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 ... 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: •
That whatever was undertaken should be carried out on scientific principles •
That the Society should, as a body, abstain from controversy •
That it should not be started, nor should it be conducted, as a religious society. Regarding the latter, great emphasis was placed upon the nomenclature "Holy Land", so the notion of religion could never have been far away. Also (
p.10) stress was laid upon the fact that "The Society numbers among its supporters Christians and Jews". (Muslims were not mentioned.) • The Chronicle of the Society • The First Expedition • The Excavations at Jerusalem • The Desert of the Exodus • The Survey of Western Palestine • The Archaeological Expeditions • The Survey of Eastern Palestine • The Geological Survey • Smaller Expeditions • The Monuments of the Country • Obituary • The Work of the Future • Chronological Summary of the Fund's Work •
Captain Conder's identifications Elsewhere the following activities have been reported: • Excavations in Jerusalem (1867–1870); conducted by
Charles Warren and Henry Birtles • The
PEF Survey of Palestine (1872–1877); The majority of the work of the survey was carried out by men from the
Royal Engineers. • The Ordnance Survey of Sinai (1872); undertaken by
Edward Palmer. • Excavations at
Tell el-Hesi (1890–1893); under the direction of Sir
William Matthew Flinders Petrie, and
Frederick J. Bliss. • Excavations resumed at
Jerusalem (1890); led by F. Bliss, focussing on the southern edge of
Mount Zion round to the
Pool of Siloam. • Excavations at
Tell Zakariya (Azekah) (1897–1899); led by
Frederick J. Bliss and
R. A. Stewart Macalister. • Excavations at
Gezer (1902–1908); led by
R. A. Stewart Macalister. • Excavation at
Beth-Shemesh (1911); led by
Duncan Mackenzie. • The
Wilderness of Zin Archaeological Survey (1913–1914); conducted by Sir
Leonard Woolley and
T. E. Lawrence. • Excavation at
Ashkelon (1920s); led by
John Garstang. • Excavation of
Paleolithic site on the
Mount Carmel (1925); led by
Dorothy Garrod. • Excavations south of
Gaza and at
Beth Pelet (1929–1933); led by Petrie. • Excavation at
Samaria (1931–1933); led by
John W. Crowfoot with
Harvard and the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem. • Excavation at
Tel el-Duweir (1934–1938); led by
James Leslie Starkey until his murder in 1938. Finds included some of the earliest examples of
Hebrew written on over twenty
ostraca. The Palestine Exploration Fund was also involved in the foundation of the
British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem in 1919. The School worked with the Fund in joint excavations at Jerusalem's
Ophel in the 1920s. The school's second director,
John Winter Crowfoot, was Chairman of the PEF from 1945 to 1950. ==Women of the Palestine Exploration Fund==