Lecture Summaries: 13 December, 2006

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by
David M. Jacobson and Felicity Cobbing

Claude Conder was one of the true pioneers of Levantine archaeology.  Like the other great names of the Victorian period, most notably Charles Wilson and Charles Warren, Conder was trained as a surveyor.   In the first part of this lecture, David Jacobson will present an outline of Conder’s life and principal achievements.  His most enduring accomplishment was in carrying out most of the first detailed survey of western Palestine as well as part of trans-Jordan, or eastern Palestine.  The mapping was undertaken to the precision & detail of an Ordnance Survey on a scale of one-inch to a mile.  

  As will be shown, Conder’s curiosity and interests ranged far wider and deeper than cartography.  In Jerusalem, Claude Conder discovered an intact fragment of a pilaster in the western enclosure wall of the Herodian Temple, which had survived above ground and he made the first accurate copy of the famous Siloam Inscription in King Hezekiah’s tunnel and was the first to identify the spot where the two parties digging the tunnel from both ends met.  He also pioneered the study of the megalithic monuments east of the Jordan and his team catalogued, photographed and drew approximately 700 prehistoric monuments.  Conder also occupied himself with the ancient languages of the Orient, studying Arabic, Hebrew and Hittite, and he was also a talented artist.  Many of his fine watercolours, which record the landscape and people of the Levant in the 19th century, are among the prized items in the PEF Collections.

  In the second part of the lecture, Felicity Cobbing, will examine how Conder’s distinctive personality contributed to his successes and failures in his career with the PEF. In particular, his involvement in the case of the ‘Moabite’ or ‘Shapira’ Forgeries, and the identification of the site of Qadesh on the Orontes (location of the famous battle between the forces of Rameses II and the Hittite King Muwattalis in the early 13th century BC, illustrate how his unique personality could be both his greatest strength and his greatest weakness.

  An examination of his relationship with his colleague on the Survey of Western Palestine, Horatio Herbert Kitchener, reveals further insights, as do his watercolours executed during the same survey which reflect much of the vibrant character of the man himself.

Last modified 15 November, 2007