Breaking Ground: Pioneering Women Archaeologists

Kathleen Kenyon (1906-1978)

525 Kathleen Kenyon (1906–1978) William G. Dever it is both an honor and a challenge to write a brief summary of the life and career of Kathleen Kenyon and to assess her role as one of the ‹rst women in Near Eastern archaeology. Despite formidable obstacles, her pioneering efforts and achievements placed her at the forefront of her ‹eld. Kenyon needed neither imagined competition with men nor feminist rhetoric to reinforce her in reaching her goals. She was so focused on her career that she, I would argue, simply intended to excel in her chosen profession ; and with her talent, single-mindedness, and considerable energy she did just that. Kenyon achieved larger-than-life stature as an archaeologist , and for that we celebrate a career that spanned almost ‹fty years. R Early Life and Education Kathleen Mary Kenyon was born in London on January 5, 1906. Her father, Sir Frederick Kenyon, an eminent biblical scholar and expert in ancient manuscripts, was soon to become director of the British Museum (1909–30) and later president of the British Academy (1917–21). Sir Frederick was also a prime mover in the establishment of the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem in 1901 and subsequently was chairman of that institute, which his daughter was later to direct with such distinction.1 Because of the privileged circumstances of her birth and early childhood , Kenyon was brought up in daily contact with the archaeological establishment of the late Victorian era in England and must have been familiar with many of the prominent antiquarians of the time. I once asked her, over before-dinner drinks (she was very fond of Gordon’s gin), whether her noted father’s interests in archaeology and the Bible had had anything to do with her becoming an archaeologist in the Holy Land. She drew herself up rather stif›y and harrumphed, “Absolutely not!” That was probably true, because her own early career was devoted to RomanoBritish archaeology, although her work in that ‹eld was later overshadowed by her brilliant exploits in the Middle East.2 Many today are unaware of her earlier achievements in Britain. Kay Prag, however, one of her foremost protégés, has observed how many of Kenyon’s (“K.,” as her closest associates called her) own traits of personality were uncannily like those of her father. In an obituary of her father, who died in 1952 (the year after Kenyon’s election as honorary director of the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem), H. E. Bell noted Sir Frederick’s shrewd intelligence, which enabled him as an administrator to cut right to the heart of the matter . Other characteristics noted included his practical opportunism; his great dignity and strength of character; his single-minded devotion to duty; his lofty conception of the demands of profession; his ›air for simpli‹cation with a popular audience; and the fact that he was rather shy but kind and not a born conversationalist. These same characteristics could have been used, quite easily, to describe Sir Frederick’s daughter. Many were virtues instilled in childhood and youth that ‹tted Kenyon well for her later career. It was also fortuitous that Kenyon’s circumstances assured her of appropriate social class, family connections, and a modest private income. Later, Wheeler acknowledged how useful these assets had been when Kenyon became director of the British School of Archaeology and began work at Jericho in the 1950s.3 Nearly all the British women pioneers (and many Breaking Ground 526 men) in Near Eastern archaeology had come from such circles. But to her credit, Kenyon always devoted herself to training young people of more modest means to make a profession of archaeology and to compete on their own. Noblesse oblige or not, it was noble. Young Kenyon went off to St. Paul’s and then to Somerville College at Oxford, where she ‹nished her baccalaureate degree in 1929 in medieval studies. She did not go on for graduate work, however, and never obtained the Ph.D. degree, which she later was to confer on others at London and Oxford. As she once remarked to me when we were comparing the British and American educational systems, in her day the Ph.D. was considered “an American affectation.” (Indeed, Oxford never offered the Ph.D. in archaeology until the late 1950s.)4 Kenyon never had much use for things American, since she was a colonialist at heart. She once confessed that she never really understood George Ernest...