Daily Archives: 17 February 2024

  • 3 November 2025·

FROM FURROW TO FLYING BOAT: THE EVOLUTION OF BRITAIN’S MANDATE-PERIOD AIR ROUTES IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Thanks to financial support from the Palestine Exploration Fund and with the gracious permission of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan, August-October 2025 saw the Desert Air Routes Project (the Project) continue its documentation of surviving physical infrastructure relating to the Mandate-period air routes which traversed the deserts of eastern Jordan and western Iraq between 1921 and 1948.
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  • 21 January 2025·

The Society for Palestinian Archaeology

Part 2: The Restoration and Documentation Project of the Shrine of Emad Al-Din on Mount Ebal, Nablus. By Loay Abu Alsaud Location: Mount Ebal, NablusHistorical Context: Early Ottoman Period to the present dayProject Start Date: April 17, 2023 The shrine of Emad Al-Din, located on Mount Ebal in Nablus, is a significant historical and religious site from the early Ottoman period (16th century CE). Over the years, the shrine fell into disrepair due to neglect, theft, and looting by treasure hunters, which caused severe damage to its structure and antiquities. Recognising its historical and cultural importance, the Society of Palestinian Archaeologists, in collaboration with the An-Najah National University Nablus as its academic partner, sought the necessary permissions from Ministry of Palestinian Antiquities, and…
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  • 21 January 2025·

The Society for Palestinian Archaeology

By Loay Abu Alsaud. Part 1. The Foundation of the Society The Society for Palestinian Archaeology was formally established on September 1, 2022, with a mission to advance the preservation, research study, and dissemination of Palestine’s extensive archaeological heritage. This organization emerged in response to the pressing need for a coordinated initiative dedicated to safeguarding Palestinian cultural and historical sites. These sites, which hold significant historical and cultural value, have increasingly faced threats from destruction, neglect, and misrepresentation. The Society aims to address these challenges by promoting research, enhancing awareness, and advocating for policies that protect and accurately represent Palestinian heritage. Through collaborations with local and international scholars, institutions, and communities, the Society seeks to ensure that Palestinian archaeology is…
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  • 26 November 2024·

The Zangaki Brothers at the Palestine Exploration Fund – A PEF Research Grant Project

Andrea Coffman, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC. It was the fall of 2008, and as a 2nd year graduate student in Photographic Preservation and Collection Management at Ryerson University, it was time for me to choose a topic for my Master’s thesis. I wanted to research photographs available to me in the rich collection at The George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York. It was there that I came across the work of the Zangaki Brothers, 19th-century Greek photographers based in Port Said, Egypt. I am American of Greek ancestry and so their name intrigued me. I found it notable that their loose, unbound prints were not stored in boxes under their name, as is the most common method…
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  • 29 October 2024·

Reflections on ethnographic fieldwork in rural Palestine at times of crises: tracing people and lifeways of Ottoman Beit Loya, Israel

By Roy Marom “Read it not as a dead record of a former world or of an extinct race,” Claude R. Conder implored the readers of Tent Work in Palestine (1878), his narrative of the Survey of Western Palestine undertaken in the 1870s, “but as a living picture of manners and of a land, which can still be studied by any who will devote themselves to the task.” (vol. 1, xxi).
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  • 20 February 2024·

British Women in Palestine: Teaching in Revolt, Opportunity and Lived Experience

By Alex Worsfold I have just returned from a bumper trip of archival visits around the UK, in search of the records of British women working in Palestine during the Arab Revolt (1936-1939). My hunt has taken me to the National Archives, the British Library, and then onto the Middle East Centre Archive (MECA) in Oxford – and next week it will take me to the Gertrude Bell Archive in Newcastle. The MECA has so far proved most helpful, housing a range of personal collections and memoires of British teachers and administrators in Palestine.  These records take a myriad of different forms: some are letters, as is the case with Dorothy Norman, or with Susana Emery’s, whose correspondence with her…
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  • 17 February 2024·

Prominent Palestinian Archaeologists of the 20th and 21st Centuries.

By Loay Abu Alsaud, Department of Tourism and Archaeology, Faculty of Humanities and Educational Sciences, An-Najah National University, Nablus, Palestine. loayabualsaud@najah.edu Presenting a new collection of biographical information on formerly overlooked Palestinian archaeologists and those following in their footsteps, to the present day During the 19th and 20th centuries, accounts of Western expeditions and research dominated the archaeological history of Palestine. Owing to centuries of foreign control, Palestinians did not have their own archaeological research base. Nevertheless, during the early to mid-20th century, there were Palestinian archaeologists as integral members of Western teams, involved in tasks in all areas. Working side by side with westerners, a number of them acquired professional archaeological skills and expertise. The Western expeditions depended on…
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  • 17 July 2023·

Congratulations to Our Newest PEF-AIAR Fellow: Dr. Madaline Harris-Schober

We’re very pleased to announce the latest recipient of the Palestine Exploration Fund-Albright Institute Fellowship, Dr. Madaline Harris-Schober from the University of Melbourne and Ludwig Maximillian Universität München. We’re also thrilled to report her successful defence today (July 14, 2023) of her dissertation titled, “Ritual Architecture, Material Culture and Practice of the Philistines,” which she passed summa cum laude on the written and oral sections of the defence.   Dr. Harris-Schober’s research addresses Philistine ritual architecture and its wider connections. Her main research interests include ancient ritual, archaeological reconstruction, Bronze and Iron Age architecture through interpretive archaeology. Dr. Harris-Schober has worked on a variety of projects, such as JVRP (Jezreel Valley Regional Project), Tell es-Safi/Gath Archaeological Project and Tell Akko…
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