A team led by Houston-based Dr Scott Stripling, has been excavating the site, near Jerusalem, for several years. And now they claim they have finally uncovered the location of the city, which is mentioned in the Book of Joshua. The excavation is being funded by the Associates for Biblical Research, a US-based group described by the Breaking Israel News website as “a Christian organisation that brings together Biblical research and archaeology to mutually advance both disciplines”.
Dr Stripling said: “There were 14 years of difficult digging with an eight-year hiatus due to the Intifada.
“We suffered from constant vandalism.
“But we persevered and did an excellent job of excavating.”
Ai is thought to been conquered 1,500 years before the birth of Jesus.
In the Book of Joshua, chapters 7 and 8, the Israelites attempt to take the Canaanite city on two separate occasions.
The first ends in failure, but the second described in Joshua 8, succeeds after Israelite leader Joshua, the narrator of the book, is given instructions by God about how to set up an ambush.
The city’s king was caught and hanged from a tree, before being dumped at the city gates.
Archaeologists previously thought the ruins of the city were in el-Tell on Israel’s West Bank.
Such a location would place it 9 miles east of Jericho, another famous Old Testament city.
However, Dr Stripling and his colleagues think the location was Khirbet el-Maqatir, basing their theory on the Biblical description of the battle.
The Bible talks of how the Israelites hid in a dip just west of the ancient city.
Dr Stripling thinks he has pinpointed this to Wadi Sheban, just west of the excavation site.
He is now getting ready to present his findings for publication later this year, claiming that he possesses “compelling evidence” for his case.
At the same time, he will also show his evidence in respect of the city of Shilo, where the ancient Hebrew tabernacle stood for more than 350 years.
He added: “This gives us a regional perspective, an overview of what was happening in the highlands of Israel in antiquity.
“We can see transitions in the culture.”