Sultan - Jericho from Hilltop Restaurant, April 2008