Jericho’s walls fell just as Joshua describes.

Our rating

DebatedModerate confidence

In brief

Excavations found a violent destruction with collapsed walls and burned grain, details that fit Joshua 6 strikingly well. But most archaeologists date that destruction to about 1550 BC, too early for Joshua on most chronologies. Bryant Wood argues for about 1400 BC. The match in details is real; the date is disputed.

3 sources reviewed (1 primary)Last reviewed October 6, 2026By Shawn-Patrick BlandHow we rate

Weighing the evidence

Supports the claim

Fallen mudbrick walls lay at the base of the city’s embankment, matching walls that fell outward ().
The city was burned ().
Storage jars full of grain suggest a short siege after harvest, and that the city was not looted, matching and .
Bryant Wood dated the destruction to about 1400 BC based on pottery and scarabs.

Counts against it

Kathleen Kenyon’s 1950s excavation dated the destruction to about 1550 BC and found little sign of a city around 1400 BC.
Radiocarbon dating of charred grain from the destruction (1995) points to the late 17th or 16th century BC.
Most archaeologists accept Kenyon’s date rather than Wood’s.

Discussion

Jericho is one of the most excavated sites in the world, and the details found there are remarkable. The question is not whether its walls fell, but when.

What was found

Excavators found a city destroyed by fire, with its mudbrick walls tumbled down the slope of the embankment. Large jars of burned grain were left in the houses. That points to a short siege after the harvest and a city that was burned rather than plundered, which is what describes. The walls falling outward fits .

The dating fight

Kathleen Kenyon, excavating in the 1950s, dated this destruction to about 1550 BC, at the end of the Middle Bronze Age, and concluded there was little or no city when Joshua would have arrived.¹ In 1990, Bryant Wood re-examined the pottery and argued the destruction happened around 1400 BC, matching an early date for the Exodus and conquest.² In 1995, radiocarbon tests on charred grain from the destruction pointed to the late 17th or 16th century BC, supporting Kenyon.³

Sources reviewed

secondaryKathleen M. Kenyon, Digging Up Jericho. Ernest Benn, 1957.

secondaryBryant G. Wood, Did the Israelites Conquer Jericho? A New Look at the Archaeological Evidence. Biblical Archaeology Review 16:2, 1990, 44–58.

primaryHendrik J. Bruins and Johannes van der Plicht, Tell es-Sultan (Jericho): Radiocarbon Results of Short-Lived Cereal and Multiyear Charcoal Samples from the End of the Middle Bronze Age. Radiocarbon 37:2, 1995, 213–220. Link

Jericho’s walls fell just as Joshua describes.

Where this claim comes from