Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is beside Beth Aven, on the east side of Bethel, and spoke to them, saying, Go up and spy out the land. The men went up and spied out Ai.
What information that exists seems to us to favor the solution presented in (4) above.  J. A. Thompson, for example, said that, "If Ai was only a military outpost, there may not have been any substantial buildings there, and so nothing tangible would remain."[6]