Lectures & Events

Please note that views expressed at our lectures and events do not necessarily represent the views or policy of the PEF, but are the speaker's and audience's own.

FREE

PEF EVENT

Thursday 24th October 2024, 7pm
JOINTLY WITH THE KITCHENER SCHOLARS ASSOCIATION

Lord Kitchener and the Survey of Western Palestine

  • Felicity Cobbing, PEF and Charles Bryant, Kitchener Scholars Association
  • PEF, 5-6 Dreadnought Walk, Greenwich, London SE10 9FP
  • Free, please email rsvppef@gmail.com to reserve your ticket/s

 

Following his training as a Royal Engineer, Herbert Kitchener was seconded as a surveyor, aged 24, to the Palestine Exploration Fund to join and subsequently lead the Western Palestine Survey (1874-77), which successfully mapped the rugged landscape of the Southern Levant – maps still in use today. Aside from explaining the Palestine setting and context, and the founding and work of the PEF, we will delve into the influence that this experience had on the life and career of Herbert Kitchener and his team:  their adventures on horseback under canvas, their accomplishments and legacy. What started as a ‘gap year’ became a stepping-stone to his iconic career in the context of great power politics, the army, and British imperialism. 

 
About the Speakers
Felicity Cobbing is Chief Executive and Curator of the Palestine Exploration Fund. She has excavated at Tell es-Sa’idiyeh in Jordan with the British Museum and has travelled extensively in the Levant. She is a specialist tour lecturer for Martin Randall Travel, with a particular interest in the region’s Bronze and Iron Ages of the third to first Millenniums bce, and the history of archaeology. She has co-authored several books on the collections at the PEF. 
Charles Bryant is Honorary Historian of the Kitchener Scholars’ Association and a Committee member. He has a keen interest in promoting the continuing relevance and influence of Lord Kitchener and his activities to successive generations.

 

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FREE

PEF EVENT

Thursday 26th September 2024, 3.30pm to 8.30pm
SPECIAL OPEN DAY EVENT

STORIES FROM MY GRANDMOTHER'S HOUSE:
A VIRTUAL REALITY TOUR THROUGH TIME, SPACE AND MEMORY.

  • Mado Kelleyan, Royal College of Art
  • PEF, 5-6 Dreadnought Walk, Greenwich, London SE10 9FP
  • Free, please email rsvppef@gmail.com to reserve your 30 minute slot!

Stories From My Grandmother’s House is a Virtual Reality experience that follows the love story of Mado Kelleyan’s Armenian and Palestinian grandparents across the Middle East. As a person of Middle Eastern descent growing up in the diaspora, the project is designed to hold space for Mado’s heritage and experience it as if it is a memory, exploring how digital technologies can reconnect communities with lost spaces and cultures. 
Ticket holders will first watch a short video explaining the background to the project and its creation, before donning a VR headset to become immersed in this unique experience. 
You first arrive in a room in Mado’s grandmother’s house in Haifa in the 1930s, full of her grandfather’s paintings and decorative elements reconstructed from online and family archives, celebrating the rich cultural heritage of both sides of the family. The room functions a little like the wardrobe to Narnia, through which you are able to adventure through different objects into scenes from the family story, from a shipwreck off the coast of Akka in the 1780s to the adoption of Mado’s grandfather in Aleppo during the Armenian Genocide in 1915, through to her grandparents meeting by chance in Haifa in 1932.
 
About the Artist
Mado Kelleyan is an artist & storyteller from London. Her work uses immersive technologies such as VR & AR to create portals – interventions in physical and digital environments designed to hold space for under-represented stories from human & non-human worlds. Powerful but empathetic, her work focuses on knowing through feeling, engaging audiences with alternative ways of understanding the world through rich, multi-sensory experiences that audiences remember long after they leave. Presently, she is working on a VR film that tells the story of her Palestinian and Armenian family, a way to sit inside heritage and experience it as if it is a memory. She has exhibited at London Festival of Architecture & SXSW and has over 10 years of experience delivering projects for clients such as The Smithsonian, Bestival, IKEA & Amazon.
 

 
 

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PEF EVENT

Wednesday 3rd July 2024, 6pm

Reclaiming the Road Not Taken: Indigenous Knowledge versus Classical Perceptions at Beth-Zur

  • Laura Mazow, East Carolina University
  • PEF, 5-6 Dreadnought Walk, Greenwich, London SE10 9FP
  • Free, please email rsvppef@gmail.com to reserve your ticket/s
At the Hellenistic site of Beth-Zur, Khirbet et-Tubeiqa, in the West Bank, excavations undertaken by McCormick Theological Seminary and the American Schools of Oriental Research in 1931 and in 1957 uncovered a large number of variously sized basins, both clustered and individually distributed across the site. Suggested interpretations—both industrial and hygienic—were offered from a variety of participants in the project, ranging from the local Palestinian community, the American archaeologists and European visitors to the site. Despite local knowledge identifying the buildings as a tannery, wool washing, or dye plant, and numerous artefacts indicative of large-scale textile industry, the final archaeological reports reject this interpretation in favour of identifying the basins as bathing tubs, preferencing parallels with Hellenistic and Roman Egypt and the Aegean and interpreting them as part of the Hellenisation of the Southern Levant.
 
A re-examination of the archaeological context suggests that the original suggestion of wool processing installations may be a more accurate interpretation. Recognising these bathtubs as better suited to industry than hygiene indicates they reflect a technological innovation rather than a Greek-inspired luxurious lifestyle. This has implications as to how we understand the impact and influence of Hellenisation in the Southern Levant, as well as our understanding of activities ranging from bathing practices to the textile industries at the time. However, older paradigms continue to hold sway in archaeological reconstructions. Revealing the development and entrenchment of these ideas enables us to see the colonialising effect of American and European values on the marginalisation of indigenous knowledge that masked alternative interpretations of the archaeological record.
 
 
About the Speaker
Laura is an archaeologist and an associate professor in the anthropology department at East Carolina University. Her area of interest is the archaeology of the Middle East particularly in the Mediterranean Bronze and Iron Ages. Her research focuses on the study of ancient technologies, particularly ancient weaving technologies, and Archaeology and the Bible. Her current research is on ancient textile production processes and organic residue analysis in archaeology, for which she has received several grants.

 

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PEF EVENT

Thursday 6th June 2024, 6pm.

Life and Death in the City: Rethinking Funerary Practices in the Bronze Age Levant.

  • Holly Winter, University of Sydney
  • PEF, 5-6 Dreadnought Walk, Greenwich, London SE10 9FP
  • Free, please email rsvppef@gmail.com to reserve your ticket/s
Middle Bronze Age (MBA) Canaan in the 2nd Millennium BCE was a cosmopolitan place with cultural influences from Egypt and the Aegean to Mesopotamia. Architectural styles like the Courtyard Palace form and the Fortress Temples have their origins in northern Mesopotamia and Syria at sites like Ebla and Qatna. Their functions were multiple, and as well as daily life and worship, included funerary practices, with elite burials being incorporated within them. 
This suggests that there was a high degree of integration between the worlds of the living and the dead in Middle Bronze Age Canaan at the elite level, and that these ‘houses of the dead’ formed a focus of commemoration, stressing continuity, and ensuring the stability, wealth and fertility for the city, its ruling elite, and its inhabitants. 
 
About the Speaker
Holly is a field archaeologist with an interest in the Bronze Age of the Near East. She recently completed her PhD on Bronze Age monumental funerary architecture of the Levantine Bronze Age at the University of Sydney, and is currently in the UK researching an unpublished archaeological survey of the River Qoueiq in northern Syria conducted by John Matthers in the 1970s, for which she was awarded a PEF Field Research Grant earlier this year. She is currently Senior Archaeologist in historical archaeology and heritage consulting in Sydney.

 

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PEF EVENT

Thursday 16th May 2024, 6pm.

156 YEARS OF TELL DHIBAN AND THE PEF

  • Bruce Routledge, University of Liverpool
  • PEF, 5-6 Dreadnought Walk, Greenwich, London SE10 9FP
  • Free, please email rsvppef@gmail.com to reserve your ticket/s
The PEF has been involved with the site of Tell Dhiban, Jordan, since the discovery of the Mesha Inscription (Moabite Stone) in 1868.  George Grove, the PEF’s first honorary secretary ‘strongly encouraged’ Charles Warren to acquire the inscription, which ended up in the Louvre.  Duncan Mackenzie was commissioned by the PEF to make the first proper map of the site in 1910.  In the most recent phase of this long relationship, the PEF has served as one of the sponsors of current work at the site being carried out by the University of Liverpool, the Department of Antiquities of Jordan and a variety of other Jordanian and international partners.  In particular, the PEF archives have served as a resource for ongoing site development and community engagement work.  In this lecture Dr. Routledge will review the long and fruitful history of the PEF’s engagement with Tell Dhiban, including the results of recent archaeological research on the Mamluk, Byzantine, Nabataean and Iron Age periods as well as economic and cultural development work on site and in the adjacent community.
 

About the Speaker

Dr. Bruce Routledge is a Reader in the Department of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology at Liverpool University. His research has focused on the Bronze and Iron Ages of the Levant, and he has particular expertise in the Iron Age of Jordan.  He has strong interests in political theory, political economy, complex networks and embodied knowledge. Since 2004 he has co-directed the Dhiban Excavation and Development Project, a community-oriented research project at Tell Dhiban in central Jordan. He is author of many articles and books focussing on issues of state formation, hegemony and power, and inter-regional connections in the Iron Age. 

 

Poster image: A Mamluk era administrative building excavated by the Jordanian Department of Antiquities. Photo: Bruce Routledge.

 

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PEF EVENT

Thursday 18th April 2024, 6pm.

THE WALLS OF JERICHO: AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL CAUTIONARY TALE

  • Felicity Cobbing, Palestine Exploration Fund
  • PEF, 5-6 Dreadnought Walk, Greenwich, London SE10 9FP
  • Free, please email rsvppef@gmail.com to reserve your ticket/s
The site of Tell es Sultan, ancient Jericho, has long fascinated pilgrims, scholars, archaeologists and tourists, primarily because of its setting for one of the most famous stories in the Hebrew Bible, that of the Battle of Jericho (Josh 6: 1-27). Using archival excavation records housed at the PEF, this talk will look at the archaeological explorations at Tell es Sultan, particularly those conducted by British archaeologist John Garstang in the 1930s, and those of his successor at the site, Kathleen Kenyon in the 1950s, to reveal the sometimes tenuous and misleading relationship between biblical story and archaeological evidence.
 

About the Speaker

Felicity Cobbing is Chief Executive and Curator at the Palestine Exploration Fund in London. She has excavated  at Tell es-Sa’idiyeh in Jordan with the British Museum and has travelled extensively in the Levant. She is a specialist tour lecturer for Martin Randall Travel, with a particular interest in the region’s Bronze and Iron Ages of the third to first Millenniums BCE, and the history of archaeology. She has co-authored several books on the collections at the PEF. 

Poster image: The ‘Palace Store Rooms’ at Jericho. Photo by John Garstang, PEF archives.

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PEF EVENT

Thursday 21st March 2024, 6pm.

WHAT'S IN A NAME? A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE SO-CALLED 'TOMB OF THE PHARAOH'S DAUGHTER' IN SILWAN

  • Matthew Suriano, University of Maryland, & Daoud Ghoul, Newcastle University
  • PEF, 5-6 Dreadnought Walk, Greenwich, London SE10 9FP
  • Free, please email rsvppef@gmail.com to reserve your ticket/s
The Monolith of Silwan, originally built as a tomb in the late-Iron Age, is popularly known as the “Tomb of Pharaoh’s Daughter.” The name is not ancient, however. It first appeared in the 19th century CE when scholars sought to connect the monolithic-structure with the Bible. Although this identification has long since been dismissed based on historical and archaeological considerations, the name is still applied to the monument today. In Arabic it is known as  اﻟﻣﻧﺷﺎر ﻣﻐﺎرة
 (“Cave of the Saw”), though this name is rarely mentioned in western descriptions of the ancient tomb. Along with its renaming, the landscape surrounding the monolith has undergone significant transformation in the past 150 years, due in part to its perceived biblical importance. This talk will look at those changes, documented through pictures and photographs, and will review the history of European exploration of the landmark structure in the 19th and 20th centuries. The images, travel accounts, and architectural studies from this period, beginning in the 1850s, will show how western scholars have long neglected local knowledge in their study of the Monolith of Silwan. As a result the structure has been isolated from the surrounding village. Today, as the Monolith of Silwan faces new challenges, we will suggest approaches that incorporate the community in an effort to reconstruct a fuller and more robust history of this ancient monument.
 

About the Speakers

Matthew J. Suriano is an Associate Professor in the Joseph and Rebecca Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Maryland where he teaches Hebrew Bible, ancient religions, and archaeology. A former fellow at the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem, Suriano has also participated in several archaeological excavations and surveys in Israel. He has written extensively on death and burial in the ancient world, and his book A History of Death in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford University Press, 2018) won the American Society for Overseas Research’s Frank Moore Cross Award. His research interests also involve Jerusalem and he is currently studying the monolithic tombs in Silwan.

Daoud Ghoul is currently researching the emerging geographies of Jerusalem for a PhD at Newcastle University. He received his BA in Political Science in 2009, and his MA in Jerusalem Studies in 2019 from al-Quds University. He has a variety of experiences through working in different fields, including community work, management, and working as a tour guide in Palestine.

Poster image: The Monolith of Silwan. Photo by Matthew Suriano.

 

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PEF EVENT

Thursday 15th February 2024, 6pm.

MANAGING MENTAL ILLNESS IN MANDATE PALESTINE

  • Chris Sandal-Wilson, University of Exeter
  • PEF, 5-6 Dreadnought Walk, Greenwich, London SE10 9FP
  • Free, please email rsvppef@gmail.com to reserve your ticket/s
How did Palestinians living under British mandate rule in the decades after the First World War respond to mental illness? What responsibility – if any – did the British mandate government take for the provision of psychiatric care or cure for their colonial subjects after the First World War? And how might Palestinian families look beyond the government’s medical offerings, and indeed the borders of mandate Palestine itself, as they sought out to alleviate and manage the psychological suffering of relatives? This talk maps out responses to mental illness in British mandate Palestine, highlighting the perhaps surprising diversity of therapeutic options available – and the agency which Palestinian families exercised in negotiating the challenge of mental illness under colonial rule.
 

About the Speaker

Chris Sandal-Wilson is a lecturer in the history of medicine at the University of Exeter. His first book, Mandatory Madness: Colonial Psychiatry and Mental Illness in British Mandate Palestine, was published at the end of 2023 by Cambridge University Press.

Poster Image: The building of the Mandate Government mental hospital near Bethlehem, Palestine, 1890 – 1948. Matson Collection, Library of Congress, matpc 06298 https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/matpc.06298

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PEF EVENT

Thursday 18th January 2024, 6pm.

MY FAMILY IN JORDAN: THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF ALAN HILLS

  • Richard Hills, photographer.
  • PEF, 5-6 Dreadnought Walk, Greenwich, London SE10 9FP
  • Free, please email rsvppef@gmail.com to reserve your ticket/s
Experience Jordan, its people and the excavations at Tell es-Sa’idiyeh in Jordan through the lens of photographer Alan Hills. This unique insight into Jordan seen through the eyes of Alan and his son Richard, both of whose first experience of Jordan were as children. Richard has now digitised and will share his father’s work as Head Photographer on the British Museum excavations in the Jordan Valley during the ’80s and ’90s.
 

About the Speaker

Back in 1986 Richard was taken as a child to Jordan and the Tell es-Sa’idiyeh excavation by his father, Alan Hills, who worked at the British Museum as a photographer. Richard has since had a fascination with Near Eastern ancient history and archaeology which has endured until today. He studied British archaeology at university, before pursuing a career in marketing, particularly in the heritage and tourism sector in the UK and in Jordan. 

Poster Image: Bedouin tent and ancient site in the Jordan Valley, looking towards the West Bank. Photograph Alan Hills, 1990s.

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PEF EVENT

Wednesday 10th May 2023, 6pm.

HOW TO BUY ANTIQUITIES IN 19th CENTURY PALESTINE

  • Michael Press, University of Agder, Norway.
  • PEF, 5-6 Dreadnought Walk, Greenwich, London SE10 9FP
  • Free, please email rsvppef@gmail.com to reserve your ticket/s
Imagine you are one of the tens of thousands of tourists who went to Palestine in the 19th century. What souvenirs would you want to bring back to remember your trip by? One option would be antiquities – perhaps some coins, an engraved gem, or even a manuscript. This talk will provide a sort of guide to purchasing antiquities: where to buy them, what to buy, and how to get them home. Acquiring antiquities could be a colourful process, but beneath that colour is a harder reality: tourists typically ignored the laws of their host country in bringing their antiquities home.
 

About the Speaker

Michael Press is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Agder in Kristiansand, Norway. There he is part of the research project The Lying Pen of Scribes: Manuscript Forgeries, Digital Imaging, and Critical Provenance Research. His current research focuses on the development of the antiquities trade in Palestine over the course of the 19th century. He has also written on archaeology, cultural heritage, and their presentation to the public for the Times Literary Supplement, Aeon, Hyperallergic, the Tel Aviv Review of Books, History Today, and other outlets.

 Poster Image: “Riding party, 1903” American Colony. LC-DIG-ppmsca-15830-00001

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PEF EVENT

Thursday 4th May 2023, 6pm.

A SEA OF FRAGRANCES: The Sensory Experience of Jaffa in British Travel Writing

  • Anne Caldwell, University of Aberdeen.
  • PEF, 5-6 Dreadnought Walk, Greenwich, London SE10 9FP
  • Free, please email rsvppef@gmail.com to reserve your ticket/s
 
Throughout history, smell has been a powerful social indicator of acceptability and otherness. By the mid-19th century, smell was not simply pleasant or unpleasant, but associated with cleanliness – or lack thereof. Travel writers to the newly acquired Mandatory Palestine offered readers a sensory experience of the land, Jaffa and its environs in particular. While Zionist settlements and the surrounding orange groves were filled with floral fragrances, Jaffa itself was often described as unclean. These descriptions corresponded to a belief that hygiene needed to be taught; that there was not an inherit cleanliness within non-Western European communities. This paper aims to examine how the use of smell within travel literature during the first decade of the Mandate was used to portray a complex, but constructed binary in Jaffa and Tel Aviv between perceived “civilized” settler communities and the “unclean” Arab population – and the way in which the latter sensory descriptions mirrored those of Jewish communities immigrating from Europe.
 

About the Speaker

Anne Caldwell is a Teaching Fellow of Jewish History at the University of Aberdeen. Her research focuses on the way in which Zionist agriculture was portrayed within various forms of British cultural media.

Poster Image: The Port at Jaffa, November 1917. Photo by Captain Arthur Rhodes. PEF-P20-RHODES-85

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ONLINE: JOINT ALBRIGHT INSTITUTE - PEF EVENT

Tuesday 2nd May 2023, 2:30pm BST / 4:30pm IDT

The Antiquities Trade in Israel and Palestine: Same as It Ever Was?

  • Morag Kersel, DePaul University, and Michael Press, University of Agder, Norway.
  • At the Albright Insitute Jerusalem and Online
  • See poster for more details
For centuries people have bought and sold antiquities from the Holy Land. At times these sales were ad hoc, with vendors at  the side of the road on the way to holy sites.
At other times the sales of artifacts was more formalised, regulated by law and an oversight body tasked with monitoring the trade.  
In this webinar, we will examine elements of the antiquities trade in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, looking at whether the market for ancient objects is the same as it ever was. 

About the Speakers

Morag Kersel is Associate Professor of Anthropology at DePaul University. In addition to participating in archaeological excavations and surveys in Israel, Jordan and Palestine, she is interested in the relationship between cultural heritage law, archaeological sites, and objects, and local interpretation. She also works on public display and interpretation of archaeological artifacts in institutional spaces. To learn more, visit: https://followthepotsproject.org/

Michael Press is a Postdoctoral Resarch Fellow at the University of Agder, where he is part of the research project The Lying Pen of Scribes: Manuscript Forgeries, Digital Imaging, and Critical Provenance Research. His current research focuses on the antiquities trade in19th century Palestine. He also writes on archaeology and cultural heritage for the Time Literary Supplement, Aon, Hyperallergic, and other outlets. 

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PEF EVENT

Wednesday 19th April 2023, 6pm.

MAPPING AND MALARIA: The PEF and the Seeds of Malaria Elimination in Palestine in the 20th Century

  • Anton Alexander, Independent Research.
  • PEF, 5-6 Dreadnought Walk, Greenwich, London SE10 9FP
  • Free, please email rsvppef@gmail.com to reserve your ticket/s
In 1919, Palestine was described by a future director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine as one of the most malarious countries in the world. The disease in Palestine was in fact ‘the elephant in the room’, was rarely mentioned yet hampered many attempted activities in the country. With the formation of the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF) in 1865, from the time of mapping the country, the Fund kept its members up to date with news of activities in Palestine, and which news may also, but only very occasionally, have included a very brief mention of malaria that had hindered an activity. The British Army appears to have benefitted by its officers’ membership of the PEF through the news which possibly and coincidentally appears to have reminded the Army over the years of the existence of the disease. The very decisive defeat by the British Army in 1918 of the Turkish Army in Palestine was in part due to the steps taken by the British Army to temporarily control the malaria, and which principles were adopted four years later as a basis and developed into the start in Palestine of the first malaria elimination campaign anywhere in the world.
 

About the Speaker

Anton Alexander is a retired solicitor conducting research into the history of malaria elimination in Palestine 100 years ago. The lessons learned from this malaria elimination are relevant today, and Anton now participates in many conferences, offering insights into how the disease was defeated in Palestine all those years ago.

 

Poster Image: The Kishon River near Carmel, Israel. Watercolour by Claude R. Conder, 1872. PEF-PI-112

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PEF EVENT

Wednesday 5th April 2023, 6pm.

NINE QUARTERS OF JERUSALEM

  • Matthew Teller, author and journalist.
  • PEF, 5-6 Dreadnought Walk, Greenwich, London SE10 9FP
  • Free, please email rsvppef@gmail.com to reserve your ticket/s
In Jerusalem, what you see and what is true are two different things. Maps divide the walled Old City into four quarters, yet that division doesn’t reflect the reality of mixed and diverse neighbourhoods. Beyond the crush and frenzy of its major religious sites, much of the Old City remains little known to visitors, its people overlooked and their stories untold. 
In this talk, Matthew will  explore the Old City’s Palestinian and Jewish communities, but also spotlight its Indian and African populations, its Greek and Armenian and Syriac cultures, its downtrodden Dom Gypsy families and its Sufi mystics. It discusses the sources of Jerusalem’s holiness and the ideas – often startlingly secular – that have shaped lives within its walls. It is an evocation of place through story, led by the voices of Jerusalemites.
 
The talk is based on Matthew’s new book, “Nine Quarters of Jerusalem: A New Biography of the Old City” (Profile Books, 2022), in which the communities of the Old City speak for themselves. Ranging through ancient past and political present, it evokes the city’s depth and cultural diversity. It was named a Book of the Year by the Daily Telegraph.
 

About the Speaker

Matthew Teller writes for the BBC, Guardian, Independent, Times, Financial Times and other global media. He has produced and presented documentaries for BBC Radio 4 and World Service, and has reported for Radio 4’s ‘From Our Own Correspondent’ from around the Middle East and beyond. His previous book was “Quite Alone: Journalism from the Middle East 2008–2019”.

 

Poster Image: Book cover of “Nine Quarters of Jerusalem” by Matthew Teller. (Profile Books, 2022). Original artwork by Shehab Kawasmi

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PEF EVENT

Wednesday 22nd February 2023 6pm.

Exploring the Explorers: Curiosities and Peoples in the Ethnographic Collections of the Palestine Exploration Fund

  • Omar J. Nasser-Khoury, Designer.
  • PEF, 5-6 Dreadnought Walk, Greenwich, London SE10 9FP
  • Free, please email rsvppef@gmail.com to reserve your ticket/s

In this talk Omar J. will reflect on his research and work on the ethnographic collection of the PEF. What can the objects in such a collection tell us? The collection is diverse, disparate and curious. The documentation is minimal, and often lacking, making it both frustrating and interesting to engage with. How can we read these objects and what do they tell us about the collectors themselves besides the usual information on their use, provenance and cultural context?

About the Speaker

Omar J. Nasser-Khoury is a fashion and textile designer from Jerusalem. Since 2011, his design and research work has focused on contemporary and historic rural dress and textile techniques from Palestine. Some of his designs have been exhibited and acquired by the British Museum, and in 2019 he co-authored an embroidery manual; one of the first publications exclusively dedicated to documenting and teaching the different embroidery techniques used in Palestine rural textiles. 
 
Poster image: A selection of objects from the PEF’s Ethnographic Collections. Photo by Omar J. Nasser-Khoury.

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PEF EVENT

Thursday 19th January 2023 6pm.

Ancient Landscapes of Zoara - Surveys and Excavations South of the Dead Sea.

  • Konstantinos D. Politis, Hellenic Society for Near Eastern Studies.
  • PEF, 5-6 Dreadnought Walk, Greenwich, London SE10 9FP
  • Free, please email rsvppef@gmail.com to reserve your ticket/s

The city of Zoara in the Ghor es Safi is situated at the southern end of the Dead Sea in Jordan. It is a unique landscape with a unique story of human occupation. Associated with the biblical stories of Sodom and Gomorrah and the ‘Cities of the Plain’, this site and its surrounding landscape has been excavated by Konstantinos D. Politis and his team from 1997 to 2018, with funding from the Palestine Exploration Fund, among others. 

With the launch of his second PEF Annual on these excavations, Dr. Politis will talk about the project, the extraordinary finds they have discovered and what they can tell us about the history of humanity at this lowest place on earth. 

About the Speaker

Konstantinos D. Politis specialises in the archaeology of the Near East from prehistory through to the medieval periods and focuses on Late Antiquity. He has published numerous books and articles and has presented many lectures internationally. From 1986 to 2004, Dr. Politis led the Sanctuary of Lot Project for the British Museum, and from 1997 to 2018, he directed the Ghor es-Safi Project, instigating the Museum at the Lowest Place on Earth. He has also headed other projects for the Greek, Jordanian, Syrian, and Omani governments, the British Council, UNESCO, and USAID. Recently, he has completed seminal EU-funded research about the Ghor es-Safi at Athens and Ionian universities, now published. This latest PEF Annual, ‘Ancient Landscapes of Zoara II’, was published on the 9th of December, and is the second of his PEF publications focussing on the Survey and Excavtions in the Ghor es Safi in Jordan.
 
Poster image: Cover, PEF Annual XVIII: “Ancient Landscapes of Zoara II”. Routledge 2022. Photo of a 5th century Greek Funerary Inscription by Trevor Springett.

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PEF EVENT

Thursday 12th January 2023 6pm.

130 Years of Archaeology in the Levant: The Site of Tell el Hesi from Petrie to the Present.

  • Jeffrey Blakely, University of Wisconsin
  • PEF, 5-6 Dreadnought Walk, Greenwich, London SE10 9FP
  • Free, please email rsvppef@gmail.com to reserve your ticket/s

In 1890, the Palestine Exploration Fund asked the famous Egyptologist William Matthew Flinders Petrie if he would conduct an excavation in Palestine under their auspices. This he did, with his assistant the American archaeologist Dr. Frederick Jones Bliss, at the impressive multi period ‘Tell’ site of Tel el Hesi, in the foothills of what is now Israel. These excavations established a scientific approach to archaeology in the region, and so formed a model for subsequent archaeological excavations. For the last 50 years, Dr. Jeffrey Blakely from the University of Wisconsin, has led extensive surveys and excavations of his own at the site and its environs, building on Petrie and Bliss’s pioneering work. In this lecture, Dr. Blakely will describe how his team’s research added to our knowledge not just of the site but of the surrounding area, from the 3rd millennium of the Early Bronze Age right up to the Ottoman era of the 19th century.

About the Speaker

Jeff’s primary research interest is the archaeology of the Hesi region, between Gaza and Hebron, over the past ten millennia. He started working in the Hesi region in 1971. He currently co-directs the Hesi Regional Project in association with Jimmy Hardin of Mississippi State University. He has published many books and articles on the archaeology and history of the Hesi region. Currently he is preparing the final report on the archaeological survey of the Hesi region with Jimmy Hardin and a lengthy multi-author article on the archaeology of the 10th century BCE in the Hesi region. He has also worked at Caesarea Maritima (Israel), Wadi al-Jubah (Yemen), Aqaba (Jordan), and at various sites in the United States, publishing reports with each of the research groups. He teaches various courses in the archaeology of Ancient Israel/Biblical Archaeology as well as directed study courses on archaeology and culture in the Holy Land.
 
Poster image: PEF-P-78: Excavations at Tell el Hesi, 1891. Photography by Frederick Jones Bliss,  & The Hesi Regional Project in 2014. Photograph by William Isenberger.

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PEF EVENT

Thursday 15th December 2022 6pm.

"You Can Always Tell a Jaffa by its Juice!" How Jaffa Oranges Conquered Britain

The mid-19th century saw the birth of one of the most well-known oranges out there, the Jaffa orange. Not only was citrus the main export of the late Ottoman and Mandate periods, it became symbolic of the territory of the southern Levant and Palestine. In Britain, their popularity was seconded only by the Seville orange. In this talk, Anne Caldwell will reveal the fascinating tale of this “gold without alloy from the East” – hailed as everything from a cure for the ‘flu and general pick-me-up to put a “spring in your step”, to “the messengers of peace” after the Great War, and how they became part of British culture during the Mandate era between the two World Wars.

About the Speaker
Dr. Anne Caldwell is a Teaching Fellow at the University of Aberdeen. Her research explores Zionist agrarianism in British cultural media, with a special interest in citrus
 
Poster image: “Buy Jaffa Oranges”. Lithograph on canvas by Frank Newbold 1929. Yale Centre for British Art, Public Domain,
 

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PEF EVENT

Now Tuesday 15th November 2022 6pm.

"The Oddest Archaeologists to Visit Jerusalem." The story of the notorious Parker expedition and the search for the Temple treasures.

  • Graham Addison, Author.
  • PEF, 5-6 Dreadnought Walk, Greenwich, London SE10 9FP
  • Free, please email rsvppef@gmail.com to reserve your ticket/s

The mystery surrounding the Ark of the Covenant’s location is one of the world’s greatest and most enduring. One of the Bible’s most sacred and powerful objects has not been seen for over 2,500 years. The missing Ark has inspired quests, novels, and even a very famous film.

Of the quests to find the Ark, perhaps the most remarkable is the Parker expedition. Its story seems stranger than fiction and includes aristocrats, poets, psychics, secret cyphers in the Bible, a deadly curse, bribery, gun running, riots, and madness. It sounds unbelievable but the Parker expedition is real. Rudyard Kipling, who knew several of the expedition members, wrote ‘Talk of fiction! Fiction isn’t in it’.

Previously untold in its entirety, Graham Addison has uncovered many new details, which he skilfully weaves together in the amazing story of the individuals who in 1909 sailed on a private yacht bound for Jerusalem to retrieve the Ark.

About the Speaker
Graham is a history writer. He graduated in 1980 with a BA Hons in History from Leeds University. He then pursued a successful career in business where he worked for leading international technology companies including Apple and Infor. 
If you love the world of mobile communications, personal computing, spreadsheets, instantly being able to search for any answer in the world and online financial transactions, then Graham played a small part in its creation. If you hate a world in which people spend all their time on their phone, can’t be bothered to remember anything because they can always look it up, you are asked to fill in yet another spreadsheet, and can’t speak with an individual because you are always dealing with a computer, then he is sorry!
Graham is now a full-time writer. His first book , ‘Raiders of the Hidden Ark: The story of the Parker Expedition to Jerusalem’ was published internationally last year. He is currently working on his second book

Poster for download

FREE

PEF EVENT

Thursday 13th October 2022 6pm.

The Inheritance of Christ: Christian Pilgrimage in the Holy Land Before the Crusades, c.800 - 1c. 099

  • Daniel Reynolds, University of Birmingham
  • PEF, 5-6 Dreadnought Walk, Greenwich, London SE10 9FP
  • Free, please phone 020 7935 5379 or email rsvppef@gmail.com
Christian Pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the early Islamic period has received comparatively less attention than the Roman and Crusading periods in recent scholarship. It is also a topic that has tended to be seen through the eyes of travellers from early medieval western Europe, often at the expense of the practices and experiences of local Christian communities in the Islamicate world who continued to form a central part of the region’s social and political landscape into the eleventh century.
Buildings like the Church of the Anastasis not only remained important focal points for Christian expression, but also arenas in which the social interactions, celebrations and occasional communal tensions between Muslim and Christian populations played out.  Such diversity, encompassing pilgrimages from western Europe, Byzantium, and from within the Muslim world, also engendered differing perceptions and attitudes to the landscapes and buildings that individual pilgrims encountered in their journeys to the region. How did they intersect with one another as part of a complex and dynamic culture of pilgrimage?    
Drawing upon a range of material, from excavations and graffiti, to sources in Arabic, Greek, and Latin, this talk will examine the complexity and texture of the pilgrim experience from the rise of Abbasids to the coming of the Crusades.
 
About the Speaker
Dan is a Senior Lecturer in Byzantine History at the University of Birmingham with research interests in the history and archaeology of Byzantine and early Islamic Palestine and the Transjordan, c.300-c.1099. 
 

Poster for download

FREE

PEF EVENT

Thu 26th May 2022 (6pm BST)

Sacred Architecture: An exploration of al Aqsa Mosque's complex history and landmarks

  • Bashar Tabbah, Historical photographer and author
  • PEF, 5-6 Dreadnought Walk, Greenwich, London SE10 9FP
  • Free, please phone 020 7935 5379 or email rsvppef@gmail.com
Taking up a significant portion of the Old City of Jerusalem, the al-Aqsa sanctuary is an exceptional historical and religious complex. With the Dome of the Rock dominating a central platform, its unique architectural design and empowering golden dome is instantly recognisable the world over.
 
For many Muslims and non-Muslim alike the complex is hidden behind a veil of politics and conflict, with the Dome of the Rock taking centre focus while the rest of the complex is largely ignored. In reality it is a magnificent open-air museum, shrine, campus and public park, all rolled into one.
 

Measuring in at 144 acres, the area contains hundreds of landmarks from raised prayer platforms, to water fountains, schools, shrines, tombs and gates, each a snapshot of a history that spans 14 centuries.

 
Bashar Tabbah will be taking us through a sample of his photographic work on the complex, exploring the evolution of the complex over the centuries.
 
Biography:
Bashar Tabbah’s passion for photography, exploration and history has dominated his life for the past 18 years. Living in Jordan surrounded by historical treasures highly influenced his passion and outlook. He primarily focuses on sites of historical and cultural significance and has travelled extensively, photographing over 400 locations internationally as well as 300 in Jordan.
FREE
Olga Tufnell's Perfect Journey

PEF/CBRL joint Webinar

Thu 17th June 2021 (4pm BST)

Olga Tufnell's 'Perfect Journey'

Chaired by Felicity Cobbing (PEF) & Carol Palmer (CBRL)

Discussant Amara Thornton (UCL)

Please book here.

PEF/EGYPT EXPLORATION SOCIETY joint STUDY DAY

Sat 10th July 2021

Between Africa and Asia: New research from the Sinai Peninsula

This online study day, organised in partnership by the Egypt Exploration Society and the Palestine Exploration Fund, will consider some of the latest research into the archaeology and history of this unique landscape from its position as a frontier zone, as a melting pot for early Christianity, through to its late antiquity and subsequent historical exploration and mapping. Please book here.

Banner image: Wadi el-Zuweitin and the plateau of Gebel Katharina in the horizon. © Sinai Peninsula Research (SPR)

FREE

PEF/CBRL joint Webinar

Thu 9th Sept 2020 (4pm)

Was Jordan's Black Desert Green During the Late Neolithic?

  • Eastern Badia Archaeological Project team
  • Online Webinar
  • Free, book online

You can now access the recording of the webinar on:

Youtube

Soundcloud

See also the article in the Jordan Times.

 

FREE

PEF/CBRL joint lecture

Wed 26th Feb 2020 (6pm) & Fri 28th Feb 2020 (5.30pm)

The Survey of Western Palestine Revisited: The Visible and the Hidden

  • Salman Abu Sitta, Palestine Land Society (PLANDS)
  • PEF, 5-6 Dreadnought Walk, Greenwich, London SE10 9FP
  • Tickets free, but limited seats

Limited seats – please book by emailing collections@pef.org.uk

CANCELLED

PEF Event

Thu 19th Mar 2020 (6pm) THIS EVENT IS CANCELLED DUE TO THE COVID-19 OUTBREAK. WE HOPE TO RESCHEDULE IT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE

Excavating at Tel el Hesi, Past and Present

  • Jeffrey Blakely, University of Wisconsin
  • Palestine Exploration Fund, 5-6 Dreadnought Walk, Greenwich, London SE10 9FP
  • Tickets free, but limited seats

Meet archaeologist & Director of the current excavations at Tel el Hesi, Jeffrey Blakely, and get a behind the scenes look at the PEF’s archaeological material from its own excavations at the same site nearly 140 years ago.

Limited seats – please book by emailing collections@pef.org.uk

CANCELLED

PEF/BRITISH MUSEUM LECTURE

Thu 26th Mar 2020 (1.30–2.30pm)THIS EVENT IS CANCELLED DUE TO THE COVID-19 OUTBREAK. WE HOPE TO RESCHEDULE IT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE

Workers, Overseers and Interpreters: finding Palestinians in the excavations of the PEF

  • Sarah Irving, Edge Hill University, Lancashire
  • British Museum BP Lecture Theatre
  • Tickets are £5 (£4 for BM Members)
Book through British Museum website. Some free tickets are available for PEF members. Please book by emailing collections@pef.org.uk.
CANCELLED

PEF/AIAS JOINT LECTURE

Wed 29th Apr 2020 (6pm)

Fishing on the Sea of Galilee in the Early Roman Period

  • Richard Bauckham, St Andrews University
  • Institute of Archaeology, Lecture Theatre G6, Ground Floor, University, College London, 31-34 Gordon Square, London WC1H OPY
  • Admission free. No ticket required.

All welcome. Admission free. No ticket required. Enquiries 020 8349 5754.

Cancelled

PEF/BRITISH MUSEUM LECTURE

Thu 4th Jun (4pm)

The Lost Fortress of Umm Tawabin, Jordan

  • Alexandra Arriotti, PEF Grant Scholar
  • British Museum BP Lecture Theatre
  • Tickets are £5 (£4 for BM Members)
Book through British Museum website. Some free tickets are available for PEF members. Please book by emailing collections@pef.org.uk.
Taking up a significant portion of the Old City of Jerusalem, the al-Aqsa sanctuary is an exceptional historical and religious complex. With the Dome of the Rock dominating a central platform, its unique architectural design and empowering golden dome is instantly recognisable the world over.
 
For many Muslims and non-Muslim alike the complex is hidden behind a veil of politics and conflict, with the Dome of the Rock taking centre focus while the rest of the complex is largely ignored. In reality it is a magnificent open-air museum, shrine, campus and public park, all rolled into one.
 

Measuring in at 144 acres, the area contains hundreds of landmarks from raised prayer platforms, to water fountains, schools, shrines, tombs and gates, each a snapshot of a history that spans 14 centuries.

 
Bashar Tabbah will be taking us through a sample of his photographic work on the complex, exploring the evolution of the complex over the centuries.
 
Biography:
Bashar Tabbah’s passion for photography, exploration and history has dominated his life for the past 18 years. Living in Jordan surrounded by historical treasures highly influenced his passion and outlook. He primarily focuses on sites of historical and cultural significance and has travelled extensively, photographing over 400 locations internationally as well as 300 in Jordan.
Taking up a significant portion of the Old City of Jerusalem, the al-Aqsa sanctuary is an exceptional historical and religious complex. With the Dome of the Rock dominating a central platform, its unique architectural design and empowering golden dome is instantly recognisable the world over.
 
For many Muslims and non-Muslim alike the complex is hidden behind a veil of politics and conflict, with the Dome of the Rock taking centre focus while the rest of the complex is largely ignored. In reality it is a magnificent open-air museum, shrine, campus and public park, all rolled into one.
 

Measuring in at 144 acres, the area contains hundreds of landmarks from raised prayer platforms, to water fountains, schools, shrines, tombs and gates, each a snapshot of a history that spans 14 centuries.

 
Bashar Tabbah will be taking us through a sample of his photographic work on the complex, exploring the evolution of the complex over the centuries.
 
Biography:
Bashar Tabbah’s passion for photography, exploration and history has dominated his life for the past 18 years. Living in Jordan surrounded by historical treasures highly influenced his passion and outlook. He primarily focuses on sites of historical and cultural significance and has travelled extensively, photographing over 400 locations internationally as well as 300 in Jordan.