Kathleen Kenyon

Lore & Background

Kathleen Kenyon was born in London in 1906, the eldest daughter of Sir Frederic Kenyon, a biblical scholar and director of the British Museum. She grew up in Bloomsbury in a house attached to the museum, known as a hard-headed and stubborn tomboy who enjoyed fishing, climbing trees, and sports. Her father encouraged wide reading and independent study. An excellent student who excelled in history, she attended St Paul’s Girls’ School, where she was head girl, before winning an Exhibition to read history at Somerville College, Oxford. At Oxford, she earned a Blue in hockey and became the first female president of the Oxford University Archaeological Society. After graduating in 1928, she began her archaeological career the following year. Her first field experience was as a photographer at Great Zimbabwe in 1929. She then worked with the archaeologists Tessa and Mortimer Wheeler at Verulamium, learning meticulously controlled and recorded stratigraphic excavation. She also excavated at Samaria, cutting a stratigraphic trench across the mound. In 1934, she helped found the Institute of Archaeology at University College London. From 1936 to 1939, she excavated the Jewry Wall in Leicester, initially believing the site was a forum before uncovering bath remains. During the Second World War, she served as a Divisional Commander of the British Red Cross in Hammersmith. After the war, she excavated in Britain and at Sabratha in Libya. Her most famous work was at Tell es-Sultan (ancient Jericho) from 1952 to 1958, where her discoveries about Neolithic cultures made her world-famous and established a lasting legacy in Levantine archaeology. She never married and became Principal of St Hugh’s College, Oxford, from 1962 to 1973.

Reader's Guide

Kenyon's significance lies in her refinement of stratigraphic excavation techniques, which she applied at Jericho and which influenced later archaeological methodology in the Levant. However, her legacy is mixed: she did not produce final publications promptly, and her method of digging in narrow trenches caused a proliferation of loci that made coherent stratigraphic syntheses difficult. The individual layers were insufficiently exposed horizontally, limiting confidence that loci represented understandable human activity patterns over coherent living areas.

Did You Know?

• Kenyon was the first female president of the Oxford University Archaeological Society.
• She learned stratigraphic excavation from Mortimer Wheeler while working at Verulamium.
• Her excavations at Jericho are often cited as evidence for one of the world's oldest continuously occupied settlements, though other sites like Çatalhöyük or Damascus also claim that title.