Abstract In this paper we consider the following Timoshenko system φ tt - ( φ x + ψ ) x = 0 , ( 0 , 1 ) × ( 0 , + ∞ ) ψ tt - ψ xx + ∫ 0 t g ( t - τ ) ψ xx ( τ ) d τ + φ x + ψ = 0 , ( 0 , 1 ) × ( 0 , + ∞ ) with Dirichlet boundary conditions where g is a positive nonincreasing function. We establish an exponential and polynomial decay results with weaker conditions on g than those required in [F. Ammar-Khodja, A. Benabdallah, J.E. Munoz Rivera, R. Racke, Energy decay for Timoshenko systems of memory type, J. Differ. Equations, 194 (2003) 82–115].