The Palestine Exploration Fund

Das große Spiel: Archäologie und Politik zur Zeit des Kolonialismus (1840-1940)

The Great Game: Archaeology and Politics in the Age of Colonialism (1840-1940)

Ruhr Museum, Essen, Germany, February 12th - June 13th 2010

Left: one of the PEF's watercolours lent to the Ruhr Museum's exhibition: the Jezreel Valley, by Claude R. Conder. Survey of Western Palestine, 1872-74. PEF/PI/109  

 Below: a selection of flint tools collected by C. Leonard Woolley and T.E. Lawrence, Wilderness of Zin Survey of the Negev 1913-14.

The Ruhr Museum's spectacular new premises is currently home to a memorable exhibition featuring a significant loan of items from the PEF's collections and archives.  The PEF is proud to be making an important contribution (over fifty objects) to the exhibition, which represents a major advance in the study of culture and colonialism, and the interaction between the two.

It explores the relationship between archaeologists and explorers, their discoveries, and political motivations, not just in the Middle East, but across the Old World. 

The exhibition’s Curator, Dr. Charlotte Trümpler has collected together over 800 diverse artifacts, including those from the PEF, to illustrate this fascinating and relevant subject in a new and exciting way. The PEF’s contribution focuses on its groundbreaking work on the Survey of Western Palestine, its relationship with scholars like Dr. Gottlieb Schumacher, the affair of the Shapira Forgeries, and its involvement in the Wilderness of Zin survey of 1913-14.

For more information, see the exhibition webpage or visit the Ruhr Museum website.

The impressive publication of the same name by curator, Charlotte Trümpler has been available since 2008. Dr Trümpler spent much time consulting the PEF's archives during her research for this book and exhibition.