You are strongly recommended to add to your library the excellent revised edition of Harper's Bible Dictionary titled, The Harper Collins Bible Dictionary, Revised Edition [book review], edited by Paul J. Achtemeier, with the Society of Biblical Literature (NY: Harper Collins, 1996). It is currently the best one-volume Bible dictionary in English, and it is available at Border's Books, Christian Science Reading Rooms, http://www.borders.com, or http://www.christianbook.com.

Ai, a Canaanite town near and to the east of Bethel (Gen. 12:8; 13:3), generally identified with the modern site of et-Tell. The name ‘Ai’ means ‘ruin’ in Hebrew, paralleling the modern Arabic name ‘et-Tell,’ ‘heap, mound.’ Et-Tell, about one and a half miles east of Bethel (modern Beitin), was excavated by Judith Marquet-Krause from 1933 to 1935 and again by Dr. Joseph A. Callaway from 1964 to 1970. Ai was an important urban center of about 27.5 acres during the Early Bronze Age from approximately 3000 to 2400 b.c. (this size may be compared with that of ot Jericho, which was only about 10 acres).

In the Early Bronze Age, Ai had a temple and a royal quarter. Its inhabitants apparently came originally from Syria and Anatolia. Egyptian influence is evident from the temple of this period and imported alabaster and stone vessels. The city had a massive stone-lined reservoir of 480,000 gallon capacity. The Early Bronze Age city was destroyed about 2400 b.c. and remained a ruin until about 1200 b.c. Thus throughout the period of the ot patriarchs (ca. 2000-1300 b.c.), Ai was a ruin.

A small unwalled village was found on about 2.5 acres of the mound, dating from about 1220 b.c. The village was abandoned a final time about 1050 b.c.

Joshua 8 describes the capture and destruction of Ai by Israelites. However, at the time commonly accepted for the Israelite conquest of Canaan, about 1250 b.c., Ai was uninhabited. One explanation suggests the account in Joshua 8 is etiological (i.e., explanatory) rather than historical, ascribing a well-known ruin to the conquest by Joshua. Callaway has proposed instead that the Israelite capture of Ai fits well with the evidence of the unwalled Iron Age village. The Israelites may have captured and resettled that village. The conquest of Ai would then date to about 1125 b.c. An alternative view favored by W. F. Albright suggests that the biblical story of Joshua 8 originally referred to the capture of Bethel and was later transferred to the nearby ruins of Ai. Callaway’s reconstruction does preserve the biblical account, though admittedly suggesting that the biblical account greatly exaggerated the size of Ai at the time the Israelites took it.

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