KENYON, KATHLEEN. Kathleen Mary Kenyon (1906–1978) was born in London on January 5, 1906. She graduated from Somerville College, Oxford, in 1929, and in 1934 she cofounded, with Mortimer Wheeler and Tessa Wheeler, the University of London's Institute of Archaeology. Kenyon served as the institute's first secretary, then as interim director during World War II. She was a lecturer in Palestinian archaeology (1949–1962); was appointed honorary director of the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem in 1951; and excavated Jericho between 1952 and 1958 and Jerusalem from 1962 to 1967. She served as principal of Saint Hugh's College from 1962 to 1973 and upon her retirement in 1973 received the title Dame of the Order of the British Empire, 1973. After her death on August 24, 1978, in Wrexham, Wales, the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem was renamed the Kenyon Institute in her honor (2003).

Kenyon is a significant figure in the history of Near Eastern archaeology. She created the Wheeler-Kenyon excavation method...