The Palestine Exploration Fund is a British society based in London. It was founded in 1865, shortly after the completion of the Ordnance Survey of Jerusalem by Royal Engineers of the War Department. The Fund is the oldest known organization in the world created specifically for the study of the Levant region, also known as Palestine. Often simply known as the PEF, its initial objective was to carry out surveys of the topography and ethnography of Ottoman Palestine – producing the PEF Survey of Palestine. Its remit was considered to fall between an expeditionary survey and military intelligence gathering. There was also strong religious interest from Christians; William Thomson, Archbishop of York, was the first president of the PEF. As a result, the PEF had a complex relationship with Corps of Royal Engineers of the War Department. The PEF members sent back reports to the UK on the need to salvage and modernise the Levant region.
History
According to Lorenzo Kamel, the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF) was established in London in 1865, after Edward, Prince of Wales visited Palestine. Kamel writes that it was inspired by James Finn, British consul to Ottoman Jerusalem and that the PEF received two major initial donations: £150 from Queen Victoria and £500 from the University of Oxford. Following the completion of the Ordnance Survey of Jerusalem, the Biblical archaeologists and clergymen who supported the survey financed the creation of the fund. It was founded on 22 June 1865 with initial funding of £300. The most notable of the founders were Arthur P. Stanley, the Dean of Westminster, and George Grove, who later founded the Royal College of Music and was responsible for Grove's Dictionary of Music. Its founders established the fund "for the purpose of investigating the Archaeology, Geography, manners, customs and culture, Geology and Natural History of the Holy Land". The roots of the Palestine Exploration Fund lie in a literary society founded by British Consul James Finn and his wife Elizabeth Anne Finn. Many photographs of Palestine have survived from this period. Frederick J. Bliss wrote of the foundation that "[a]s far as its aims were concerned this organization was but a re-institution of a Society formed about the year 1804 under the name of the Palestine Association... it is interesting to note that the General Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund recognized an organic connection with the earlier Society." The preliminary meeting of the Society of the Palestine Exploration Fund took place in the Jerusalem Chamber of Westminster Abbey. William Thomson, the Archbishop of York, publicly read the original prospectus at this meeting;
[O]ur object is strictly an inductive inquiry. We are not to be a religious society; we are not about to launch controversy; we are about to apply the rules of science, which are so well understood by us in our branches, to an investigation into the facts concerning the Holy Land. "No country should be of so much interest to us as that in which the documents of our Faith were written, and the momentous events they describe enacted. At the same time no country more urgently requires illustration ... Even to a casual traveller in the Holy Land the Bible becomes, in its form, and therefore to some extent in its substance, a new book. Much would be gained by ...bringing to light the remains of so many races and generations which must lie concealed under the accumulation of rubbish and ruins on which those villages stand ... The PEF conducted many early excavations of biblical and post-biblical sites around the Levant, as well as studies involving natural history, anthropology, history and geography.
In 1867, Charles Warren led PEF's biggest expedition. Warren and his team improved the topography of Jerusalem and discovered the ancient water systems that lay beneath the city. The water system was later named Warren's Shaft, after his work. They also made the first excavations of Tell es-Sultan, site of the biblical city of Jericho. A 2013 publication, The Walls of the Temple Mount, provides more specifics about Warren's work, as summarized in a book review:
"... he concentrated on excavating shafts down beneath the ground to the level of the lower parts of the external Temple Mount walls, recording the different types of stonework he encountered at different levels and other features, such as Robinson's Arch on the western side and the Herodian street below it. ... in 1884 the PEF published a large portfolio of 50 of Warren's maps, plans and drawings titled Plans, Elevations, Sections, etc., Shewing the Results of the Excavations at Jerusalem, 1867–70 (now known as the 'Warren Atlas')." In 1875, the Earl of Shaftesbury, a prominent social reformer, told the Annual General Meeting of the PEF that "We have there a land teeming with fertility and rich in history, but almost without an inhabitant – a country without a people, and look! scattered over the world, a people without a country." It was one of the earliest usages by a prominent politician of the phrase "A land without a people for a people without a land," which was to become widely used by advocates of Jewish settlement in Palestine. And, he added: "But let it return into the hands of the Israelites..." In 1878, the Treasurer's statement listed over 130 local associations of the PEF in the United Kingdom (including Ireland). There were also branches in Canada and Australia, and Gaza City and Jerusalem. Expenditure in 1877 amounted to £2,959 14s 11d. Notable persons associated with PEF:
Claude R. Conder Charles Warren Lord Kitchener Edward Henry Palmer T. E. Lawrence Kathleen Kenyon Conrad Schick William Simpson Charles Wilson
Early projects
The first 21 years of the fund are summarised in PEF (1886). Its chapters and persons mentioned include the following:
The Foundation of the Society Claude Conder Charles Warren Lord Kitchener Edward Henry Palmer Kathleen Kenyon Conrad Schick William Thomson (Archbishop of York) Charles Wilson In his opening address (p.8), Archbishop Thomson laid down three basic principles for the Society:
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