Jericho-off-the-Record

Tracing ‘New’ Records of the 1950s Excavations at Tell es-Sultan

Abstract

During the last few years the Non-Professional Archaeological Photographs project (NPAPH) has gathered and digitised numerous forgotten non-professional photographs and slides from past archaeological excavations (1950–1980), which were subsequently ingested and processed at DANS. The term ‘non-professional’ refers to participants of excavations who were not part of the trained staff but who supported the dig as part of their continuous education or out of interest. Secondly, this category of documentation also includes private photographs, slides and films made at the excavation by the archaeological staff and which are not stored in official archives. Several NPAPH publications have previously demonstrated that this category of records is of significance to current archaeological research. The NPAPH has recently initiated a new project: Jericho-off-the-Record. This project aims to gather not only visual non-professional documentation of the second British campaign to Tell es-Sultan (ancient Jericho) but also to collect written and oral records of the renowned excavation, which was conducted by Kathleen Kenyon from 1952 till 1958. This article provides an update 
of the situation regarding the current project of which an initial data deposit has been made accessible in EASY, the DANS online archiving system.