The Kenyon Institute, previously known as the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem (BSAJ), is a British research institute in Jerusalem. No longer focused on archaeology, the Institute instead serves as "the home of British research and intellectual life in Israel/Palestine" in the fields of humanities, social sciences and "all the academic disciplines supported by the British Academy." It is part of the Council for British Research in the Levant.
The institute was established in 1919 as the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem (BSAJ). The London-based Palestine Exploration Fund was instrumental in its foundation.
The first Director was British archaeologist John Garstang, and among its earliest students was architect-archaeologist George Horsfield, later Chief Inspector of Antiquities in British Mandate Transjordan. An excavation at Tughbah Caves by BSAJ student Francis Turville-Petre in 1925 yielded an important prehistoric find, the Galilee skull. Under Garstang's directorship, the BSAJ began excavations on Mount Ophel, Jerusalem, with the Palestine Exploration Fund.
Garstang resigned his post as Director of the BSAJ in 1926 and British archaeologist John Winter Crowfoot, who had trained at the British School at Athens, became the School's second Director. With his wife, Molly Crowfoot, a noted expert in textiles, crafts and botany, John Crowfoot conducted excavations at Mount Ophel, Jerusalem (1927–1929), Jerash (1928–1930) and Samaria (1930–1935).Dorothy Garrod, who excavated at Mount Carmel as a BSAJ student in 1929 along with Mary Kitson-Clark and Elinor Ewbank, produced evidence of the Natufian culture.