GARSTANG, JOHN°

GARSTANG, JOHN ° (1876–1956), British archaeologist; professor of archaeology at the University of Liverpool from 1907 to 1941. From 1900 to 1908 he conducted excavations in Egypt, Nubia, Asia Minor, and northern Syria, and from 1909 to 1914 he worked at ancient Meroë in Sudan uncovering important remains of the Roman-Nubian culture. After the British conquest of Palestine, Garstang was director of the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem (1919–26). At the same time he served in the British Mandatory government as the first director of its Department of Antiquities, organizing the department and excavating at Ashkelon. In 1930–36 he resumed work in Palestine at Jericho, his findings there attracting wide attention at the time, although some of his conclusions were not borne out by subsequent investigations. By dating Jericho's double wall to the Late Bronze Age ca. 1400 b.c.e., Garstang found confirmation of the fall of the city to Joshua (Joshua 6), which fit the then-popular 15^th century date assigned to the exodus. Katheen Kenyon's subsequent excavations showed that the fallen walls dated to Early Bronze and that Late Bronze remains were few; there was no wall as depicted in Joshua. After resigning from the University of Liverpool, Garstang continued working in Asia Minor (at Mersin, etc.) on behalf of the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara. His publications, all characterized by a conservative trend, include studies in Hittite history, historical topography of Palestine and the Bible, and numerous excavation reports. During the controversy aroused by the 1939 White Paper, Garstang adopted an anti-Zionist position and was active in British public affairs on behalf of the Arabs. He was the author of Hittite Empire (1929), Joshua, Judges (1931), and Heritage of Solomon (1934).

bibliography:

J. Day, in: dbi, 1, 431.

[Michael Avi-Yonah]