Palestine Exploration Fund

Summary by Amara Thornton, with additional information from Felicity Cobbing, Palestine Exploration Fund

Established in London in 1865 to undertake exploration and excavation in the Levant. Archives relate to PEF field work (including the Survey of Western Palestine and excavations at numerous archaeological sites including Jerusalem, Tel el Hesi, Gezer, and Samaria), the history, monuments/structures, cultures and natural history of the Levant, and PEF administration. Also includes archives relating to the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem, John Garstang’s excavations at Jericho, Olga Tufnell, and Hilma Granqvist.  The PEF also has a substantial Library, open to members, of works on Levant archaeology, history, natural history, culture, languages, literature and travel.

Scope of collections:
Field notes, letters, drawings and paintings, architectural plans and surveys, photographs, maps, administrative archives, ephemera, archives relating to the Fund's journal Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement. Also archaeological & ethnographic objects, casts & models, scientific equipment & natural history specimens.

Website: www.pef.org.uk
Twitter: @PalExFund
Blog: www.pef.org.uk/blog
Flickr: ​www.flickr.com/photos/palestineexplorationfund/

Relevant contacts:
Felicity Cobbing, Executive Secretary and Curator

Further Reading
Cobbing, F. 2002. The Cedric Norman Johns archive in the collections of the Palestine Exploration Fund. Palestine Exploration Quarterly 134 (2): 169-172.

Cobbing, F. 2003. The Dickenson and Langley photographic archives: two new collections at the Palestine Exploration Fund. Palestine Exploration Quarterly 135 (2): 131-134.

Cobbing, F. 2012. Thomas Cook and the Palestine Exploration Fund. Public Archaeology 11 (4): 179-194.

Cobbing, F. 2017. The Palestine Exploration Fund: the collections of a learned society in London. Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and Heritage Studies 5 (1) :75-86.

Davis, T. 2004. Shifting Sands: the rise and fall of biblical archaeology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Gibson, S. 1999. British archaeological institutions in Mandatory Palestine, 1917-1948. Palestine Exploration Quarterly 131 (2): 115-143.

Moscrop, J. 1999. Measuring Jerusalem: the Palestine Exploration Fund and British Interests in the Holy Land. London: Leicester University Press.

Silberman, N. 1982. Digging for God and Country. New York: Knopf.

Thornton, A. 2009. Archaeological Training in Mandate Palestine: the BSAJ Minute books at the PEF. PEF Features. [Online].