| AdminHistory | Dame Kathleen Mary Kenyon (5 Jan 1906-24 Aug 1978), was an archaeologist of Neolithic culture in the Fertile Crescent. She is known for her excavations in Jericho in 1952-1958. Kathleen Kenyon was the eldest daughter of Sir Frederic Kenyon, a Bible scholar and later Director of the British Museum. She studied at St Paul's Girls' School, read history at Somerville College, Oxford, England, and became the first woman president of the Oxford University Archaeological Society. In 1962, Kenyon was appointed Principal of St Hugh's College, Oxford.
Kathleen Kenyon's first field experience was as a photographer for the pioneering excavations at Great Zimbabwe in 1929, led by Gertrude Caton-Thompson. Returning to England, Kenyon joined the archaeological couple Mortimer and Tessa Wheeler on their excavation of the Romano-British settlement of Verulamium (St Albans), 20 miles north of London. Working there each summer between 1930 and 1935, Kenyon directed the excavation of the Roman theatre. In the years 1931 to 1934 Kenyon worked simultaneously at Samaria, then located in the British Mandated Territory of Palestine, with John and Grace Crowfoot.
In 1934 Kenyon was closely associated with the Wheelers in the foundation of the Institute of Archaeology of University College London. From 1936 to 1939 she carried out important excavations at the Jewry Wall in the city of Leicester. During the Second World War, Kenyon served as Divisional Commander of the Red Cross in Hammersmith, London, and later as Acting Director and Secretary of the Institute of Archaeology of the University of London.
After the war, she excavated in Southwark, at The Wrekin, Shropshire and elsewhere in Britain, as well as at Sabratha, a Roman city in Libya. As a member of the Council of the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem (BSAJ), Kenyon was involved in the efforts to reopen the School after the hiatus of the Second World War. In January 1951 she travelled to the Transjordan and undertook excavations in the West Bank at Jericho (Tell es-Sultan) on behalf of the BSAJ. Her work at Jericho, from 1952 until 1958, made her world famous and established a lasting legacy in the archaeological methodology of the Levant. Ground-breaking discoveries concerning the Neolithic cultures of the Levant were made in this ancient settlement. In this period she also completed the publication of the excavations at Samaria. Her volume, 'Samaria Sebaste III: The Objects', appeared in 1957. Having completed her excavations at Jericho in 1958, Kenyon excavated in Jerusalem from 1961 to 1967, concentrating on the 'City of David' to the immediate south of the Temple Mount. |