Bible, Map and Spade: The American Palestine Exploration Society, Frederick Jones Bliss and the Forgotten Story of Early American Biblical Archaeology 9781463210748

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Bible, Map, and Spade The American Palestine Exploration Society, Frederick Jones Bliss, and the Forgotten Story of Early American Biblical Archaeology

Bible, Map, and Spade The American Palestine Exploration Society, Frederick Jones Bliss, and the Forgotten Story of Early American Biblical Archaeology

RACHEL HALLOTE

GORGIAS PRESS 2006

First Gorgias Press Edition, 2006 Copyright © 2006 by Gorgias Press LLC. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Published in the United States of America by Gorgias Press LLC, New Jersey

ISBN 1-59333-347-1

GORGIAS PRESS 46 Orris Ave., Piscataway, NJ 08854 USA www.gorgiaspress.com

Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS Contents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv Archival Sources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvi 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 From Missionaries to Archaeologists: Frederick Bliss as a Crossover Figure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Previous Scholarship on Americans in Palestine, and New Directions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 The American Palestine Exploration Society and Syrian Protestant College . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Assyriology versus Archaeology in the Nineteenth Century . . . . . . . 5 The Scientific Inclinations of Frederick Jones Bliss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2 Previous Presentations of American Exploration of Palestine . . . . . . . . 7 The Puritan Connection to the Holy Land. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Edward Robinson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Robinson’s Travels in Palestine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 The Lynch Expedition to the Dead Sea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 3 Palestine, Land of Western Opportunity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 The Early History of Holy Land Travel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Napoleon through the Mid Nineteenth Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Millennialist Belief in England and America in the Middle of the Nineteenth Century. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 American Colonists in Palestine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

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4 Artists, Photographers, and Leisure Travelers in Palestine . . . . . . . . . . 29 American Literary Leisure Travelers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Artists and Photographers in Palestine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 The Holy Land through the Photographer’s Lens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 American Re-creations of Palestine. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 5 Missionary Activity and the Beginnings of Archaeology in Palestine . . 43 American Missionary Activity and the Founding of Syrian Protestant College . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 British Missionary Activity and the Founding of the Palestine Exploration Fund . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Charles Wilson and Charles Warren . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 6 The American Palestine Exploration Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 The Early History of the American Palestine Exploration Society . 52 Connections between the American Palestine Exploration Society and Syrian Protestant College. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 The First Expedition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 The Second Expedition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Triangulation versus Reconnaissance Surveying. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 The Results of the Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 The Significance and Legacy of the American Palestine Exploration Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 7 The Other Direction of American Biblical Scholarship: Assyriology in the United States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 The Exclusion of the Archaeology of Palestine from American Near Eastern Scholarship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 The History of Mesopotamian Archaeology and Its Relationship to Excavation in Palestine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 The Uneasy Relationship between Assyriology and the Bible . . . . . 75 Hermann Hilprecht’s Attitude toward Biblical Archaeology . . . . . . 77 The Place of Jewish Academics in American Biblical Studies and Assyriology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 The Reconciliation between Assyriology and Biblical Archaeology: David Lyon and the Harvard Samaria Expedition . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

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8 Frederick Jones Bliss: Background and American Identification . . . . . 85 Daniel Bliss, Abby Wood Bliss, Amherst Society, and Emily Dickinson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Bliss’s American Identity during his Years with the Palestine Exploration Fund . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 Frederick Bliss’s Early Years, Personal Life, and Reasons for Career Choice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Frederick Bliss and His Father . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 Beginnings of Bliss’s Archaeological Career . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 9 The PEF Excavations at Tell el-Hesy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 Sir Flinders Petrie and the Choice of Tell el-Hesy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 The Choice of Bliss as Excavator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Bliss’s Apprenticeship with Petrie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Bliss at Tell el-Hesy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 Relations with Locals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Bliss’s First Season at Tell el-Hesy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 The Second Season at Tell el-Hesy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 The Third Season: The Bed of Ashes and the Amarna Tablet . . . 112 The Fourth Season at Tel el-Hesy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 Bliss’s Understanding of Archaeological Stratigraphy and Ceramics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 Bliss’s Personality and Personal and Health Issues, and Their Significance for His Relationship with the PEF . . . . . 118 10 The Jerusalem Excavations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 Schumacher, the Railroad Survey, and Tell el-Mutesellim . . . . . . . 121 Bliss’s American Nationalism and the Permit for Jerusalem . . . . . 124 Motivation for the Jerusalem Excavations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 Bliss’s Tunnels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 The Aqueduct: Bliss versus the PEF. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 Bliss’s Understanding of the Jerusalem Chronology . . . . . . . . . . . 130 Personal and Professional during the Jerusalem Years. . . . . . . . . . 130 Publication of the Jerusalem Excavations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

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11 The Excavations in the Southern Shephelah and the End of Bliss’s Association with the PEF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 The Choice of the Sites in the Southern Shephelah. . . . . . . . . . . . 135 The Course of the Southern Shephelah Excavations. . . . . . . . . . . 137 The Results and Publication of the Southern Shephelah Excavations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 The Specifics of the Firing of Bliss: Finances and the Controversy over the Museum . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 12 Bliss’s Life and Career after the PEF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 The Ely Lectures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 The Bross Lectures and Daniel Bliss’s Memoirs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 13 The Legacies of Frederick Jones Bliss: The American Entry into the Near East, the Founding of ASOR, and the Relationship of Archaeology to Politics in the Early Twentieth Century. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 The Career of Selah Merrill, and Merrill’s Interactions with Bliss. 159 The Early History of ASOR and its Connections to Syrian Protestant College . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 Making the Archaeological Political: James Henry Breasted and American Involvements in Palestine and the Near East . . . 171 Howard Bliss, Arab Nationalism, and the King-Crane Commission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 Frederick Bliss and King Faisal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178 Into the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 Appendix A: Letter from Frederick Bliss to his Family, including transcription of letter from PEF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 Appendix B: Letter from Frederick Bliss to Howard Bliss . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 Appendix C: Letter from PEF to Frederick Bliss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191 Appendix D: Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195 Archival Sources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195 Books and Journal Articles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My thanks to the Palestine Exploration Fund for allowing me to use the PEF archives and quote from its materials. I would specifically like to thank Rupert Chapman for pointing out the issue of the museum in Jerusalem, and Felicity Cobbing for guiding me through the archives and for her willingness to discuss the American Palestine Exploration Society with me. Many thanks are also due to all the staff of the Archives and Special Collections, Amherst College, especially Barbara Trippel Simmons, who, along with others, assisted me during my several visits there. I am very grateful for permission to quote from Amherst’s extensive Bliss Family materials. Some of my expenses while researching both in Amherst and in London were covered by grants from the Friends of Humanities, Purchase College SUNY. The many conversations that I had with colleagues about this project are too numerous to list, but discussions with William Dever about the history of the discipline were particularly valuable, as were conversations with Aren Maier about Tell es-Safi. Any errors contained in the text are my own. I thank my husband, Alexander Joffe, for driving me off-road to every site that Frederick Bliss excavated, and I especially thank my children, Sam and Rose Joffe, for their patience as I completed this work.

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ABBREVIATIONS ABCFM AIA AOS APES ASOR DPV EEF JAOS PEF PEFQS PEQ SBL SPC

American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions Archaeological Institute of American American Oriental Society American Palestine Exploration Fund American Schools of Oriental Research Deutcher Palästina-Verein Egypt Exploration Fund Journal of the American Oriental Society Palestine Exploration Fund Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement Palestine Exploration Quarterly Society of Biblical Literature Syrian Protestant College

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PREFACE ARCHIVAL SOURCES While this work is not intended as a biography of Frederick Jones Bliss, but rather as a study of American involvement in biblical archaeology in the nineteenth century, it does include significant biographic materials which have never been collected in one place before. A few pieces have been written on Bliss previously, but all of them are short, and none fully utilized the primary source material. These include a five-page article by Jeffery Blakely, the modern excavator of Bliss’s site of Tell el-Hesy (Blakely 1993), and a brief biographic sketch by Philip King, published in the Palestine Exploration Quarterly (King 1990). Both of these relied heavily on W. F. Albright’s short entry in the Dictionary of American Biography (Albright 1965). More significantly, in a pithy fifteen-page article, Olga Tufnell documented her sprint through 158 of Bliss’s personal letters housed at the Palestine Exploration Fund (Tufnell 1965). These letters were presented to the PEF in 1964 by Bliss’s grandniece and span the years 1889–1900. Other materials housed at the PEF that are better known to archaeological historiographers include the extensive collection of professional letters from Bliss to George Armstrong.1 But a large archive of primary source material regarding Frederick Jones Bliss has not yet been incorporated into any archaeological study. This is the extensive collection of Bliss family letters housed in the Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, in Amherst, Massachusetts. The collection comprises 35 folders of letters written by Frederick Bliss to members of his family, including his parents and siblings, between 1879 and 1920. This archive also includes numerous letters written by various family members to Bliss. The years that Bliss was excavating in Palestine are well documented within these. 1

A few previous works utilized this latter collection of Bliss material within specifically geared studies, such as Gibson and Rajak’s (1991) examination of Petrie and Bliss’s photographs of Hesi.

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Although Tufnell published selections from the family letters housed in the PEF in her 1965 article, she was unaware of the corresponding material in Amherst. The London letters and the Amherst letters were randomly separated from each other, as various portions of correspondence ended up in the possession of a variety of Bliss’s relations. Letters from the one archive are therefore often written within days of letters in the other, and all are interspersed chronologically. This study reunites the material in the two collections.

TERMINOLOGY As it was used in the nineteenth century, the term “Palestine” referred to both the western and eastern sides of the southern Levant. The current volume uses “Palestine” in this nineteenth-century sense. Similarly, the text occasionally uses the term “Holy Land” to refer to western Palestine, in reflection of the terminology used by various nineteenth-century explorers. Likewise, the term “biblical archaeology” is employed throughout the volume. In recent years this phrase has been replaced by several alternatives, and a debate still exists within the academy on how to refer to archaeological work done in the Southern Levant.2 However, when discussing the context of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it is still appropriate to refer to “biblical archaeologists,” as many of the individuals in question considered themselves exactly that. The text also employs older usages and spellings of place names and sites, for instance Near East rather than Middle East, and Tell el-Hesy rather than Tell el-Hesi.

2

See for instance, Dever 1972, 1985, 1993, and the end of chap. 13 below.

1 INTRODUCTION The history of the discipline of biblical archaeology is a fascinating one, filled with stories of adventure as well as moments of scientific insight. Several European countries are important within this larger history. However, when the focus of a discussion is narrowed to the birth of the science of excavation in Palestine, British involvement clearly dominated over French, German, and other European concerns. This is because the formative work of the British Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF) rightly deserves significant attention. Within the context of scientific archaeology, the specific story of the contributions of American archaeologists has been almost entirely neglected in favor of the British story. The United States is usually mentioned only when discussing the early biblical geographer Edward Robinson, and then ignored until the Harvard expedition to Samaria commenced in the early years of the twentieth century. Similarly, when the contributions of specific excavators of importance are discussed, they tend to include Sir Flinders Petrie (British), Gottleib Schumacher (German), Ernst Sellin (Austrian), and Charles Clermont-Ganneau (French). No Americans are included in the list. In fact, the only United States citizen ever mentioned in such early contexts is generally misidentified as British, and then only cited as a footnote to the story. That is Frederick Jones Bliss, the figure at the core of this volume. Bliss was the only American to excavate in Palestine until Harvard sent its first expedition out to Samaria in the years immediately preceding World War I. Bliss’s contributions were extraordinarily significant to the development of the discipline of biblical archaeology. Although he worked for the British PEF, the facts that he was American by nationality, and that he selfidentified as American, are pivotal to the way that the discipline evolved. W. F. Albright recognized this and even referred to Bliss as the “father of Palestinian archaeology,” a term that later generations would use for Albright himself, once Bliss was forgotten (Albright 1965). In spite of having Albright’s respect and recognition, Bliss’s role in the development of the discipline has been severely obscured as later genera1

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tions of scholars have retold the story of the early years of archaeology. This work examines the career of Frederick Jones Bliss in relation to the archaeology of the Holy Land and uncovers the reasons why his role in the history of the field is so often downplayed. Both Bliss’s person and his accomplishments fit into a larger forgotten story of American involvement in the early years of Palestine exploration.

FROM MISSIONARIES TO ARCHAEOLOGISTS: FREDERICK BLISS AS A CROSSOVER FIGURE Frederick Jones Bliss was the first American to excavate archaeological sites in the land then called Palestine. He fully published all of his excavations, and also published several additional volumes relating to the fields of archaeology and biblical studies. Most significantly, he was one of two men to completely revolutionize the understanding of archaeological tells. (His mentor, Sir Flinders Petrie, was the other.) But it is not these accomplishments alone that make Bliss such an interesting historical figure. Personally and professionally, Bliss straddled several worlds, and as such represents many of the conflicts present in late nineteenth century biblical studies and early archaeological endeavors. First, Bliss was an American working for the British. Second, he was a member of a prominent missionary family who had trained himself in scientific, rather than religious, study of the Bible. And last, he was a scientist working for an organization that vacillated wildly between scientific pursuits and religiously based ones. It is this very straddling act that causes most modern scholars to merely skim over Bliss’s accomplishments when reviewing the history of archaeology. In certain ways, Bliss did not fit the image that the discipline had of itself in those years, as his scholarly direction was at odds with the various twists and turns that it was taking. This is why his importance has been downplayed to date. In the chapters that follow, we explore Frederick Jones Bliss’s life and accomplishments in relation to the growth of archaeological scholarship and methodology as a whole, as well as in relation to American involvements in the Holy Land, archaeological and otherwise, in the late nineteenth century.

PREVIOUS SCHOLARSHIP ON AMERICANS IN PALESTINE, AND NEW DIRECTIONS The usual retelling of the story of American involvement in the Holy Land includes the assumption that there was no American archaeological presence

INTRODUCTION

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in Palestine in the entire second half of the nineteenth century. This version of the story can be seen in many of the histories of the discipline written in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and even in some of the most recent synthetic publications.1 According to such reconstructions, American involvement in the field began with the explorations of the biblical scholar Edward Robinson in the 1830s and 1840s and continued with the naval expedition of Captain William F. Lynch in the late 1840s. After the Lynch expedition, Americans do not reappear as Holy Land explorers until the excavations of the site of Samaria, undertaken in 1907 by Harvard University (Reisner 1924). For the intervening years, the usual narrative shifts away from America, to British and German excavations in Palestine, giving the appearance of a fifty-year gap in American involvement. And yet it was during this gap that Frederick Jones Bliss was working in Palestine. While it has been argued that because he worked for a British archaeological organization, his American nationality is not relevant, it will become clear that his American nationality was actually very much to the point. Furthermore, this volume explores the fact that even before Bliss began his archaeological career, the first half of this presumed gap was actually filled by an American organization that was deeply involved in Palestine exploration, albeit less successfully than its British counterpart. This American organization has been completely forgotten, even in modern American historiographic writing. The organization was the American Palestine Exploration Society (APES), which in the 1870s sent several expeditions to Palestine from a home base in New York.2 This society was intimately connected to Britain’s Palestine Exploration Fund, the very same organization that later employed Frederick Bliss. The PEF is still considered an important professional archaeological society. Today, all archaeological 1

Silberman 1982 and Moorey 1991 remain the two single-author synthetic studies of the history of the archaeology of Palestine. Other more recent volumes that follow the same general historical progression include Clark and Matthews 2003 and Hoffmeier and Millard 2004. See also Kuklick 2003 and Moscrop 2000. Additionally, there are many other studies of the larger topic of the development Near Eastern archaeology, all of which follow the same general historical structure. See for instance Shepherd 1987 and Vogel 1993, and also King 1983a, 1983b, and Williams 1999. 2 No more than a few sentences exist about the APES in the literature about the history of archaeology, with two exceptions, an article published in an early ASOR annual (Moulton 1928), and an article published in the 2005 volume of the PEQ (Cobbing 2005).

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scholars are aware of the PEF, but very few are even aware that an equivalent society ever existed in the United States.3 The story of the APES is enormously pertinent to the history of the discipline of biblical archaeology, as it demonstrates the deep-rooted connections between religion and scientific exploration, connections that are often distorted.

THE AMERICAN PALESTINE EXPLORATION SOCIETY AND SYRIAN PROTESTANT COLLEGE The APES was founded not by university academics, but by a group of ministers and missionaries who were interested in exploring the land of the Bible in a scientific manner. It is this original connection with religion that stopped the organization from growing beyond a certain point. However, the very same connection with the Bible helped launch Western interest in excavating biblical lands. The APES originally comprised a committee of thirty members, led by the Reverend Josiah Thompson. Its membership included the Reverend D. Stuart Dodge, of Syrian Protestant College in Beirut. Dodge was the first, but not the only, member of that missionary institution to take up the cause of American archaeology in Palestine. Dodge was soon joined by Daniel Bliss, the founding president of Syrian Protestant College. Daniel Bliss was the father of Frederick Jones Bliss. Syrian Protestant College was one of two important missionary institutions that the Americans had founded in the Ottoman Empire.4 The Ottoman government had stifled Western missionary activity in the Near East since the beginning of the century, when Pliny Fisk and Levy Parsons had encountered Ottoman restrictions (and Jewish resistance) to their mission. Syrian Protestant College was created as a way for the Protestant missionary effort to gain a foothold in the general region of the Holy Land. The fact that the APES had some of the most prominent administrators and faculty of Syrian Protestant College as their own earliest board members speaks volumes about the connection between the ministry and early American interests in the archaeology of the Holy Land. Furthermore, during the years that the APES sent teams over to Palestine, the College 3

A second, unrelated archaeological association was founded in the United States in 1900. This is the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR), still the main professional organization for American archaeologists working in Israel today. The American Schools are discussed below. 4 The other was Roberts College in Constantinople (Istanbul).

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would often provide lodging for the team members in their own buildings, sometimes for months at a time. The archaeological teams would handpick new personnel from both the faculty and the students of the College. Syrian Protestant College, now known as the American University of Beirut, was a long-lived American endeavor, still in existence today as a highly respected institution of higher education. In contrast, the APES was short-lived, most likely because it was never financially stable and because it never fully embraced the science of archaeological survey. Rather, it retained the character of earlier, more random missions of exploration.

ASSYRIOLOGY VERSUS ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY During the 1870s, the APES functioned as the only organized body of American archaeologists in Palestine. However, there was another group of American scholars also involved in biblical studies, who all but erased their original connection to the Bible. These were Assyriologists, men who studied the texts of ancient Assyria and Babylonia, the nations that, according to the Bible, had conquered ancient Israel. The American Assyriologists had their own professional organization, extant since the 1840s: the American Oriental Society (AOS). The AOS, still active today, managed to overshadow the APES to the point of obscurity.5 While some of the first generation of Assyriologists in the United States were ministers, unlike many of the founders of the APES the Assyriologists were all university scholars. Many had been trained in Germany, the country that was soon to become the bastion of biblical higher criticism. It was this group of scholars, involved in linguistic and grammatical issues rather than dusty excavation, who never accepted the members of the APES as equals in scholarship; not only were they engaged in low-level physical activity, but they were doing so out of religious rather than scientific curiosity.

THE SCIENTIFIC INCLINATIONS OF FREDERICK JONES BLISS Once Frederick Bliss joined the PEF as its chief excavator in Palestine, and once he had learned the ropes, he became the first truly scientifically inclined excavator of the day. He surpassed his mentor, Sir Flinders Petrie, in methodology, if not in inspirational ideas. His work was slow and meticulous and still compares well to modern excavation standards in the Near East. However, Bliss’s employers at the PEF were ambivalent about science 5

See Kuklick 1996, and chap. 6 below.

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and eventually fired Bliss because of his slow and careful pace. The PEF, while wanting to explore the lands of the Bible scientifically, also needed to validate the interests of its financial supporters, who still desired “proof ” that biblical events had indeed occurred. This was at odds with Bliss’s personal inclinations. After his dismissal from the PEF, Bliss spent the rest of his life commuting between his family in Beirut and the United States, where he delivered two seminal lecture series (Bliss 1906, 1912). Never married, with no family of his own, Bliss died in relative obscurity, in spite of the fact that Albright, the most prominent archaeologist of the generation to follow Bliss, begged him to come back into the field. Bliss’s life and work shed light on several related matters. He familial connection with Syrian Protestant College, his contact with Selah Merrill, and his role as an American working for the British all helped shape the story of biblical archaeology in the years to come. Another little-known historical connection yielded by the study of Bliss’s life is the fact that Bliss’s mother, Abby Wood Bliss, was a close childhood friend of the poet Emily Dickinson. Bliss himself was deeply involved with the entire Dickinson family during his college days. Today, over a century after the beginnings of biblical archaeology, the discipline is beginning to critique itself.6 Bliss’s contribution can now be clearly seen and evaluated from a new perspective. With Americans and American institutions now holding leading roles in what was once called biblical archaeology, the scientific approach of Frederick Bliss can finally be put into its proper context.

6 For a summary of some of the recent literature on the history and development of the discipline, see Hallote 2004).

2 PREVIOUS PRESENTATIONS OF AMERICAN EXPLORATION OF PALESTINE THE PURITAN CONNECTION TO THE HOLY LAND In the first half of the nineteenth century, a number of British and European travelers came to Palestine, but with very few exceptions, Americans did not.1 The dearth of American travelers was due to the fact that in these years, the United States was still a new country that had only recently come through its birth pangs. In the middle of the 1800s, the main preoccupation of the United States was slavery and, ultimately, the Civil War. These internal concerns kept America engaged on the home front and therefore largely removed the country from the possibility of Near Eastern exploration. However, there were two American ventures to Palestine in the first half of the nineteenth century that are generally cited as part of the story of American involvement with biblical archaeology. Oddly, neither of them is truly archaeological in nature. These are the travels of Edward Robinson, and the William Lynch expedition to the Dead Sea. Both of these are discussed in this chapter. Even though only these two expeditions became part of the historiographic narrative, there were several other ways that Americans were engaged with the Holy Land in the nineteenth century. These other involvements have shaped the narrative less forcefully, because they were decidedly religious in nature, and the tendency of historiographic scholarship has been to shy away from the religious beginnings of the discipline. In spite of this tendency, we will see that much of the path to American involvement in the archaeology of Palestine was paved with the Puritan sensibilities of American biblical scholars. In fact, both Robinson and Lynch were strongly influenced by the legacy of Puritanism. Many scholars have discussed the particularly American brand of Puritanism that took shape in the colonial period in the United States, in relation 1

Chapter 3 below outlines the history of Westerners traveling to Palestine.

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to American Bible studies.2 The Puritan elevation of the Old Testament above the New Testament can be seen from the seventeenth century onward. Cotton Mather himself stressed the connections between great Americans and Old Testament biblical heroes. The Puritans saw themselves as the chosen people, to whom God had directly revealed himself in the Hebrew Bible. The most obvious manifestation of the Puritan concern with the Old Testament is visible in the names that were chosen for new settlements, especially but not exclusively in New England. There are many Goshens, Salems, Sharons, Bethels, Canaans, Hebrons, Bethlehems, Carmels, and Jerichos in areas of Puritan influence. Additionally, Puritan personal names invoked primarily Old Testament heroes and heroines rather than New Testament ones: Ezra, Hiram, Ezekiel, Zechariah, Elijah, Elihu (Shepherd 1987; M. Davis 1977). America was actively embraced as the new Zion. In these ways, Puritanism referred back to the Old Testament for its religious context. However, the real Holy Land was thousands of miles away, a small, unimportant province within the Ottoman Empire, unreachable and unknowable to Western Christians. This is why it is so remarkable that some Westerners began to embrace it in a more grounded manner. The minister Ezra Stiles, before he became president of Yale, was possibly the first to do this. In 1772 a rabbi from Palestine named Isaac Carigal visited the Jewish community of Newport on an alms-seeking mission while Stiles was serving as a Congregationalist minister in Newport. As Stiles reported in his diary, he took great interest in the rabbi. He attended a synagogue service in order to converse with him, and some time later invited him to his home. Stiles asked Carigal numerous questions not only about his interpretations of the Bible as a Jew living in Palestine (as opposed to a Jew living in Newport), but also about the physical makeup of the Holy Land, including whether he had seen the stones that Joshua had stepped on when he (Carigal) had last crossed the Jordan River. Carigal responded that he had never thought to look (Libo and Howe 1985, 90–94; Parsons 1936, 294–95). Stiles was possibly the first American Christian to understand that the Holy Land was available to Westerners for physical exploration.3 It is this 2 The various works of Moshe Davis are prominent in this. See, for instance, M. Davis 1977, and chap. 4 below. 3 Western Christians had been travelling to Palestine as religious pilgrims since the fourth century; however, the motives of a pilgrim are different from those of an explorer. The phenomenon of travelers and pilgrims, both American and European, is examined below.

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same interest in the physicality of the Holy Land, inspired by the Puritan tradition, that soon led to the Protestant desire to explore the land more carefully. It also led to the desire to missionize in that land—to bring it back to the domain of Christianity. The next chapters discuss this in more detail, as well as some of the nonmissionary manifestations of the nineteenth-century legacy of Puritanism, such as the re-creation of parts of the Holy Land within the United States.

EDWARD ROBINSON Puritanism and the American Protestant denominations derived from it have been largely disregarded by archaeological historiography. The only link to religion that has been celebrated is that of Edward Robinson, since his Congregationalist background is undeniable. Edward Robinson is considered the father of biblical geography, and as such may be credited as the father of biblical archaeology as well. If not for Robinson’s work on identifying nineteenth-century villages and ruins that retained biblical place names, there would have been no beginning point for biblical archaeologists for surveying and excavating. Robinson is credited with doing the first impartial, scientific study of the geography of Palestine. Robinson worked out his linguistic and geographic correlations during two relatively short trips to Palestine. His scientific inclination, and his willingness to abandon most of his religious preconceptions once he arrived in Palestine, have made him a figure worth dwelling on in the usual retelling of the narrative of biblical archaeology. Having stated this, a contradiction surrounds Robinson’s work. As scientifically inclined as he was, Robinson’s entire trip to Palestine was only made possible through collaboration with an enthusiastic missionary named Eli Smith. Smith accompanied Robinson on both his trips to Palestine, and it was largely due to Smith’s knowledge of Arabic that Robinson was able to put together his geographical study. In fact, Smith was Robinson’s co-author when he published the results of the expedition (E. Robinson and Smith 1856). Because Robinson is at the center of the usual narrative of American biblical studies, we will now recount his story in the context of Congregationalism and missionary activity, rather than isolate him as a pioneer scholar of biblical geography. However the full story of the American missionary presence in Palestine and Lebanon will not be told until a later chapter. The story of Edward Robinson begins with the story of Eli Smith. Smith was a missionary during the early years of the American Mission in Syria, when the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions

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was a relatively new institution (see p. 44 below). Smith was born to a Presbyterian family in Connecticut and attended first Yale, then Andover Theological Seminary. He served as a missionary in Malta in the 1820s and then was sent to Beirut by the American Board, where he fulfilled his desire to learn Arabic. Smith became fluent, and in 1844 began to translate the Bible into Arabic, the accomplishment for which he is best known (see, for instance, Hall 1882). In 1830, during a visit back to America from Lebanon, Smith delivered a sermon in Boston, only ten years after Levy Parsons and Pliny Fisk had delivered their famous sermons in the same city outlining the work of American missionaries in the Holy Land (Makdisi 1997, 686).4 In his sermon, Smith emphasized the excitement of American missionary work in the Near East and stressed how gratifying and important it was to bring modern ways and modern religion into a land of idolatry, fanaticism, and superstition. He criticized Islam as well as the Eastern Orthodox church, barely separating one from the other. He espoused the point of missionary activity as being to “reform and save the degenerate and perishing people who now dwell there” (E. Smith 1832, 1–5, as quoted by Makdisi 1997, 686). At this point in his career, Smith was clearly zealous about missionary work. Religion remained a powerful tool for him throughout his life, including during the years of his long association with Robinson. Thus, although the missionary tradition was not a component of Robinson’s own intellectual pursuits, there is certainly evidence of it during his travels, within his formative conversations with locals, as Smith served as both guide and interpreter. Robinson, a Congregationalist himself and son of a Congregationalist minister, studied at Hamilton College in the early 1800s. After completing his baccalaureate studies, he went on to accept a teaching appointment, also at Hamilton. He later went on to Andover Theological Seminary for Classical Studies, where he eventually worked with the Bible scholar Moses Stuart. Even though he was American, Moses Stuart was well known in biblical studies at a time when many of the new approaches to the field were being developed in Germany. Stuart had found a way to incorporate some of the work of the German biblical critics into his own brand of biblical scholarship, in spite of the German tendency to move away from the religious aspects of the Bible. (J. Brown 1969, 40–100). This is why Stuart was seen as a forward-moving presence at Andover, which was then known for conservative scholarship. In fact, Andover was viewed in direct opposition to Harvard, which was significantly more liberal and therefore much more in line 4

For a discussion of Parsons and Fisk, see chap. 5 below.

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with newer German scholarship. It is quite possible that Stuart, as Robinson’s mentor, saw in Robinson a man who could successfully reconcile the German style of scholarship with strong religious belief. Robinson certainly proved this true in his geographic analysis of Palestinian place names, for which he became famous. Stuart encouraged Robinson to pursue biblical studies further (as opposed to the Classical studies that had initially brought him to Andover), and so Robinson traveled to Europe for several years of study. On his return he was offered a position at Union Theological Seminary in New York. He accepted, but as a condition of acceptance, he insisted on first traveling to Palestine, to see the sites of the Bible for himself.

ROBINSON’S TRAVELS IN PALESTINE It was during his years at Andover, specifically in 1832, that Robinson encountered Eli Smith, who was in Boston on a break from the mission in Beirut. Smith, fluent in Arabic and already familiar with the landscape of Palestine, agreed to be Robinson’s traveling guide. Ultimately, Robinson made two trips to the Holy Land, one in 1838, immediately before beginning his appointment at Union Theological Seminary, and the other in 1858, made with the goal of revisiting some areas that he had not had time to explore fully. During both trips, Robinson relied fully on Smith for the specifics of his itinerary as well as for day-to-day interpreting. Robinson traveled with only a few basic surveying supplies, which included a prismatic compass as well as two regular ones, measuring tapes, a thermometer, and telescopes (E. Robinson and Smith 1856, 46–47). Both he and Smith also carried Bibles as well as travel accounts of earlier explorers, and some maps. Robinson and Smith’s publication of their expedition, which became known as a precociously scientific work, is in fact an interesting mix between objective observations and biblical quotations. Robinson’s style is above all descriptive, and yet he never fully abandoned the Congregationalist reading of the Bible. For all its careful observations, the publication reflects old Puritan concerns, such as the Exodus from Egypt and the entry into the Promised Land. For instance, when describing how he and Smith passed from Egypt (their point of entry to the region) into Palestine, Robinson titled the section “Land of Goshen,” and specifically discussed the route of the Israelites to the Red Sea. He even digressed to ponder the possible “means or instruments” by which God might have orchestrated the miracle of the Israelites’ passage—that is, he attempted to reconcile biblical miracles with scientific understanding of natural phenomena (ibd. 52–57). Robinson further

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digressed into a discussion of the numbers of people who left Egypt during the Exodus, trusting the Bible’s figures of millions. He wondered how all the people and animals would have made it across the waters and how long it would have taken them to cross (E. Robinson 1856a, 84). Similar literalist statements regarding biblical events occur throughout the work (Williams 1999, 223). From the Sinai desert, Robinson and Smith headed north toward Aqaba and through the Negev, identifying some sites, both biblical and classical, as they went. They then arrived at Jerusalem, where Robinson explored the holy sites in great detail. It was at this point that he acted as a true archaeologist would, paying attention to architectural details and discovering, jutting out from the western wall of the Temple Mount, the remains of what he thought was an archway but what has more recently been reidentified as part of a stairway with a passage beneath. Today the feature still retains the name Robinson’s Arch. Robinson’s most recent biographer points out that Robinson impartially described Islamic traditions rather than criticizing them, which was unusual for a Westerner (ibid. 220). In fact, in characteristic Protestant style, Robinson was more critical of the Eastern Christian rituals he observed than of the Muslim ones. While in Jerusalem, he observed the ritual of the Holy Fire at Easter and referred to it as mockery and mummery (E. Robinson and Smith 1856, 223). Robinson also examined the Ottoman fortifications of Jerusalem closely before moving on to Bethel, Bethlehem, and Hebron, identifying many biblical sites along the way. Those he identified were generally correct. This was in spite of the fact that Robinson, like the rest of his contemporaries, did not understand that tells were ancient cities. For instance, Robinson remarked that Tel el-Hesy, where Frederick Bliss later excavated, would be a perfect location for a fortress but then noted that it had clearly never been used for anything (E. Robinson 1856a, 48).5 Later in the trip, Robinson and Smith visited the Dead Sea area, searching for Sodom and Gomorrah. Here again Robinson exhibited an interesting combination of scientific attitude and ministerial inclination, as he looked immediately to natural phenomena in addition to acts of God to explain the biblical story. Robinson and Smith traveled to the north as well, to Sebaste 5

On occasion, however, Robinson did identify tells with ancient ruins (E. Robinson 1856a, 313ff.) . An interesting example is Tell el-Ful, which Robinson variously identified with Gibeah of Saul, and Gibeath, as the Arabic was Jeba (see Williams 1999, 237).

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and Nazareth. In the case of Sebaste, he pointed out inconsistencies regarding what was present on the landscape versus the tradition that it was the burial place of John the Baptist, as John was beheaded in the south, near the Dead Sea. But in the case of Nazareth, he accepted the religious significance of the site undisputed (Williams 1999, 254–55). The travelers continued up to Beirut, at which point Robinson, ill with a fever, returned to America. His second visit to Palestine was essentially to revisit places that he had been to previously, in order to confirm and occasionally change identifications (E. Robinson 1856b). Robinson’s methodology was never carried forward significantly by any of his students, nor by any other scholar in the United States. In part this is a testament to the thoroughness of Robinson’s fieldwork—his books are still consulted by scholars today; however, it is also one reason for the gap in the narrative regarding American exploration of Palestine. There are additional reasons for the gap as well. Biblical geography (and archaeology) remained stagnant for many decades because of the directions taken by those who followed Robinson. Rather than continuing in the path that he began, American scholarship became oriented toward Assyriology, while the geographic component became subsumed by the work of the American Geographic Society. And yet, Robinson did leave a direct and immediate scholarly legacy in American biblical studies. Robinson’s work directly motivated various individuals at Union Theological Seminary where he taught, including a young scholar named Roswell D. Hitchcock. Hitchcock went on to establish the first biblical archaeological association in the United States, the American Palestine Exploration Society.

THE LYNCH EXPEDITION TO THE DEAD SEA The story of Hitchcock and the APES is returned to in detail in chapter 6. However, in the climate of the 1840s, when the mounds of ancient Assyria were first being excavated, and when Robinson’s work was still viewed as primarily biblical (as opposed to scholarly) in nature, a memorable, albeit nonarchaeological, expedition to Palestine took place. This was the 1847 naval expedition of Captain William F. Lynch to the Jordan River. Lynch was already a well-trained Navy man when he undertook his Dead Sea mission, having already served in several locations in South America. (Later, he fought in the Civil War.) Because of his naval background, it is no surprise that archaeology was not his goal, and yet the expedition is very firmly established as part of the narrative of American exploration of the Holy Land. In most histories of the discipline, Lynch is listed as the explorer

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who followed immediately after Robinson. These narratives then move directly from Lynch to the founding of the American Schools in 1900.6 Although counted as part of the story of biblical exploration, Captain Lynch’s primary motivation for heading to Palestine was typical of naval expeditions of the time. In the years before the Civil War, there was a prevailing feeling in the Navy that the technology of steam power, combined with hydrographic and topographic measurements, could be used to greatly further American commercial enterprise (G. S. Smith 1976, 53). Lynch and others in the Navy wanted to specifically apply this to the Near East, the burgeoning international front where the United States had no foothold at all but where various European powers did. This desire to get a foothold in the Near East was part of a larger American phenomenon—an expanded sense of Manifest Destiny. Not only could the United States expand into the western side of its own continent, but it could even expand into the rest of the world. Expeditions were made to Latin America, with similar ideologies. Additionally, Americans took great pride in their technological capabilities, as they could lead to commercial gain. This latter was in fact the direct goal of expedition, as Lynch hoped to find a way to use the Jordan river as a shipping route to be controlled by the United States (G. S. Smith 1976). This, as well as the more general goal of scientific exploration, was why the Navy accepted his application to mount the expedition (Lynch 1854, 13). With these complex motivations in mind, it must be stated that the very idea of being able to use the Jordan River as a shipping corridor was rooted very firmly in literalist religious readings of the Old Testament. Lynch also had personal religious motives that were not shared by many in the Navy. Lynch subscribed to Millennialist belief, and as such believed that the Jews would ultimately be restored to their ancient homeland prior to the coming of the Messiah. Millennialism is a topic to be returned to below. Lynch betrayed his Millennialist beliefs almost as soon as his expedition arrived in Palestine. When the ship first landed at the port of Haifa, Lynch himself immediately raised the American flag and declared that he was now standing in the place where the Jewish Restoration would occur (ibid. 119). This set the tone for his entire description of the venture, as Lynch continually allowed religious preconceptions regarding the land of Palestine to influence his judgment over and above what he encountered on the land. Some of his descriptions are particularly telling. While docked at Haifa 6 See for instance Moorey 1991, Shepherd 1987. Also see references in footnote 1 on p. 3 above.

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and describing his location, he seemed not to take the scenery at hand into account at all: But the eye of faith viewed a more interesting and impressive sight; for it was here, perhaps upon the very spot where I stood, that Elijah built his altar, and ‘the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.’ (ibid. 118)

Then, as Lynch neared Nazareth, he similarly commented, How we grieved that our duties prevented us from visiting a place which, with Bethlehem and Calvary, the scenes of the birth, the residence, and the death of the Redeemer, are of most intense interest to the Christian! To the left, almost due east, one hour distant, lay Cana of Galilee. Who has not, in thought, accompanied the Saviour to that marriage-feast, and thanked him from his heart, that he should have gladdened with his presence the fleeting festivities of sinful man, and that his first miracle should have been, to all succeeding generations, a lesson of filial love! (ibid. 148–49)

Although a trained seaman in Palestine on navy business, Lynch’s approach to the Holy Land was much the same as the old Puritan approach discussed above. Lynch’s religious disposition is more than of just passing interest, as he continually allowed his judgment to be clouded by it. Had he let scientific observation lead him instead of religion, it is likely that he would never had set out in the first place. Lynch had consulted with Robinson before his departure (ibid. vi) and therefore should have understood at the outset that the Jordan was too narrow for shipping. However, Lynch was consumed with biblical descriptions of the “mighty Jordan” and the multitudes of Israelites crossing it en route to Palestine. His impression of the Jordan was of a wide and significant river, like those he was accustomed to sailing in the Americas. This biblically based impression remained with him as he prepared for the expedition, although it was negated by the various travelers’ accounts he had in front of him. It was this image of the Jordan gleaned from the Bible that allowed him to convince the United States Navy that the expedition was a worthwhile investment of time, manpower, and money, and that sailing around the Dead Sea and tracing the Jordan River to its source would ultimately yield a new trade route. Although Lynch declared the mission a success, in truth it was a failure. The Jordan River proved too narrow and difficult to traverse even with Lynch’s small metal boats, which he had had made specifically to withstand the harsh salt of the Dead Sea. Furthermore, the trip from the Mediterra-

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nean to the inland Sea of Galilee, as well as the trip along the river itself, involved much carting and pulling of the boats overland—not a practical method of transport along a route intended for regular shipping. Lastly, the environment was so harsh that one of Lynch’s senior officers, Lieutenant John B. Dale, died from a fever at the end of the expedition (ibid. 506–7). In spite of all these difficulties, when the Lynch expedition is included in the narrative of American exploration in Palestine, its scientific nature is emphasized. Lynch had, after all, included specialists on his staff. Henry J. Anderson, M.D., a geologist from Columbia University, took many geological samples of the soil of the Holy Land, and so it could be said that Americans had finally managed to scientifically map the Jordan River and the Dead Sea. The typical retelling of the story of biblical exploration and archaeology abandons the United States at precisely this point and moves on to the work of the British in the 1860s. However, the story of American exploration does in fact continue and is intertwined with the narrative of British exploration. Not long after Lynch’s return, several American clergymen founded an organization called the American Palestine Exploration Society, while the British founded the Palestine Exploration Fund. The two stories quickly became intertwined. But in order to understand how these two organizations came to be, we must first briefly describe both British and American interactions with Palestine as the land of the Bible.

3 PALESTINE, LAND OF WESTERN OPPORTUNITY THE EARLY HISTORY OF HOLY LAND TRAVEL While the focus of this volume is the American contribution to early biblical archaeology, by the time the first American archaeologists set foot in Palestine there was already a long tradition of Western exploration of the East. Most Western explorers had come for religious reasons; and those who had not, came as adventurers. When Americans such as Edward Robinson traveled to Palestine, they were not entering terra incognita. They traveled with the comfort of knowing that many Westerners (if not Americans) had come before. In fact, the American archaeologists who followed Robinson, forgotten by the general historiographic narrative, should also be seen as part of the much larger phenomenon of Western travelers heading East. In fact, Western travel to Palestine in particular (as opposed to the East in general) has a long and complex history. Its beginnings date to antiquity, with the pilgrimage of Helena, mother of the Roman emperor Constantine, and the almost contemporaneous journey of the anonymous Pilgrim of Bordeaux, who left an account of his trip. The anonymous pilgrim was followed by Paula, a Roman matron of the late fourth century, and Egeria, another woman traveler of the late fourth or early fifth century (Limor and Rubin 1998). Although Christians made pilgrimages in the following two centuries, the next detailed traveler’s account is that of Arculf, who journeyed from Ireland to the Holy Land in the late seventh century. First-hand Crusader accounts represent the twelfth century, as does the account of Daniel, an abbot from Russia. The later Middle Ages are better documented, as the zeal of the Crusades ebbed into a renewed nonmilitary desire to visit the Holy Land. Anonymous guidebooks proliferated in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, while the fourteenth century also ushered in one of the first travelers from Britain. This was Margery Kempe, another rare female pilgrim, who left a detailed account of her motives and itinerary (Windeatt 2000; Triggs 1995). 17

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But British travel became much more common in the seventeenth century, when the poet George Sandys headed to the Holy Land (Ellison 2002). Sandys, whose interest was intellectual rather than religious, is an anomaly in a time when most journeys were still religiously based. With the possible exception of Sandys, none of the travelers mentioned above were able to observe what they encountered objectively, without preconceived religious notions. The idea of exploring the Holy Land for exploration’s sake, or even for the sake of science, was something that was not born until the time of Napoleon.

NAPOLEON THROUGH THE MID NINETEENTH CENTURY It is well known that the West did not rediscover the East until Napoleon marched his armies into Egypt, and from Egypt to Palestine. Prior to Napoleon’s expedition, both lands were little known to Westerners. In fact, even though explorers had written travel accounts through the ages, only one of these was considered reliable in the late eighteenth century. This was the account of the French explorer Count Constantin François de Volney, who had traveled to Palestine in the 1780s and published a satisfactory and close to objective account of his journeys. It was Volney’s work that Napoleon used while planning his own expedition (Shepherd 1987, 14). Volney did not base his travel accounts on preconceptions based in the current situation of the Holy Land. That is, he did not focus on the idea, then commonly held in the popular imagination, that Palestine’s desolate appearance and economy was a divine punishment for the sins of the Jews. Instead, he discussed the desolation of the land in realistic terms, explaining how the economic situation had been brought about by high taxation of the peasants by the Ottomans, and by corrupt ruling on the part of local sheiks employed by the Ottoman government (ibid. 15; Volney 1788). The most interesting aspect of Napoleon’s expedition to the Near East is that he did not intend it only as a military campaign but conceived it as something of a scientific mission—his staff included artists and draftsmen, as well as botanists and faunal analysts to record and carry back samples of everything they might find in these exotic lands. With the coming of Napoleon, not only was Egypt ripe for Western exploration, but Palestine was, too. Napoleon’s semi-successful military campaign in Egypt was followed by an altogether unsuccessful one in Palestine. He was held back by the man known as the “Butcher of Acre,” Ahmad al-Jazzar Pasha (often known just as Jazzar Pasha), who administered Palestine for the Ottoman authorities from the 1780s until his death in 1804. Jazzar Pasha held Napoleon’s army at

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bay as they attempted to besieged Acre. In spite of his military losses, Napoleon’s expedition truly opened up the East to the West. And from this point forward, exploration of Egypt and of Palestine diverged. Those scholars who became interested in the ancient history of Egypt were largely inspired by the writings of Greek and Roman historians. They soon went on to explore the tombs and pyramids of Egypt. However, those who became interested in ancient history because of close readings of biblical texts went on to become biblical scholars and eventually archaeologists. Napoleon’s expedition gave the French a certain wealth of knowledge of Palestine, but this was not immediately disseminated to other Western countries. The British in particular had very limited knowledge of Palestine. For instance, in a volume published in 1802 by John Pinkerton entitled Modern Geography, intended as a compilation of every available fact about Asia, Palestine appeared only as a brief subtopic within Syria, which in turn was only a subtopic within Asia Minor, while Asia Minor itself was only a subsection within the larger region of Turkey (C. Smith 1975, 88). But the British made up for lost time soon after the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Just three years after Napoleon’s defeat, the British explorer Edward Daniel Clarke made a trip through Palestine. Clarke was trained as a geographer, and while he came with the science of geography in mind, he was in fact inspired to explore Palestine in particular because of its New Testament associations (Silberman 1982, 19). In 1801, Clarke traveled through the Galilee, stopped at Nazareth, and continued on toward Jerusalem, collecting geological specimens as he went. Even though Jazzar Pasha ruled Palestine with a firm hand and hostility toward his own subjects as well as outsiders, Edward Clarke was one of several Westerners who braved the land in the few years between the ousting of Napoleon and Jazzar Pasha’s death.1 Another Westerner who came to Palestine during the harsh rule of Jazzar Pasha was the physician Ulrich Seetzen. Seetzen was Swiss by birth but was sent to the Holy Land in 1802 by a German Duke and by Czar Alexander I of Russia, in order to explore and collect geological and botanical 1

Clarke was actually the first to notice what ultimately became a major question for the Palestine Exploration Fund: whether the Church of the Holy Sepulchre really did mark the tomb of Jesus; Clarke saw so many other tombs south of the walls of Jerusalem that fit the biblical description better (see Silberman 1982, 19–22; Clarke 1817).

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specimens for both countries (Seetzen 1810; Shepherd 1987, 46). Following the death of Jazzar Pasha in 1804, Palestine was finally deemed safe for Western explorers. Jazzar Pasha was followed by his adopted son Suleiman. Suleiman, who ruled from Acre from 1804 to 1820, was best known for his building projects, as opposed to warfare. It was in this period that some of the next important European travelers arrived in Palestine. These included John Lewis Burckhardt and James Silk Buckingham. John Lewis Burckhardt, born in Switzerland, was educated in England as a student of Edward Clarke (Silberman 1982, 21). Burckhardt traveled between 1808 and 1812, but with Africa as his ultimate destination, since his goal was to find a usable trade route to Africa. Palestine was simply a land to pass through en route but was also convenient as a place to practice his Arabic language skills and to perfect his Muslim disguise. Burckhardt was the first of several Europeans who assumed a disguise to facilitate travel (Burckhardt 1822; Sim 1969; Shepherd 1987, 46). He had attained fluency in Arabic, and so, disguised as Ibrahim ibn Abdullah, supposedly a Muslim from India, Burckhardt explored Palestine. In this assumed identity, he was able to question local peasants about the location of biblical sites. He is best remembered as the first Westerner to locate Petra, known at that point only from Classical sources. Burckhardt was followed immediately by James Silk Buckingham, an Englishman. Like Burckhardt, Buckingham also saw Palestine as a way-station en route to his own goal, which was finding a new trade route to India (Buckingham 1821, 1825).2 Following the death of the Pasha Suleiman, Palestine again became a dangerous place to travel. Suleiman was followed by Abdullah Pasha, a manumitted slave known for his cruelty. Abdullah’s brief reign ended when Mohammed Ali, who had already freed Egypt from Ottoman rule, took Palestine as well and handed it over to his son Ibrahim to rule. The period of Egyptian rule lasted from 1831 to 1841. 2

It is important at this point in the chronological narrative to acknowledge the strange career of Lady Hester Stanhope, the niece of Lord William Pitt, who left London society in 1810 to travel through Palestine. Stanhope, after a brief attempt at archaeological excavation at Ashkelon, eventually settled in Lebanon, where she built a castle and lived out her life (Childs 1990). Another traveler who deserves mention, but who is not mainly associated with Palestine, is the French writer and traveler François-René de Chateaubriand. At one point in his career, Chateaubriand felt the call of religion. His 1811 Palestine trip was but one of his many journeys inspired by faith (Sedouy 1992).

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Once the Egyptian interlude ended (due to the influence of Britain in Ottoman affairs), Western explorers once again began to enter Palestine. In fact, it is from the 1840s onward that the story of Westerners in the East shifts away from both of its previous incarnations. From this point forward, there are no more missions of exploration such as Burckhardt’s and Buckingham’s, each of whom was looking for a reliable pass to places south. We also no longer see the traditional religious pilgrimage of pre-Enlightenment days, usually made with hopes for personal religious salvation in mind. Instead, we see explorers coming to Palestine for two reasons. Some come for recreation and adventure. Others come hoping to gain a scientific understanding of the land of the Bible for the first time. Chapters 4 and 5 explore these two phenomena.

MILLENNIALIST BELIEF IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY It has been mentioned that Captain Lynch subscribed to Millennialist beliefs, and that those beliefs in part influenced his decision to explore Palestine. As we begin to consider the more focused religious motivations that led to the first scientific explorations of the Holy Land, it will become clear that Millennialist beliefs were extraordinarily influential in both England and the United States. Millennialism, sometimes called millenarianism, developed at the same time in both England and America but peaked in England sooner than in America. In England, Millennialism even affected political decisions, while in America, where politics was largely turned inward due to the Civil War, it never became as significant a factor. Millennialism in Britain In order to see the relevance of British Millennialist belief, it is important to remember Britain’s larger role in international politics in the nineteenth century. At this point in history, the British Empire was at its height, and all British involvement in Palestine, even when religiously motivated, should be viewed in the context of the maintenance of Empire, as the roots of British interest in Palestine were directly related to maintaining its territories elsewhere. In the 1830s, Britain viewed Palestine mainly as a portal to its holdings in India and Africa. The way Britain used its opportunities in Palestine demonstrates this, as the British first established an official presence in Jerusalem in 1838, when a consul was installed in the city. The establishment of a consular office was a way for Britain to keep itself visible within the region. In

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fact, the idea of a consulate had already been part of the British vision in the mid 1830s, when the British government made some abortive attempts to establish one (Vereté 1970, 319, 327–31; Kark 1994, 94). In these years, Palestine was still under Egyptian rule, and the establishment of the consulate was in fact a direct result of Mohammed Ali’s policies regarding Westerners in both Egypt and Palestine. Mohammed Ali not only attempted to eliminate discrimination against non-Muslims in his lands, but also courted European powers by allowing them to open embassies within his territories (Scholch 1992, 40–41; Kark 1994, 94). As an imperial power, Britain realized that the new policy was exactly in line with its own needs. A permanent British presence in Palestine could ensure continuous access to India, then the jewel in Britain’s crown. Locating such a route had also been the goal of Buckingham’s foray into Palestine a half century earlier. The territorial nature of the British interest in Palestine was further emphasized when Mohammed Ali’s rule collapsed in 1840, only two years after the establishment of the consulate. At this point, the British actively hoped that the disorganization of the Ottoman Empire, and the Western influences that led to the defeat of Egypt, could be used to their own benefit (Scholch 1992, 43). The British recognized that the instability in the region meant that they needed to entrench themselves further, as they were far from the only international presence on the scene. They recognized that both Russia and France had significant influence within the Ottoman Empire, and in Palestine in particular. It was imperative that they reinforce their own presence in the region. This is why they turned to religious interests, largely as a means to further their political goals. This preexisting political desire for involvement in Ottoman Palestine is the context for discussing British Millennialism, which was integral to the next phase of British involvement in Ottoman Palestine. Millennialism is the Christian idea that the Jews must return to Palestine as a prelude to the Second Coming of the Messiah. In the 1840s, some British decisions regarding foreign policy were actually made due to Millennialist agendas.3 The most influential British Millennialist was Lord Ashley Cooper, seventh Earl of Shaftsbury, who believed that he, as well as all other Englishmen, needed to encourage Jews from communities around the world to leave their diasporas and return to the Holy Land, for the ultimate salvation of Christianity. The connection between Lord Shaftsbury’s personal Millennialist beliefs and British foreign policy in Palestine has been clear since parts of 3

For an important full-length work on this topic, see Kobler 1956.

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Shaftsbury’s diaries from the years 1838–40 were published in the early twentieth century (Vereté 1970, 317–18; Sokolow 1919). Lord Shaftsbury was married to the daughter of Lord Henry Palmerston, the British Foreign Secretary. From the time of his marriage, Lord Shaftsbury was extremely influential on his father-in-law and therefore was able to influence British policy toward Palestine. Since the fall of Mohammed Ali, and in spite of the continuing consular presence in Jerusalem, many in the British government were concerned that France and Russia were ahead of their own country in the race to control Ottoman lands. Palmerston was very much caught up in this worry and became actively involved in Palestine as part of the larger “Eastern Question” years before his son-in-law Shaftsbury began speaking to him about the Restoration of the Jews. In fact, Palmerston had already sent several missions to Palestine before 1840 (Hyamson 1917, 138–39, cited by Vereté 1970: 317; see Vereté 1970, 325–26; Rodkey 1930, 198). Thus Palmerston’s own desire to compete with other foreign powers politically was firmly in place when he encountered his son-in-law’s Millennialist ideas. The combination of viewpoints—the political interest in Ottoman Palestine, combined with Millennialist goals for restoring the Jews to the Holy Land (a land that happened to be one and the same with Ottoman Palestine)—ultimately caused Palmerston to make an important political decision regarding Palestine. Palmerston claimed the Jews of Jerusalem as Britain’s own protected group. The desire to protect a religious group in Jerusalem stemmed directly from the international competition with Russia and France. Russia was the traditional protector of the Eastern Orthodox population of the city, and France the traditional protector of the “Frankish” Catholic population since the time of the Crusades. Although the Ottoman Sultan was not accepting of the idea of British protection of Jews on official terms, the British government nonetheless promoted Palmerston’s initiative enthusiastically (Shepherd 1987, 113–14; Sharif 1976, 127–30; Vereté 1970, 317ff.; Friedman 1968; Rodkey 1930). This British policy of friendship toward the Jews of Jerusalem under the aegis of Millennialism was so strong and long-lived that it ultimately extended to British support of Zionism almost eighty years later. Millennialism in the United States At the same time that Millennialist belief was influencing British foreign policy, there was a strong and growing tradition of Millennialism in the United States as well. However, except for a few specific events, most notably the Blackstone Petition of 1891, less has been written about the phenomenon in

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America as compared to Britain, precisely because in the United States, it was a less influential movement in political terms.4 In the previous chapter, we discussed the Puritan agenda that equated the United States with the New Zion and held that Jews were sometimes seen as direct conduits for the teachings of the Hebrew Bible. It was this same viewpoint that influenced branches of American Protestantism, in particular Protestant fundamentalist groups, to become philo-Semitic in nature. Rather than being persecuted for their beliefs as they had been for centuries, Jews were to be respected and let alone, since they were the preservers of the Old Testament (Sandeen 1970, 222–24; Griessman 1976, 201–2). This led to the growth of Millennialist thought in America. Both Millennialist and Dispensationalist thought permeated the American Protestant way of viewing the Holy Land (see, e.g., Geldbach 1997; Ariel 1997). Dispensationalism, which had been promoted most notably by the Englishman John Nelson Darby, became a religious movement in the United States as well. Aspects of Dispensationalism are similar to Millennialism in that both believe that the Jews must be restored to the Holy Land before the coming of the Messiah; however, Dispensationalism holds that the Second Coming will occur before the Millennium, rather than at it. This is why Dispensationalism is sometimes referred to as Premillennialism (Geldbach 1997, 113; Ariel 1997, 124). Dispensationalism was easily incorporated into branches of American Protestantism in the second half of the nineteenth century, more easily than other Millennialist movements.5 The growth of both Millennialism and Premillennialism in the United States led to a desire to actively apply some of the movements’ ideas. Why think merely in terms of a theoretical heavenly Jerusalem, when there was a real Jerusalem to be readied for the Messianic Age, an age that could begin at any moment? Getting to the physical place where the Messiah might soon descend to earth was certainly in Captain Lynch’s mind when he landed in Palestine and raised the American flag there. We have seen that he declared himself to be at the site where the Jewish Restoration will occur (Lynch 1854, 119). Lynch managed to get the United States Navy to back his plan to explore Palestine. 4 See both Finestein (1986) and Kochan (1986), each of whom sets out to compare and contrast the British and American approaches to Millennialism. Oddly, both authors end up thoroughly outlining the phenomenon in Britain while making little reference to events in America. 5 William Miller’s Messianic movement of the 1830s and 1840s, for example, never gained as much momentum (Ariel 1997, 125–26).

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Only one other American Millennialist came close to influencing the government with his beliefs. This was William Blackstone. Blackstone was a Chicago businessman who was born Methodist but converted to dispensationalist theology in the 1870s. Because of his religious enthusiasm, Blackstone visited Jerusalem in 1888–89 to see what the conditions there were like. Upon his return to Chicago, he organized a petition to be presented to the President of the United States, Benjamin Harrison, hoping to convince him to organize an international conference on the question of the Jews. The intention was that Palestine should be given back to the Jews with the permission of the international community, regardless of the fact that it was still under Ottoman control. Blackstone’s petition was signed by prominent politicians and businessmen, including influential Christian millennialists, as well as Jewish leaders (see, e.g., Ariel 1997, 126).6 Although the Blackstone Petition never amounted to anything on the political front, it was the Millennialist attitude behind the petition that allowed for American support of Jewish emigration to Palestine in the last decades of Ottoman rule. Some of the American consuls actively worked toward abolishing Ottoman restrictions on immigration and even helped Jews to acquire land (Ma’oz 1977, 69).

AMERICAN COLONISTS IN PALESTINE American Millennialism led to one other notable phenomenon in American– Palestine relations in the nineteenth century. This was the establishment of several American colonies in Palestine. The founders of these colonies all had one clear motive in mind. This was to ready the Holy Land for the coming of the Messiah. The first colony to be established, in 1852, was headed by a woman named Clorinda Minor. Minor came to Palestine with her son and twenty other Americans and set up a small colony near Bethlehem. Because of some initial difficulties, the colonists moved to Jaffa in 1853, at which point they became known as the Hope Colony. Minor was followed in 1866 by George 6

At the time of the petition in 1891, Zionism was already a concern within the European Jewish community but was not yet important to the majority of the Jews of America. The major immigration of Jews from Eastern Europe to the United States had already begun, and the interests of American Jewry were concentrated on figuring out ways to integrate the masses of newcomers. There was one short-lived Jewish pre-Zionist movement. This was the initiative of the prominent Jewish journalist Mordechai Manuel Noah, who believed that the Jews should return to Zion but first should gather in a single place in the United States. He chose Grand Island in the Niagara River. See generally Sarna 1980.

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Jones Adams, who brought a group of 150 colonists from Maine, also to Jaffa (see, e.g., Lipman 1986, 32). This latter colony was specifically agricultural in nature, as the colonists hoped to ready the land itself to support the changes that would come in the Millennium. Neither Minor’s nor Adams’s colony was particularly successful or long-lived. The most famous of the colonies was what came to be known as the American Colony in Jerusalem, established in 1881. The American Colony was founded by Horatio and Anna Spafford, natives of Chicago. The Spaffords had lost four of their children at sea while attempting to visit the Holy Land. As a religious response to their grief, they decided to move to Jerusalem permanently. Most of the history of the American Colony was recorded by the surviving daughter, Bertha Spafford Vester, who lived at the colony with her parents (see Vester 1950). The Spaffords had been members of a Presbyterian church in Chicago, but following their family tragedy they were eventually asked to leave, as they became vocal in an unconventional theology that involved the concept of all-embracing divine love. It was at that point that they founded the Colony (ibid. 56). The members of the American Colony became known for charitable work within Jerusalem. Not only would they give monetary assistance to the locals, but Colonists were also involved in teaching in native schools and in nursing work among the Arab population of Jerusalem. Because of these works, the Colony became accepted and liked by the local populace. While the work of the Colony was supported by many Americans, the enterprise was vehemently opposed by the American consul Selah Merrill, who distrusted their missionary intent. The role of Selah Merrill in both American archaeology and politics is discussed below.7 But none of the American colonies affected the international political situation. The Americans who were present in Palestine were there largely as a result of Millennialist belief, not of any larger political design. Unlike the 7

In addition to the American colonies, there were a few European Millennialist colonies in Palestine at this time as well. Interestingly, there is a direct relationship between one of these and the development of European archaeology in Palestine. This was a colony established by the German Templars, who had established several colonies in Palestine—in Haifa in 1869, Jaffa also in 1869, Jerusalem in 1878, Bethlehem in 1906, and a few others (Carmel 1975, 445). The Haifa Templar community was the home base of Gottlieb Schumacher, one of the first Germans to be both instrumental and influential in early biblical archaeology. Schumacher ultimately excavated the site of Megiddo and had previously surveyed that site and others together with Frederick Bliss himself, and this helped set the course of both British and German archaeology. See chap. 9 below.

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British, who had international colonial aspirations, Americans understood their presence in the Holy Land as only religious in nature. Once missionary activity became grounded in Lebanon and not Palestine (see chap. 4), Americans considered their work in Palestine complete. Even though there was an American consul in Jerusalem, unlike the British, the American government never felt a pressing need for this consular presence. The first true American consul was installed in Jerusalem comparatively late, in 1856. Prior to this (from 1831 on), there had been local non-Americans (often Europeans) working for the American government as consular agents. These men were not based in Jerusalem alone, but also in Beirut and other cities as well (Kark 1986, 129–30). Even when an American consular office was established, an American representative could firmly state, “The United States are not suspected of having any political design, as are all European nations” (ibid. 129, quoting a letter of Consul Richard Beardsley). We have now seen that by the second half of the nineteenth century, the main goal of the British in Palestine was to use it as a means to maintain their already extant Empire, while Americans were largely involved with Palestine for purely religious reasons, not for political ones. With the possible exception of Edward Robinson, all Americans who traveled to Palestine in the middle of the century, from the colonists to Captain Lynch himself, were at least partially motivated by Millennialist theology. This entirely religious orientation is the background for the upcoming American endeavor in archaeological exploration of the Holy Land. We will see that even when science was their modus operandi, Americans still did not think of Palestine in political terms, as an Ottoman province to be exploited politically or economically, but as the locus of the ultimate fulfillment of biblical prophecy. This adamantly religious orientation is one reason why it was so difficult for American archaeology to commence in Palestine. In fact, if religious concerns had been the only reasons that Americans traveled to Palestine, archaeology, although born out of religion, might not have had any long-term success. When the first American archaeological team set out for Palestine, it was backed by the finances of countless Americans who had long been interested in the Holy Land from more recreational points of view. During the second half of the nineteenth century, Palestine had been sold to the American public as a destination for leisure travel and a source for artistic inspiration.

4 ARTISTS, PHOTOGRAPHERS, AND LEISURE TRAVELERS IN PALESTINE In the second half of the nineteenth century, dozens of artists and leisure travelers spent months at a time in Palestine before returning home again. Not only did these travelers set a precedent that allowed for American and British archaeologists to come to Palestine, they also brought home images of the Holy Land as it really was, as opposed to the heavenly Jerusalem that inhabited the minds of many Americans. In the United States, their paintings and photographs led to a renewed interest in Palestine as the land of the Bible, an interest that had begun with Puritan idealism and that would soon lead to the financial backing of archaeological work.

AMERICAN LITERARY LEISURE TRAVELERS When discussing leisure travelers, we will concentrate on Americans over and above British and Europeans, as the phenomenon of the American traveler to Palestine was very much linked to the American “Grand Tour” of Europe. The more adventurous of the travelers would continue eastward, ultimately to Palestine. Few went farther east than that. These travelers came to Palestine out of a sense of adventure, not out of religious longing. Perhaps the first American leisure traveler to Palestine was John Lloyd Stephens, who traveled through Egypt, Arabia, and Palestine in the mid 1830s. Stephens published an account of his travels upon his return (Stephens 1837), which inspired many other travelers to follow. In the second half of the century, numerous travel diaries were privately published in both England and America, based on such leisure trips. The phenomenon of ordinary people embarking on the long journey east proliferated during the 1870s and 1880s, with the burgeoning travel business of the Englishman Thomas Cook. Cook’s tours allowed both English and American travelers to come to Palestine in relative comfort, at a reasonable cost. Interestingly, Cook’s later became the agency through which the British Palestine Exploration Fund filtered their finances. The two most famous nineteenth-century travelers are Herman 29

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Melville and Mark Twain. Melville traveled in 1857, and Mark Twain in 1867. Melville was famously ambivalent about Palestine. This is clear in his poem Clarel, an epic-length work that fictionalized his own experiences in Palestine. The ambivalences in the poem seem to stem more from Melville’s discomfort with his personal faith and thoughts on redemption, rather than from anything he encountered while traveling. This discomfort had already been set in place before his trip. Neither his impression of Palestine nor his personal faith was significantly changed by his visit (see, e.g., J. Davis 1996, 45; Brodwin 1971, 375–87, esp. 385). Melville’s ambivalent attitude was partially due to the fact that he did not willingly choose to travel—rather, he was sent east by family as a cure for bad health, mental as well as physical (Obenzinger 1989, 65). However, it is also clear that Melville had a prior interest in the Holy Land. As a child, he had met John Lloyd Stephens himself, and this meeting inspired a lifelong interest in Palestine. It is even possible that Stephens was the inspiration for a character Melville created in one of his earlier poems (ibid. 63–64). The instability of Melville’s mental state at the time he embarked on his voyage helps to explain the negative representations in Clarel—Melville was traveling as a failed poet who felt that no one would ever read his lines. Added to that was his physical misery during the trip, as Melville was bothered by flies and claustrophobia the entire time he was in Palestine and recorded all these sensations in his personal journals (ibid. 66–69). This is most likely why he endowed the characters in Clarel with such negative feelings. Furthermore, it is the obsessions of the American characters in Clarel that lead to their troubles, not anything intrinsic about the Holy Land itself (ibid. 80–83). Gershon Greenberg has further pointed out that Melville’s poem is primarily a product of the Puritan legacy, a legacy which the poet perceived as already unfulfilled and lost (1994, 98). In contrast, Mark Twain’s The Innocents Abroad has none of the angst of Melville’s representation, and yet this literary work also shows the less than perfect face of the Holy Land, a face that the typical religious traveler would rarely allow himself to see. Samuel Clemens was using the pen name Mark Twain for the first time when he took his journey to Palestine. The journey itself was unusual, as it was the first organized tourist trip from America (J. Davis 1996:41). The success of the trip, and Clemens’s journalistic representation of it, ensured the success of Cook’s tours’ expansion into the American tourist market.1 The narrative is a marvelous example of Mark Twain’s signature irony. 1

Clemens’s accounts were originally printed in a San Francisco newspaper.

ARTISTS, PHOTOGRAPHERS, AND LEISURE TRAVELERS IN PALESTINE 31 Unlike a more typical tourist’s account, this narrative has little religiously oriented description and only references the Bible sparsely. Instead, it is a more serious travelogue that includes accurate descriptions of the harsh living conditions in both Syria and Palestine. Unlike any previous American traveler, Mark Twain takes notice of the locals he encounters and subtly reprimands his American companions and readers for coming as mere tourists who observe but do not participate in life in the country and who do little to help improve the situation.2 Clemens’s book-length essay was originally published as short pieces sent back to the San Francisco newspaper that commissioned his trip. The end result of both the original serialization and the book (first published in 1869) was a new interest in travel to Palestine by many regular Americans, not only by clergymen, as Mark Twain’s satiric writing style had already had a great effect on the American public (Michelson 1977, 398). However, Melville and Twain are the exceptions, as most of the literature that came out of nineteenth-century travel to Palestine was written from a perspective of awe at finally being in the land of the Bible. This can be seen from many travel accounts, but perhaps the most interesting are those of a group of Mormon leaders who traveled from Salt Lake City to Palestine in 1872.3 While these Mormons traveled for religious purposes, their well-written descriptions encapsulate the American tendency to see what they expect to see, rather than what is actually in front of them.4 They describe the places they visit in terms of biblical preconceptions. Even the most careful 2

For instance, in chapter 45, he spends a great deal of time describing the horrible eye diseases that afflict many children in the cities of Syria and Lebanon, as well as Palestine. See also chapter 44 on the bad conditions and poverty of the country. 3 George Smith, Lorenzo Snow, Paul Schettler, and Eliza Snow all sent back regular reports of their trip, and these were published in the Deseret News, the Woman’s Exponent, and the Salt Lake Herald. 4 The Mormons’ unique mission was outlined by Brigham Young, who commissioned the group to “dedicate and consecrate that land to the Lord, that it may be blessed with fruitfulness, preparatory to the return of the Jews in fulfillment of prophecy, and the accomplishment of the purposes of our Heavenly Father” (G. A. Smith et al. 1875). The Mormons were not there to missionize; they were there to consecrate the land itself, although not to live on it. No other religious group approached the land in exactly this way, as the various groups of American colonists had attempted to physically prepare the land for future events. This is different from the Mormon dedications. A similar but earlier Mormon dedication of the land of Palestine to the ultimate return of the Jews had been undertaken by the Mormon leader Orson Hyde, who traveled to Jerusalem in 1840. See Epperson 1992.

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observer of the lot, Paul Schettler, who spent more time than the others cataloguing the group’s Jerusalem itinerary, describes the Church of the Holy Sepulchre entirely in biblical terms. Rather than describing what he sees, he turns to religious references, for instance mentioning the platform on which the Savior’s body was anointed for burial, the place where Mary stood during the Crucifixion, the stone where the angel sat when Mary came to the grave, the pillar of flagellation on which the savior was scourged, and so on (G. A. Smith et al. 1875, 210–11).

ARTISTS AND PHOTOGRAPHERS IN PALESTINE While most travelers came to Palestine with a preconceived idea of what they would find and see, the artists and photographers who visited the Holy Land blended objective visual observation with more subjective expectations. Many of them produced a combined vision of reality and biblical perceptions. As careful observers, they understood that they were traveling in an impoverished Ottoman province, complete with the social and health problems described by the likes of Mark Twain, but as producers of works of art; and as members of a longstanding European artistic tradition that had for many centuries been rooted in religious iconography, they also represented the old vision of the “heavenly Jerusalem” in some of their pieces. The link between artists and archaeologists is a close one. Unlike the archaeology of the Americas, Near Eastern archaeology was not originally housed in anthropology departments in universities. Rather, Near Eastern archaeology was studied through the lens of Classics and art history. The artistic and architectural traditions of Mesopotamia and Egypt were approached via the same methodologies as those of Greece and Rome. Even though Palestine itself did not yield significant objets d’art, or even beautiful ruins, scholars attempted to fit the land of the Bible into the Classical model. This is why favorite settings for painters included places outside of western Palestine proper, since Palestine itself had a paucity of impressive ruins. The most commonly painted ruins were the standing columns at Palmyra (Tadmor) in Syria, Baalbeck in Lebanon, and the impressive shadowed and narrow passes leading to the carved tombs of Petra in eastern Palestine (Transjordan). Unfortunately for the artists, biblical western Palestine itself yielded few monumental ruins. In fact, many of the artistic portrayals of Palestine strive to compensate for this lack of visually appealing material. This is why artists inserted biblically inspired images into the modern landscape, in order to capture the significance of the area for Christianity. This was true of both European and American artists, although of the two groups, American art-

ARTISTS, PHOTOGRAPHERS, AND LEISURE TRAVELERS IN PALESTINE 33 ists were much more willing to immerse themselves in the realities of Ottoman Palestine. European Artists By the nineteenth century, there was a long tradition in European art of biblical themes, a tradition that originated in church art of the Middle Ages. During the Renaissance, with its new embrace of the art of ancient Greece and Rome, classically inspired styles became the norm for representing Eastern landscapes and people. Therefore, long before Napoleon opened the East to the West, Europe had an artistic tradition that fused the Classical world with biblical subject matter. Because of this visual fusion, early nineteenth century artists referred to Classical texts as well as biblical ones when choosing subject matter for paintings. Thus the death of Sardanapalus was a favorite theme (Bohrer 2003, 54). Sardanapalus was the last king of Assyria according to the Classical authors Ctesias and Diodorus Siculus, who wrote in the early fourth century BC and the late first century BC respectively. For many centuries, Sardanapalus was known only from Classical sources, not Eastern ones, and certainly not from the Bible.5 In spite of the lack of a direct connection, artists correctly recognized the relationship between the Sardanapalus legend and biblical accounts regarding Assyrians. Sardanapalus’s Assyria was clearly the very Assyria of biblical infamy, the nation that had conquered Israel and all but destroyed Judah under its king Sennacherib. Thus in several paintings from the first half of the nineteenth century, this Eastern king who clearly represented the ancient East was painted in Western, Classical style, and the palace in which he ruled was Classical in style, down the capitals of its fluted Greek columns (ibid. 52–63). This Classical portrayal continued until the middle of the nineteenth century, at which point the archaeological discoveries being made in Iraq began to enter the museums of Europe. The Assyrian discoveries were known for some time before they managed to completely capture the public imagination in Europe, particularly in England and France. In fact, in England, Assyrian reliefs brought back from Iraq were relegated to the basement of the British Museum, because they were deemed artistically inferior (ibid. 114–20).6 It was not until later in the 5

Today Sardanapalus is tentatively identified as Sargon II, well known in Assyrian history as the last strong ruler of Assyria. 6 Some of the reliefs are still housed in the basement, although upstairs galleries now lead the viewer down into these installations.

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century that artists began to acknowledge that the dramatically different Eastern (Assyrian) artistic styles were valid as art, and that as such, they could be reproduced stylistically in Western paintings of biblical scenes (ibid. 155–57). In fact, many European painters of the nineteenth century did not travel to the East—neither to Iraq nor to Palestine—to see Eastern art in its context. Rather, they relied for inspiration on the work of those who did. This is perhaps one reason that the work of the British painter David Roberts is so important. Roberts is the rare exception—an artist who did travel to Egypt and Palestine. Roberts is in many ways a transitional figure because his work moves from early inclinations to portray the East in Western artistic terms, to later efforts to incorporate the reality of Eastern art. Early in his career, in 1829, Roberts painted a large-scale diorama entitled Departure of the Israelites from Egypt. This painting portrayed Egypt in architectural terms that are purely Classical, much like Delacroix’s Death of Sardanapalus (1827), or John Martin’s Fall of Nineveh and Belshazzar’s Feast (J. Davis 1996, 57–58; Bohrer 2003, 51– 54; Bourbon and Attini 1994, 18–19). Then, in 1839, Roberts traveled to Egypt and Palestine. Following his trip, the artwork that he produced was still biblically themed but became artistically true to Eastern styles and scenes. American Artists Roberts, however, is the exception to the European model. European and British artists seldom left the museums that housed the Eastern artifacts. American artists, on the other hand, traveled for their inspiration. Because of the success of Mark Twain’s popularization of the eastern part of the Grand Tour, as well as because of lingering Puritan Old Testament curiosity, American artists traveled to Palestine quite willingly in the later nineteenth century. Unlike their European counterparts, American artists, who did not share the early European insistence on classical portrayals of the East, were very interested in seeing the places of the Bible for themselves. They hoped that a trip would help them to accurately represent the land of the Bible as it was (see, e.g., Barclay 1858). While in Europe artists were influenced by archaeological discoveries that had been domesticated by museums, in America the opposite was true: artists traveled to Palestine and began to carefully reproduce the meager archaeological ruins and artifacts that they saw. This artistic perseverance helped the discipline of archaeology get underway, as exacting sketches became the mainstay of the archaeological tradition.

ARTISTS, PHOTOGRAPHERS, AND LEISURE TRAVELERS IN PALESTINE 35 This is why it is particularly interesting that two artists accompanied the Lynch expedition. As Lynch is often viewed within the story of exploration that leads to archaeology, the commissioning of both Lieutenant John B. Dale and Passed-Midshipman R. Aulick to sketch the expedition as it went along was an invaluable beginning for archaeological illustration (Ben-Ariyeh 1997, 210). This stands in contrast to Robinson’s very accurate geography volumes, which did not include any sketches, drawings, or other representations, not even maps. The Lynch volume included two detailed maps bound in as inserts, and twenty-seven illustrations (Lynch 1854). The American portrayals of the Holy Land appear immediately different from their European counterparts. Because European artists had long been illustrating biblically oriented scenes, scientific and archaeological findings only influenced a genre that was already extant. In contrast, American artistic forays into the Holy Land often went hand in hand with the burgeoning tourist industry. Many of the first American portrayals of the Holy Land were commissioned as illustrations for travel accounts. For instance, a traveling companion of Mark Twain’s drew illustrations for The Innocents Abroad (Ben-Ariyeh 1997, 209; Twain 1859). Another common place to find American artwork was in the many volume-length missionary descriptions of the Holy Land published in the middle of the nineteenth century, which needed illustration. These included James Turner Barclay’s The City of the Great King; or, Jerusalem as It Was, as It Is, and as It Is to Be, published in 1858 after his time spent in Jerusalem in the 1850s. Barclay illustrated the volume with lithographs made from photographs that he had probably taken himself (Barclay 1858; Ben-Ariyeh 1997, 210). Another, even better known, figure is William McClure Thomson, another American missionary, who in 1859 published The Land and the Book; or, Biblical Illustrations Drawn from the Manner and Customs, the Scenes and Scenery of the Holy Land. The text reads as a hybrid of the typical traveler account combined with a missionary intent. It was copiously illustrated and included original illustrations as well as prints made from photographs (Thomson 1859; Ben-Ariyeh 1997, 210). Following the Civil War, when American interests began to turn outward, American painters finally began to travel to the Holy Land, to produce art for its own sake, not just for illustrating tourbooks. The most significant of these painters included Minor Kellogg (traveled 1844), Edward Troye (1855), James Fairman (1871), Frederick Church (1867–69), and John Singer Sargent (1891–92). Minor Kellogg already had a reputation as a great painter before he took his trip to the Near East (Ben-Ariyeh 1997, 211). Kellogg arrived in

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Palestine after spending considerable time in Turkey, Syria, and Egypt and is particularly interesting for his direct connection to the story of American biblical archaeology, as he had a personal interest in biblical archaeology in its broader sense—he was the one who introduced the American public to Layard’s discoveries in Mesopotamia (J. Davis 1996, 111–12).7 As a longtime friend of Layard’s, Kellogg had traveled throughout Turkey with him, sketching sites as they went. Kellogg was also in regular correspondence with Layard while Layard was excavating in Iraq. In his letters, Kellogg related his belief that the Assyrian figures that Layard was excavating on the orthostats of the royal Assyrian palaces were related to scenes depicted in the book of Revelation (ibid. 112). Kellogg’s artistic and archaeological interest in biblical subjects was originally inspired by his strong religious connections to the Swedenborgian New Jerusalem Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he had grown up. The Swedenborgians took a rational approach to religion. Perhaps it was this religious rationality that led to his desire to document the locales of biblical events within Palestine, even though he had Mesopotamia open to his canvas through Layard. Clearly the religious tie to the Holy Land won out, as his most famous and representative paintings dwell on biblical themes, including several depicting Mount Sinai (Mount Sinai and the Valley of Es-Sebai’yeh [n.d.], The Top of Mount Sinai with the Chapel of Elijah [n.d., see ibid. 116]), and others in and around Jerusalem (Jerusalem [1844], Sketch of the Artist Camped outside Jerusalem [n.d.]; ibid. 109–10). The Sinai theme was of great interest to Kellogg, and he later lectured extensively about the location of the mountain. The mountain that he depicted as Mt. Sinai was not the same one that Edward Robinson had recently identified (Williams 1999, 226). Several other American painters traveled to Palestine in the middle of the nineteenth century. Edward Troye was a European-born, Americantrained painter of horses. Interestingly, his reasons for coming to Palestine were horse-related, not religiously inspired, as he traveled with a horsebreeder who wanted to purchase Arabians and have Troye paint them. While there, however, Troye painted scenes of the Dead Sea, the Sea of Galilee (The Sea of Tiberias [1856]), the Jordan river (River Jordan—Bethabara [1856]), and other biblically-oriented landscapes (Ben-Ariyeh 1997, 212; J. Davis 1996, 129). One of Troye’s paintings is an early example of the genre of art that most directly relates to the inspiration for archaeological study in Palestine. This is a scene that Troye painted of a plowman working his field (Syrian 7

See chap. 7 below.

ARTISTS, PHOTOGRAPHERS, AND LEISURE TRAVELERS IN PALESTINE 37 Ploughman [1856]). The plowman stands behind an emaciated pair of oxen and is flanked by a man riding a camel and several goats with a goatherd. The animals and the scenery suggest the world of the Old Testament, specifically the shepherding context of the book of Genesis. This connection between the native people and scenery of modern Palestine and the world of biblical figures was something that was emphasized from this point forward, by both painters and photographers, as we shall see below. The last American painter of note is Frederick Church, the best-known of the American artists to have traveled to and painted in Palestine. He too painted images with Old Testament themes, again carrying forward the traditional Puritan relationship to the Holy Land.8 Church spent several years in the Near East, traveling with his wife and children. Church, who had educated himself on Syria and Palestine before the trip, rented a painting studio in Beirut before heading down to Palestine and devoted several canvases to the classical ruins of Baalbek (J. Davis 1996, 176).9 These paintings are typical for their concentration on visually appealing ruins. However, Church’s other Holy Land paintings are in line with the other defining theme of artists and photographers in the region, that of portraying places in contemporary Palestine as stand-ins for the same places in ancient times. The intent was to show continuity between the biblical period and modern times, by equate Arab shepherds and flocks with biblical shepherds and flocks, Arab water-drawers with biblical water-drawers. Church’s most famous painting of this genre is Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives. This was so elaborate that although he began it in 1868, it took several years to complete (Ben-Ariyeh 1997, 219). In the foreground to the main scene are men on camelback approaching the city. Nothing is visible that could not have been present centuries earlier. The figures are meant to remind the viewer of the various biblical figures who entered the city through such gates. This was very much a conscious connection on Church’s part. When Church was painting in Jerusalem, he encountered Charles Warren, who was 8

It has been pointed out that Church was affected by the controversy then beginning in the United States about Darwinian science versus biblical creationist history. This is why his paintings done in America before he traveled east omitted religious elements. His decision to paint in the Holy Land was a way of approaching the other side of the divide (J. Davis 1996, 175; Ben-Ariyeh 1997, 218). 9 Church painted the Ruins at Baalbek in 1868, Classical Ruins, Syria in 1868, and Anti-Lebanon in 1869 (J. Davis 1996, 117–80). All three were of the same three standing pillars at Baalbek (the second was a study for the third). Anti-Lebanon received more attention than the earlier paintings (ibid. 170–80).

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in the middle of his famous expedition to Jerusalem to be discussed below (J. Davis 1996, 186). This meeting, combined with the scenery he had come to paint, apparently impacted Church’s future directions. When Church returned to the United States, he became a board member of the American Palestine Exploration Society, to which a later chapter of this work is devoted.

THE HOLY LAND THROUGH THE PHOTOGRAPHER’S LENS Just as many painters equated modern Palestine with biblical Israel, photographers used their relatively new medium to do the same.10 The earliest photographer to purposefully use images to build up the association between biblical Israel and modern Palestine was a Jew from Europe, Ephraim Mose Lilien. Lilien, who was an artist as well as a photographer, took photographs of local people in Palestine, both Muslim and Jewish, and then drew illustrations based on his photographs. These drawings illustrated works about biblical history. Thus a photograph that Lilien took in 1901 of the Zionist leader Theodor Herzl became the basis for his 1908 depiction of the ancient high priest Elazar, forming a link between ancient Jewish claims to the land of Israel and the modern Zionist immigration to Palestine. More strikingly, Lilien’s 1906 photograph of a young girl carrying a sheaf of wheat became the basis for his 1912 illustration of the biblical character Ruth (Finkelstein 1998; Bar-Am and Bar-Am 1997). This latter association regarding the harvesting of wheat had also been made in writing by Frederick Bliss, the subject of the second half of this volume. While Bliss was excavating at Tell el-Hesy in 1890, he watched the local peasants erect booths on their fields, so that they could harvest the crops without walking back and forth to their villages. Bliss compared this phenomenon to the Israelites celebrating the Festival of Booths (Sukkoth) and equated the modern fellahin who worked for him at Hesy with the descendants of the people who once lived on the tell (Bliss 1894c, 183). In fact, photography became very closely linked with American approaches to archaeology, as photographs became essential to archaeological publications. While the British Palestine Exploration Fund was beginning to understand the importance of archaeological photography, even as late as the 1890s (see below) it included very few photographs in its archaeological publications. It was not until the American Samaria expedition that photographs became common in excavation reports, and it was not until much 10 There are many good studies of early photographs in the Near East, notably Perez 1988 and Schiller 1980. See also Gonen 1994.

ARTISTS, PHOTOGRAPHERS, AND LEISURE TRAVELERS IN PALESTINE 39 later, with the work of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago at Megiddo, that photographs began to proliferate in such reports. Later still, with the codification of the American “Gezer method” of excavation in the 1960s and early 1970s, the philosophy behind photography’s role in the discipline was solidified. Americans had made clear the necessity of photographing artifacts in their contexts before removing and excavating beneath them The history of this American insistence on photography as an archaeological standard has roots in the nineteenth-century American photographic tradition. The connection can be clearly seen through the publications of the American Palestine Exploration Society, whose photographs from the 1870s were much better distributed than their archaeological reports.11 A recent volume by Shimon Gibson publishes many nineteenth-century photographs that are currently housed in the PEF archives in London (Gibson 2003). Only about 25 percent of these were taken by PEF photographers. The other 75 percent were acquired from a variety of sources, mostly from the various photographic studios that existed in Jerusalem and that catered to the tourist trade, by offering photographic souvenirs. These included the family-run studio of the Frenchman Felix Bonfil, the company of Scottish-born James Robertson and Felice Beato, the Photochrom Company, the Jewish Jerusalemite photographer Jacob Benor-Kalter, and photographers from the American Colony (Gibson 2003, 170–73, 184–86). Although the above list includes Europeans of various nationalities as well as a few Easterners, photographing the Holy Land became primarily an American pursuit, fulfilling, for those who bought the photographs, a singularly American need to explore the world without leaving one’s own home.12 For every American who took a tour to Palestine to see the land of the Bible, there were several more who were unwilling and unable to tolerate the culture shock of the real Palestine. The shocking reality reported on by those who returned home after their tours was that the entirety of the Holy Land was populated with Arabs, only a fraction of whom were Christian, and even those did not subscribe to the “right” type of Christianity. Eastern Orthodoxy was firmly looked down on by American Protestants, and many of its rituals, particularly the Holy Light on Easter, were viewed as primitive. American tourists suffered from this culture shock much more than European ones, as they were removed from the locus of their interest by an 11

Today, no copies of the APES’s reports are readily available in library collections in the United States, but several institutions have copies of the associated photographs. 12 For a differing viewpoint see Nir 1997.

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ocean. Americans therefore developed several interesting responses to the indisputably non-Western, non-Christian nature of the land of the Bible. Instead of subjecting themselves to the inconvenience and expense of the long journey, and instead of staying in a foreign country with its unpleasant local inhabitants, why not re-create the important aspects of Palestine in one’s own backyard? This was done in American in three distinct ways.

AMERICAN RE-CREATIONS OF PALESTINE The first re-creation made was the most extreme—a literal scale model of Palestine built in the 1870s in Chautauqua, New York, at just about the same time that the first American explorers were heading out to the real Palestine, as we shall see. Palestine Park, as it is known, included the Jordan River and a scale model of Jerusalem. Burke Long discusses Palestine Park extensively in his volume Imagining the Holy Land. Palestine Park was created by a minister named John Vincent, who believed that understanding the geography and topography of the Holy Land was essential to Christian fulfillment (Long 2003, 7–41; see also J. Davis 1992). Tourists flocked to Chautauqua to see the park and its inhabitants—not real modern Arabs, but people hired to walk around dressed in biblical-period costumes. With this re-creation, Americans could avoid the realities of Ottoman Palestine. One could now be photographed “in situ” in Palestine, without leaving New York State. The second type of re-creation is exemplified by the Oriental exhibits of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, discussed extensively by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (1998), and the Jerusalem Pavilion of the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, discussed by both Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and Long. In both 1893 and 1904, aspects of the Holy Land were brought to the tents of the fair, not far from the sideshows and other, more typical fair exhibitions. Actors wore biblical costumes, but in addition to the actors, real residents of Palestine were imported to represent biblical people, placing their exotic Easternness into a Western setting—essentially turning them into artifacts. Long has pointed out that in the 1904 World’s Fair, the Jerusalem Pavilion was touted as being more accessible than the real Jerusalem, and preferable for tourists because educated guides could provide the tourist with solid information, as opposed to the ignorant local dragomen. Ironically, the next booth over belonged to Cook’s tours, selling real tours to Palestine (Long 2003, 56–67).13 13 Interestingly, the Palestine Exploration Fund was asked to send materials to the St. Louis World’s Fair. They complied because they had “for many years, received much

ARTISTS, PHOTOGRAPHERS, AND LEISURE TRAVELERS IN PALESTINE 41 The third re-creation was a natural conclusion of the first two and relied exclusively on photography and maps to achieve its goals. This is the proliferation of biblical atlases, complete with detailed text and extensive photographs. These atlases provided virtual tours of Palestine in one’s own living room. The slightly later appearance of stereoscopic biblical atlases, which gave three-dimensional quality to the photographs, emphasized the power of the photograph for Americans (ibid. 89–129). Owning a good Bible atlas and studying its maps was the next best thing to traveling to modern Palestine, no matter that the maps were of ancient roadways while the photographs were of modern peasants. One of the American photographers who engaged in this sort of recreation of biblical scenes actually crossed over into archaeology. This was Charles Foster Kent. Prior to taking up photography professionally, Kent had undertaken biblical studies with William Rainey Harper at the University of Chicago. Kent therefore had more than a layperson’s understanding of archaeological remains when he came to Palestine to take biblically inspired photographs (ibid. 94). During his tour, he stopped at the Palestine Exploration Fund’s excavations at Tell el-Hesy, where he introduced himself to Frederick Bliss (Tufnell 1965, 18; PEF/DA/Bliss/152). Kent later published a volume called Palestine through the Stereoscope (Hurlbut and Kent 1914) and then proceeded to lecture on Palestine around the United States, with his photographs as the centerpiece. He is credited with helping to make Palestine accessible to Americans though this work, and also through his books on biblical geography and history. That first meeting between Kent and Bliss at Tell el-Hesy in 1892 led to a lifelong connection between the men. Years later, Kent invited an unemployed and floundering Bliss to lecture at Yale (Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Bliss Family Papers [series 7, box 2, folder 183], 23 October 1906). The association between the two men will be returned to below, as it is interesting for another reason: Although they met in Ottoman Palestine, and although one of them worked for a British organization at the time, each immediately identified himself to the other as American. Their shared nationality connected them beyond any intellectual interest in biblical matters. valuable help from America, both by the subscriptions of members and by the contributions of valued information and suggestions by American scholars.” This quote is most likely an allusion to both the failed collaboration with the American Palestine Exploration Society, and to their employment of Frederick Jones Bliss. The PEF sent a complete set of maps, a complete set of PEFQS, and a copy of all its publications, including a collection of illustrations from its work in progress at Gezer. The Americans of ASOR, already established in Jerusalem, were not asked to send anything.

5 MISSIONARY ACTIVITY AND THE BEGINNINGS OF ARCHAEOLOGY IN PALESTINE AMERICAN MISSIONARY ACTIVITY AND THE FOUNDING OF SYRIAN PROTESTANT COLLEGE The religious connection between America and the Holy Land that began with the Puritans and persisted with the Millennialist beliefs of William Blackstone and the American colonists continued to shade American ventures in Palestine in the latter half of the nineteenth century, even as leisure travelers, writers, and artists opened the land to a more general audience. In these same years, missionary activity carved a place for itself on the landscape. In fact, Protestant missionizing led to the founding of an American institution that quite directly enabled American archaeological activity to get underway. The first wave of American missionaries arrived in Palestine even before the British, and their missionary vision was very different from that of the British. This is important to note, as these differences continued to inform the contrasting approaches of the two countries. While the British mission was associated with Britain’s already strong international presence as a Western colonial power, the American mission was associated with a pure desire to carry religious thought to all corners of the earth. In a seminal article on the early American mission to the Near East, Ussama Makdisi has shown how the American missionary tradition came out of the background of American education. This stands in opposition to the British, whose tradition came out of the context of the industrial revolution (Makdisi 1997, 683–85). The British wanted to bring religion to the natives of many countries through the conduits of modern medicine and improvement in lifestyle. This was in part because the British saw their own future in these places as a colonial power. The Americans, on the other hand, with no preexisting colonial aspirations, were interested in bringing religion and modernity to natives only through moral and spiritual educa43

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tion, not through any improvements in physical conditions. However, a practical component was not entirely absent from the American approach. It has been pointed out that the United States had long been interested in commercial relations with the Ottoman Empire, and that because of this interest, there was considerable American influence on the Turkish Navy by the 1840s (Daniel 1964, 75–76). It has also been pointed out that by the middle of the century, the Ottoman Empire was very open to technological and military innovations from the west (Lewis 1997, 1–20, 2002). Therefore, when American missionary activity commenced in 1840, American technological and cultural influence on the East had already begun. Additionally, no matter what the reason for missionary activity, the perceptions that locals had of the missionaries was often very different from the missionaries’ own perceptions (see, e.g., Kark 1994, 211–12, 2004). This is important to keep in mind as we discuss the development of American missionary activity and its oblique relationship to biblical scholarship. The reason American Protestant missionaries considered Palestine important was precisely that it was the Holy Land, the locus of the Second Coming. This made it different from any of the other places that missionaries traveled to. The natives of this land, more so than any other, needed to be in a position to receive and welcome the Messiah. In this sense the missionary activity was not far removed from the ideals of American Millennialists and colonists.1 The importance of the Holy Land within apocalyptic thought is why the first American missionary activity was centered on the city of Jerusalem, the religious heart of the region. However, very soon afterward Jerusalem ceased to be the focus of activity; in fact, Palestine itself dropped to the sidelines of the story as Beirut became the true center for American proselytizing and as such became the home base for early American biblical archaeologists as well. In 1810, a group that consisted mainly of Congregationalists, but also included Presbyterian and Dutch Reformed members, established a board to supervise cooperative missionary activity overseas. An early goal of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) was to send a mission to Palestine, to educate Jews and Muslims in Christianity, with hopes of conversion. The first mission to Palestine was mobilized in 1

There is an implicit contradiction between the goals of Millennialism—returning the Jews—and the goals of missions—converting the Jews. This is discussed below.

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1820. It commenced with the famous sermons of Pliny Fisk and Levy Parsons in Boston. Both Fisk and Parsons excited their constituency with impassioned speeches on the eve of their departure for the Holy Land (see, e.g., Handy 1977, 38–39; Shepherd 1987, 39; Vogel 1993, 101; Makdisi 1997, 683).2 But the Palestine that Fisk and Parsons encountered was nothing like the land of their expectations. A major problem was the sanitary and health conditions of the region. Neither Fisk nor Parsons lived long enough to accomplish their goals, as each died of sickness contracted on the journey; Parsons died in Alexandria in 1822, and Fisk in 1825 in Lebanon. However, before going on to Egypt and Lebanon, both men had spent time in Jerusalem, attempting to distribute Bibles and spread knowledge of their faith. But in Jerusalem they discovered the ferocious Muslim resistance to missionary activity, which all who followed them encountered as well. The Ottoman authorities refused to allow proselytizing of any sort among their Muslim citizens. Additionally, Fisk and Parsons realized that the Jewish communities of Palestine were also completely unreceptive to missionizing. The Jews of major cities such as Jerusalem, Jaffa, and Safed were not only committed to their religion, but also lived in very insular communities, both socially and economically. If an individual allowed himself to be swayed by missionaries, he would be ostracized by the community and therefore be unable to survive economically. Fisk and Parsons ultimately learned that the Muslim restrictions on missionizing could be rather severe. Fisk was held in prison in Acre for several months in 1824 as a punishment for distributing Bibles. When he was freed, he immediately headed for the relative safety and better health standards of Lebanon (Stransky 1997, 145; Lipman 1986, 26; Shepherd 1987, 40). Beirut was a less contentious city for the missionaries, as, unlike Jerusalem, there were no specific biblical or religious associations to it. In Beirut, Fisk and Parsons did not encounter vehement refusals from the Jewish community, because the Jewish population of Beirut was smaller than that in Jerusalem. However, Jews were no longer their main target; nor were Muslims, as Ottoman restrictions on proselytizing applied here as well. In fact, the main reason that Lebanon seemed appropriate was because the country was home to a large Maronite Christian community, as well as a smaller Druze one, both of which were potentially more receptive to the Protestant 2 A selection from the text of Fisk’s pre-departure sermons is published in M. Davis 1977, 177–201.

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messages. These communities were why Fisk and Parsons, and many of those who followed them, concentrated their efforts on Beirut.3 Although there were significant tensions between the Maronite Christians and the Druze of Lebanon, both groups were willing to attend missionary schools, and neither was restricted from doing so by the Ottoman authorities. The Maronites had at first avoided contact with the missionaries but later came to accept the education offered to them. However, neither the Maronites nor the Druze converted in large numbers, in spite of their involvement with missionary schools. In fact, the reason both groups ultimately came to accept the presence of these Westerners was that they saw them as possible protectors from internal squabbling (see Makdisi 1997, 684, 694). Nonetheless, this limited missionary success in Lebanon led the ABCFM to be optimistic about Beirut as a base for future missionary work. Fisk and Parsons had learned the lesson early on that Jerusalem itself was no place for missionary activity. The shift to Lebanon defined American involvement in the region for the rest of the century and beyond. Ultimately, the idea of creating a larger, more permanent school in Beirut grew out of this initial missionary contact, and is the other element that characterized American missionary activity in the Near East. It was the establishment of Syrian Protestant College that led directly to the American archaeological activity of the 1870s. The founding of Syrian Protestant College (SPC) in 1866 was a pivotal event in the history of American education overseas.4 Daniel Bliss, a young minister who had been educated at Amherst and Union Theological Seminary, was chosen as the College’s first president by the ABCFM. Bliss served as president until 1902, at which point he retired and his younger son, Howard Sweetser Bliss, succeeded him. His elder son was Frederick Jones Bliss. Even though SPC’s academic mission was as a religious institution, the school was from the outset designed as a place for students to study liberal arts and Western medicine—they could receive a literary, scientific, and professional education on the American model (Makdisi 1997, 708; see Tibawi 3 Those who followed: notably Jonas King, William Goodell, Frank Bird, and eventually the Jessups and the Blisses (see Makdisi 1997, 685–87; Vogel 1993, 101). 4 Several volumes have been written about the founding of Syrian Protestant College, including Daniel Bliss’s autobiography (1920, 162–86) and a history of the college also written by him (1993). See also Tibawi 1966; Khoury 1992; Penrose 1970.

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1966, 57ff.; Penrose 1970; Coon 1989; D. Bliss 1993; see also Khalaf 1994). The College made its missionary presence less about conversion and more about science and secularism. Now instead of Westerners going out to find the locals, the locals came in to them (Makdisi 1997, 711–12). Furthermore, the College’s emphasis on medicine brought it firmly into the realm of imparting Western scientific education to the local population. Syrian Protestant College, together with its sister institution, Roberts College in Constantinople, was considered the culmination of the American educational effort in the Near East, above and beyond the many small primary and secondary Western-run schools in Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria (Daniel 1964, 78–79). Throughout his career as president of the College, Daniel Bliss worked tirelessly to secure funds so that the College could expand and continue to raise its profile.5 And yet the American faculty of Syrian Protestant College did not always consider their students to be equals. Even in terms of the religion they sought to impart, the students who converted were always looked on as converts, never as equals in either religion or social status. This is clear from the fact that the Americans never sought to have any of the new converts ordained locally, necessitating the continued reliance on new arrivals of Western missionaries. It is also clear from the College’s long-term criticisms of the population groups from which they tried to draw converts, including Maronites, Eastern Orthodox, and Druze (Makdisi 1997, 690–99). This general attitude of superiority to the locals is another reason that the figure of Frederick Jones Bliss—son of founding president Daniel Bliss—is so interesting to our larger story, as Bliss did not share this attitude. Most of his writings attest to the fact that Frederick Bliss did consider the locals as equal. We will see that this is partly a by-product of his upbringing amid Easterners at the College. SPC was soon recognized by the locals as a prestigious institution for all who were interested in Western ways. It became particularly influential in the early 1920s, when Arab nationalism was becoming a concern following the end of World War I. At that point many Arabs in Lebanon, Muslims as well as Christians, were interested in ideals of statehood and self-determination. Even those who were ambivalent about accepting scientific knowledge from the West, which might be interpreted as acknowledging Western superiority, were beginning to be interested in the nationalism that came to them 5

Bliss’s success is marked by the fact that in 1922 the College became the American University of Beirut, still at the forefront of higher education in the Middle East today.

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via the West (see Lewis 2002, 47–48; Efimenco 1954, 203). This is one reason SPC was able to thrive as an American institution in the Near East even into the twentieth century. Because the faculty as well as the local students of Syrian Protestant College are integral to the story of the first American archaeological effort in Palestine, we return to it below.

BRITISH MISSIONARY ACTIVITY AND THE FOUNDING OF THE PALESTINE EXPLORATION FUND In the years when American missionaries were building their base of operations in Lebanon, the British also began to send missionaries to Jerusalem. The motivation for British missionaries in Palestine was the same as that of the Americans. However, unlike the Americans, the British never acknowledged that it was dangerous as well as futile to proselytize to Muslims and Jews in Jerusalem. Although the difficulties with proselytizing enumerated above could have made British missionary efforts collapse, instead they gently morphed into archaeological activity. British missionary work in Palestine actually began in London, with the founding of the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews, also known by its abbreviated name, the London Jews’ Society. The London Jews’ Society was established in the early 1840s and soon opened offices in Jerusalem itself, at the Jaffa Gate. This and other British missionary societies actively sent representatives to Jerusalem itself. However, many of these missionaries recognized that their own physical health was in as much danger as other people’s spiritual health. Cholera was a terrible problem in Jerusalem, and in the 1860s the British decided that Jerusalem’s water system was largely causing the spread of the disease. Because the London Jews’ Society wanted to be able to continue their work, it was clear that the water system needed to be cleaned and modernized first. This is why some of the society’s members founded a Water Relief Society.6 The members of this new society immediately realized that before the water system could be modernized, the entire city of Jerusalem needed to be properly surveyed by engineers. This led to the first entry of the British government to Jerusalem, with the arrival of the Royal Corps of Engineers to conduct the survey (Silberman 1982, 80–81). The partnering with the Royal Corps of Engineers is particularly interesting in terms of the influence of religious ideals on foreign policy. Palestine 6

This story has best been told by Silberman (1982).

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was not yet a major British concern, and yet the government chose to deploy men to it, men who could otherwise have been sent elsewhere in the Empire, such as India. This decision represented a major shift of policy for Britain, and brings us back to the influence of Millennialist beliefs on the Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston, discussed in chapter 3 above. The fact that Millennialist sentiment was now enabling missionary activity brings up an implicit religious contradiction. It had long been recognized that the tenets of Millennialism directly conflicted with the goals of missionary organizations such as the London Jews’ Society. The continuing presence of Jewish diaspora communities throughout the world is necessary for the Millennialist view, as Jews must exist in order to return to Palestine at the time of the coming of the Messiah. However, if the London Jews’ Society were to prove successful, then these very Jews would convert to Christianity and cease to be Jews—and who would be left to return to the Holy Land? This contradiction was both acknowledged and dismissed as early as 1810 (Shepherd 1987, 231). Both religious goals were allowed to coexist, with the understanding that neither could be accomplished in too much haste; therefore both must be attempted. This bifurcated view allowed men like Palmerston to throw support behind the missionaries’ request to reform the water systems of Jerusalem. Lord Shaftsbury, Palmerston’s influential son-in-law, was himself one of the members of the Water Relief Fund (Moscrop 2000, 66). This is how the Royal Engineers came to be sent to Jerusalem. Palmerston saw the decision as a way of continuing the policies he had begun with the establishment of the consular presence in the city, and with his resolution regarding the protection of Jerusalem’s Jews.

CHARLES WILSON AND CHARLES WARREN The reconciliation of the two religious agendas of Millennialism and proselytization is what led to the entry of the engineer Charles Wilson into Jerusalem, conducting a survey on behalf of the Royal Corps of Engineers. Wilson undertook the first modern survey of the city’s topography, ostensibly in preparation for repairing the water system. This same survey came to be thought of as the first organized archaeological project in Palestine. During the course of the survey, Wilson found not only massive ancient cisterns for water storage, but also bits and pieces of architecture and artifacts that clearly came from the city’s distant past. This led to great excitement on the public front in London, as Wilson’s progress was written up in the Times of London more than once. This inspired George Grove, a lay-

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man who was very interested in archaeological finds,7 to publicly support further exploration of the Holy Land. Grove soon became instrumental in founding the Palestine Exploration Fund in 1865 and raised significant private funds to make the Fund a reality.8 The mission of the PEF was to promote research into the archaeology, manners and customs, topography, geology, and natural sciences, including botany, zoology, and meteorology, of the land of the Bible (Lipman 1988, 50).9 The Bible was therefore always prominent within the mission of the PEF, even though the research avenues for approaching it were clearly scientific. In fact, the idea of elucidating the Bible through scientific exploration is what attracted philanthropists to the PEF in the first place. Early on, George Grove was able to recruit Lord Shaftsbury himself as a subscriber (ibid. 47–48). Once the organization was operational, the PEF sent another team of Royal Engineers to Jerusalem, this time headed by Charles Warren, in 1867. This team dug trenches and also, because of Ottoman opposition to their work, clandestinely dug tunnels, specifically searching for archaeological remains associated with the holy places of the city such as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Warren’s work was followed in 1870 by the beginnings of the survey of the entirety of Palestine. By this point, the Americans had founded their own archaeological organization and tried to coordinate work with the British.

7 Now best known for the Dictionary of Music and Musicians that bears his name to this day (Musgrave 2003). 8 For some thorough histories of the PEF see Moscrop 2000, 63–86, and Lipman 1988. See also Watson 1915. 9 This shortened form of this original mission still appears on the PEF’s website www.pef.org.uk (accessed 6 June 2005).

6 THE AMERICAN PALESTINE EXPLORATION SOCIETY By the second half of the nineteenth century, the permanent American missionary presence in Lebanon, combined with the proliferation of American leisure travelers to Palestine, made it relatively comfortable for Americans to travel to the region, as the territory was now well known. This comfort level, combined with the public interest in archaeology that the British PEF was generating in London and ultimately abroad, led to the founding of the American Palestine Exploration Society (APES), the first association in the United States to concern itself with biblical archaeology. However, there was also a very specific inspiration for the founding of the APES, one which shows complete continuity in American exploration of Palestine in spite of the perceived gap. While Edward Robinson is firmly a part of the usual narrative of American exploration of Palestine, the APES is not. And yet it should be, as a main reason that the APES came into existence was that a colleague of Robinson’s at Union Theological Seminary, who was deeply inspired by Robinson’s legacy, helped to found it. Roswell D. Hitchcock was a junior colleague of Robinson’s at Union in the years after Robinson had traveled to Palestine (Bliss 1906, 189). Hitchcock would later become the chairman of the APES and would be the main advocate for the organization to the British PEF during the controversy over the mapping work of the APES (see below). Beyond wanting to continue Robinson’s work, Hitchcock was so interested in Robinson’s person and career that he became his earliest biographer, publishing a full-length biography immediately following Robinson’s death in 1863 (Hitchcock 1863). Consequently the inspiration for Palestine exploration in America did not begin with a desire to compete with the better-known efforts of the British PEF, but rather came from an urge to continue the direct line of American exploration, a line that began with Robinson at Union Theological Seminary and continued with Hitchcock, also at Union. Although previous reconstructions of the story have neglected these connections, it is through 51

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them that the American story of biblical archaeology forms an uninterrupted path.

THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PALESTINE EXPLORATION SOCIETY One of the very few treatments of the APES was written by Warren J. Moulton, later an active member of American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR). Moulton, who published his article in the eighth annual publication put out by ASOR, pointed out that most people associated with ASOR did not seem to remember the APES clearly, even though only thirty years had passed between the founding of the organizations, and even though some of the same individuals were involved in both (Moulton 1928, 55). Moulton based his research entirely on the four statements and two bulletins issued by the APES during the 1870s. The idea for establishing an American organization for exploring Palestine came about as a consequence of two lectures held in October 1870 in New York, at the Madison Square Church. The lectures were given by the Reverends Henry Allon and James Mullens, from London, who represented the British PEF and lectured on its work, hoping for new benefactors in the United States. At this point the PEF, already in existence for five years, had decided to embark on a survey of all of Palestine, both eastern and western, to capitalize on the success of the mapping project of Jerusalem completed by Charles Wilson several years previously. The new project was intended to produce the first and only completely accurate map of the Holy Land. The PEF representatives were hoping to get Americans interested enough in their project to help fund it. In fact, there was enormous interest in the project in the United States, enough to lead to the creation of a separate organization. For the Americans, the time was right, as the country had already hosted several short-lived American chapters of the PEF, and there had also been one attempt in Chicago to found an independent society based on the model of the PEF (Moulton 1928, 55–56). The time was right for another reason as well. The formation of the APES was partially a response to the growing Assyriological contingent in a field that had once been called Biblical Studies. The Americans involved in the APES saw the need to approach the Holy Land from a scientific, archaeological standpoint, turning biblical archaeology into an independent discipline rather than a mere stepchild of the better-known and much-acclaimed fields of Assyriology and Mesopotamian archaeology (see chapter 7 below). The New York lectures that inspired the founding of the APES took place in October 1870, and by the end of November, a committee had been

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set up for the new American organization. The president of the British PEF, W. Ebor, acknowledged the new American organization with enthusiasm (American Palestine Exploration Society 1871, 11–12). British enthusiasm was warranted, as the PEF had already begun its survey of Palestine, which their Executive Committee recognized as a huge and expensive project. American participation would help defray some of its costs. Therefore, in June 1871 the British proposed that the Americans survey the territory east of the Jordan River (Transjordan), and the Americans readily agreed (Moulton 1928, 58). The alacrity of American agreement is somewhat surprising and needs explanation. Why would a new society, established specifically to forge an American presence in biblical archaeology, immediately agree to work with an older, better established society, rather than try to establish its reputation independently? Furthermore, why would the Americans willingly agree to concentrate their efforts on eastern Palestine, when the bulk of interesting sites from the biblical period were situated on the western side of the river— the locus of Israelite settlement, and of the cities associated with Jesus’s life and death? The eastern side was clearly only of secondary biblical importance. A likely answer for these questions is that the members of the APES understood that the British had already laid full claim to the survey project. If the Americans were going to be able to participate in any aspect of the survey of the Holy Land, they would have to do so as the junior partner. They further understood that any work in Palestine was going to be extremely costly, and they did not have the necessary funds. Accepting a small piece of the British project seemed a manageable way to make a beginning in Palestine. As soon as the agreement with the British was reached, the APES issued their first statement in July 1871.1 Even before citing the details of its establishment and its proposed survey goal, the organization published a summary of all work done by Americans in Palestine so far, largely concentrating on Robinson’s travels, and then moving on to Lynch’s expedition. It is interesting that the APES itself was the first to codify the narrative of the 1 Today it is difficult to find copies of the four irregularly published APES statements. Besides these statements, records of the expeditions were published in few other places. Hitchcock himself published an account of the work of the APES in the Journal of the American Geographic Society of New York, with which the APES was loosely associated (Hitchcock 1876), and Selah Merrill published his own account in the same journal a year later (Merrill 1877).

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history of archaeology that ultimately excluded its own contribution. Following the discussion of the Lynch expedition, the statement cited a variety of publications by Americans on Palestine and Jerusalem, saying that the object of this brief paragraph is not to give a resume of modern explorations in Palestine, but to recall Americans to their duty in a field where their own countrymen were pioneers, and where American scholarship and enterprise have won such distinguished merit. If of late years we have suffered France, Germany, and especially England, to lead us, their successes should stimulate us to an honorable rivalry for a precedence that was once fairly American. (American Palestine Exploration Society 1871, 7).

Clearly national pride was part of the founding of the APES—although the Americans acknowledged themselves as junior partners to the British because of their history of exploration in the Holy Land, they had greater aspirations. Similarly, when the APES announced its plans to survey east of the Jordan, the text downplayed the fact that it was merely participating in a British initiative. Rather, the east is praised as a choice spot for investigation. The unsigned article insists that it was personal familiarity with the Holy Land that led to the proposal to survey in the eastern regions, not elsewhere (ibid. 21). In truth, the fact that the Americans could only examine regions that were marginal to the biblical narrative led to both a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge was to interest philanthropists not in Jerusalem or something equally exciting from a biblical standpoint, but in Moab, a peripheral region at best. Conversely, the great opportunity was that they indeed needed to envision something important for these lands in order to successfully raise funds. The Americans did in fact manage to embellish the importance of eastern Palestine by separating themselves somewhat from the British model of biblical archaeology. Rather than claiming Bible elucidation as their prime motivation as the British did, the Americans would use pure scientific interest as their unique hook: This [eastern] region … would prove of singular interest to the archaeologist, apart from its Biblical connections; for … [no] district of equal extent could be found in the world which so abounds in remarkable remains of ancient races. Its ruins are not only great in size, but unique in character. To the south, Petra excites the wonder of the traveler. … North of Edom are to be found literally scores of deserted cities. (ibid. 21–22)

As the Americans portrayed it, there was clear value in exploring the

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eastern regions, value that had little to do with the Bible. In fact, except for a brief mention of the eastern territory of Reuben, Gad, and half of Mannasseh, Bible references are entirely absent from the article. It is only much later in the Statement, separated from the description of the eastern territories by an entire unrelated article, that the “Concluding Appeal” is made. In this appeal, potential donors are invited to consider their religious sentiment regarding Palestine. For the first time, the Statement makes mention of the possibility that archaeological work might verify biblical history (ibid. 34–35). The APES wanted to have its cake and eat it too— be scientific in its approach and therefore not discuss the Bible, but then return to the Bible in order to inspire potential donors. The parallel situation existed in London, as the PEF was funded by men with religious motivations, including Lord Shaftsbury himself. Now, in New York, the APES was to be funded by various church leaders as well as American missionaries.

CONNECTIONS BETWEEN THE AMERICAN PALESTINE EXPLORATION SOCIETY AND SYRIAN PROTESTANT COLLEGE The members of the APES founding committee of 1871 included thirty men, sixteen of whom were from New York City. A handful of the others were from the greater New York area, two were from Philadelphia, and one was from Chicago. Another half dozen were from cities around New England, and one was from Beirut. These latter men were asked to join specifically to build up a particularly useful connection for the APES, namely its relationship with Syrian Protestant College, the American missionary institution in Beirut. By the 1870s, SPC was very well established and had been quite successful in its fundraising endeavors. The APES’s involvement with SPC demonstrated the hope on the part of some of the Society’s founders that the successes of SPC might transfer to their own organization. Therefore, from the outset the APES nurtured a deep connection to the infrastructure of SPC—the organizations shared board members as well as outside donors. In fact, building up its association with the financially successful SPC was quite clearly one of the earliest goals of the APES. One of the original APES board members was W. S. Tyler, of Amherst, Massachusetts. Tyler was a well-respected professor of Greek at Amherst College and had been deeply involved with missionary activity in Syria in the years before the founding of SPC, as he had visited the Beirut mission in 1856 (D. Bliss 1920, 55, 106). Tyler was also a senior colleague and good friend of Daniel Bliss,

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founding president of SPC. Moreover, the single APES committee member from Beirut was the Reverend D. Stuart Dodge. Dodge, originally from New York, had visited the mission in Syria in the late 1850s, before the founding of the College, and was integral to the development of the College in its early years during the 1860s. For several years, Dodge served as president of the College’s Board, and he spoke, along with H. H. Jessup, at the opening address in December 1866. Dodge even taught at the College for a time as professor of English (ibid. 190, 232). Dodge was also a lifelong close friend of Daniel Bliss. Another member of the APES committee who had close ties to SPC was William A. Booth of New York. In 1863, Booth had been one of the original six trustees of SPC and at one point had also served as president of the Board. Lastly, but perhaps most significantly, Roswell D. Hitchcock himself, the second (and longest lasting) chairman of the APES, had also been involved in the early years of SPC (ibid. 169, 171, 213). It is likely that he was the motivating force behind solidifying this institutional connection. As the APES attempted to grow, it began to rely even more heavily on SPC for various sorts of support and for crossover philanthropy. The archaeological institution even formed a “Beirut Advisory Committee.” One of the early members of that committee was H. H. Jessup. Jessup was one of the missionaries who had originally sailed to Beirut in December 1855 along with Daniel Bliss, and who had been instrumental in starting the College (ibid. 82). More significantly, by 1873 no less than four members of the Reverend Dodge’s family back in New York were making philanthropic contributions to the APES. Furthermore, the Amherst contingent of philanthropists had also expanded by 1873, due to the efforts of W. S. Tyler, the Amherst College faculty member who was in constant contact with the SPC missionaries. Tyler brought in four other Amherst contributors, one of whom was J. H. Thayer, who went on to help found ASOR, as we will see below (American Palestine Exploration Society 1873, 80–81; Moulton 1928, 55). Not only did these Amherst residents hold subscriptions to the APES as individuals, but they also worked to find institutional members in their communities, such as the First Parish S.S., Amherst, and the First Congregational Church S.S. Fall River, both of which had long had connections to SPC as well.2 2

“S.S.” may stand for “Sunday School.” Besides the information given above, the First Statement of the APES included a short article on the PEF’s explorations of Jerusalem, an article on the Moabite stone, and another on inscriptions found at Hamath by the Consul-General of the United States at Beirut, who wrote the article himself.

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The strong relationship between the SPC and the APES continued to thrive even after the APES was fairly well established.3 When the APES sent out its second expedition (under the leadership of Selah Merrill, who is discussed below), the archaeologists who formed the core of the party were essentially rescued by the College. When the group arrived in Beirut in August 1875, they found the city under quarantine due to cholera. George Post, faculty member of SPC and member of the Beirut Advisory Committee of the APES, arranged for temporary housing for the party at the College itself (Moulton 1928, 65).4

THE FIRST EXPEDITION In spite of the initial American enthusiasm of late 1870 and early 1871, the APES got off to a rocky start. Before the end of its first year of existence, its first chair, the Reverend Dr. J. P. Thompson, had resigned due to ill health and had been replaced by the Reverend Roswell D. Hitchcock himself. But the APES’s problems were not just of leadership. In a letter to the PEF, the secretary of the APES intimated that the expedition was delayed for financial reasons. Apparently it was difficult to solicit funding that year, as American philanthropists had been responding to the immediate needs that followed the great Chicago fire of October 1871 (Moulton 1928, 69). The other early problem that the APES faced was that, unlike the PEF, in which Charles Wilson was an early and enthusiastic participant, the Americans had no engineers in their ranks. The initial APES committee was made up of ministers and lay leaders. Because there was not a single engineer among them, the APES had to conduct a search to find one. Eventually, they hired Lieutenant Edgar Steever, Jr., an officer in the United States Army, who had to obtain a year’s leave of absence from the War Department. By the time his leave was arranged, another year had passed for the APES, so that the first expedition did not set sail until November 1872. Conveniently for the APES, even though Steever was on leave while he worked on the survey, his salary was paid for by the United States Army. 3

Another early connection between the institutions can be seen through the publication of an article in the Society’s Second Statement. The article was about the ruins of Husn Sulayman in Syria and was written by the Rev. Samuel Jessup, who was given the byline of “American Missionary in Syria” (American Palestine Exploration Society 1873, 26). This Jessup (not to be confused with H. H. Jessup) was on the advisory committee in Beirut. 4 We shall see later that Post was the one who recommended Frederick Bliss to the PEF.

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This meant that the APES only had to invest in instruments. They did, however, have to pay the salary of the other member of the expedition, Professor John A. Paine, who had taught at Roberts College in Constantinople as archaeologist and naturalist (American Palestine Exploration Society 1873, 39). The expedition set out in November 1872, when Steever sailed to England to meet with members of the PEF. Steever was very impressed by the way the British surveyors measured and made their maps, and also by the accuracy of their measurements. He more than once emphasized in his correspondence with the APES that having good assistant engineers was absolutely essential to his work. He also pointed out that the British work was clearly more accurate than the previous American work of Lynch, and that the Americans should not be afraid to adopt techniques that other nationalities had invented (ibid. 40–41). These comments are particularly telling in light of the end product of the American mapping project, which the British found completely inadequate and well below their standards. Steever left London for Beirut in late December 1872 (Paine had gone on ahead) but was then delayed in Beirut all the way through March 1873, because of lack of funds to continue. Back in New York, the APES was desperately trying to raise the necessary funds, but the public was not interested in the project. In the end, the committee members themselves fronted money so the expedition could start. In the meantime, Steever wrote to the committee fourteen separate times, hoping to encourage them to jump-start their fund-raising activities, as he realized he was missing the best part of the year for surveying work (ibid. 45). In spite of his frustration, Steever tried to take advantage of his time in Beirut. During the delay, he had casts made of the Hamath inscriptions and had them transported from Damascus. Meanwhile, Paine was surveying at a nearby site called Dog River. (The results of this survey were published as a separate article in the same Statement.) Yet Steever remained frustrated about the delay and became increasingly desperate to set up a proper team, since he knew a survey of this scale required more than one trained man. Without the knowledge of the APES committee back in New York, Steever managed to contact Claude Conder of the PEF, whose survey team of western Palestine was hard at work. Conder invited him to come down and watch his team in action, which Steever did, meeting him near Haifa. Conder described his impressions of Steever, and of the American lack of preparations in letters back to the PEF:

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They are unprovided with any linguist as far as I can understand and I cannot discover any instruments but chronometers and barometers in their possession. (PEF/DA/WS/CON/34, in Cobbing 2005, 11) I gave him every possible information as to our work and general arrangements and he went away with every protestation of gratitude and esteem … with a good breakfast and a supply of Arabic words with English translations. (PEF/DA/WS/CON/36, ibid. 12)

From this visit with Conder as well as from his own surveying knowledge, it is likely that Steever already understood that the expedition was doomed to failure. This is why he repeatedly entreated the committee to send funds so he could get off to a proper start. Steever did manage to put together a team for the survey. Unfortunately, the team was not chosen by himself and Paine, but by a group of individuals that the APES leadership in New York referred to as an “advisory committee.” This advisory committee consisted almost exclusively of the faculty, Board, and staff of SPC, and some other members of the American mission in Beirut, including, most interestingly, President Daniel Bliss himself (Moulton 1928, 61). The other members were William Thomson, Henry Jessup, George Post, C. V. A. Van Dyck, and Samuel Jessup, leaving only one man, James Dennis, unaffiliated. The last member, a diplomatically influenced appointment, was the American consul general in Cairo, Richard Beardsley. The survey team itself was a mix of American personnel and native Syrians. The Americans included a first and second engineer. The first engineer was the Reverend Alanson Haines of New Jersey, most likely in Syria to work at the Mission or the College, and the second was William Ballantine of Indiana. The third American was Melville Ward of Maine, listed as an assistant. Beyond these Americans (at least one of whom was also involved in the mission) were George Subbet, a native Syrian and current student at SPC (interpreter for the team); Bishrar Abou Shafateer, another native Syrian and a graduate of SPC (collector of natural history); Usef Abboud, a Syrian, listed as a second assistant; and Usef Moushreck, a Syrian, who was the expedition’s cook (American Palestine Exploration Society 1873, 51). The team finally left Beirut for Palestine in March 1873 and spent a month traveling to es-Salt. They survey itself lasted from April to August (ibid. 74). Steever’s account of the trip to es-Salt, and his letters to the Committee in New York, were published in the APES’s Second Statement. The Statement included a note from the Committee to its subscribers explaining that the results of the field season would be published in the very next Statement (ibid. 74). However, in the end they were never published at all, because

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Steever’s association with the APES did not continue. It is possible that the committee was unsatisfied with his work and therefore let him go (Moulton 1928, 63); however, that is unlikely, as the committee had just managed to obtain another year’s leave from the Army for him. In fact, it is more likely that Steever himself resigned due to dissatisfaction with the working conditions—the long delay in Beirut, the lack of funding for a proper work force, and the lack of proper equipment as compared to the British, all of which he emphasized strongly to his superiors in his letters. Steever wanted to conduct a proper survey by means of triangulation. Triangulation equipment was available at this time; in fact, the British were using it in their western survey (see below). Steever did in fact manage to do some triangulation, perhaps with borrowed or outdated equipment (PEF/ DA/APES12). However, it is probable that Steever’s team did not own a theodolite (Cobbing 2005, 12). Steever had realized early on in his year with the APES that it was impossible to produce an appropriate map under these conditions and did not want to compromise his work or his reputation as an army engineer by continuing in this manner.

THE SECOND EXPEDITION For a brief while after Steever’s resignation, Paine continued on alone, working toward publishing the results of the survey thus far. The Third Statement of the APES, published in January 1875, included a lengthy report by Paine on the identification of Pisgah and an unsynthesized catalogue of flora gathered during the 1873 expedition, also put together by Paine. In fact, the third article in the Statement, a listing of Arabic place names, was also written by Paine, now the sole professional staff member of the APES. But without an engineer, no new work could take place in the second half of 1873 or in 1874. Nonetheless, the APES was gearing up to go out again and complete the job. The list of subscriptions at the end of their third published Statement is longer than previous lists and includes most of the previous affiliates, as well as new ones. The new affiliates include members from cities outside the northeastern United States, and there is also evidence of another sort of development effort—the APES was now soliciting Sunday schools as subscribers, as about fifty had taken subscriptions. Finally, a new engineer was found to replace Steever. This was Col. James C. Lane, an army engineer who had served during the Civil War and who, unlike Steever, was apparently willing to survey without triangulation equipment. At this point the APES saw fit to replace Paine as well, in spite of the fact that he had single-handedly authored their most recent Statement. The new archaeologist appointed was the Reverend Selah Merrill of

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Andover, Massachusetts, a problematic figure in Palestine from this point forward, as we will see. The APES announced both appointments in a Bulletin published in April 1875.5 In addition to the new appointments, this Bulletin stated that the APES had decided that personal credit could no longer be pledged, only cash donations. The development efforts of the APES were once again not producing results. The survey party went out again under its new leadership (Lane and Merrill) in August 1875, with several other new staff members as well, including two more faculty members of SPC and a photographer, T. R. Dumas of Beirut (Moulton 1928, 64). Dumas’s photographs are today considered the best surviving artifact from the APES expeditions.

TRIANGULATION VERSUS RECONNAISSANCE SURVEYING Lane and Merrill resumed work where Steever and Paine had left off. But there had been a crucial change in methodology since Steever’s departure. By the beginning of the second survey, the APES was no longer conducting a precise standard survey by means of triangulation, but merely doing reconnaissance work: As announced by Bulletin some months ago, the work of triangulation has been suspended; partly because of the disturbed condition of Turkey, and partly because of severe and long-continued financial distress at home. But the archaeological part of our work still goes on. (American Palestine Exploration Society 1877, 3)

The APES leadership had not made this decision lightly. The committee had asked Lane to explain in detail the different methods of triangulation and other survey techniques, which Lane had done, and his explanation was published in the APES’s fourth and last Statement. There, Lane made it quite clear that triangulation was absolutely necessary to produce a quality map (ibid. 5, 8–14). But the APES disregarded his advice. The time and expense necessary to do a proper survey were too much for the APES committee members to accept. Chairman Thompson and H. H. Jessup (then the secretary) justified the decision to merely do a reconnaissance in a three-page statement (ibid. 25–28). Reconnaissance methodology was clearly inferior in Lane’s eyes, and all who read Lane’s published report, including the APES subscribers, would have recognize this. It is quite possible that this decision 5 None of the Bulletins can be found, but Moulton summarized this particular one in his article (1928, 63).

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is why no more funding was forthcoming and why the APES ultimately disbanded and did not publish any further statements. It is somewhat unexpected that the PEF, which received copies of all the APES statements and also kept in touch with the organization’s leadership directly, did not make a formal comment at this point. As partners with the Americans, they had a very clear interest in the methodology used by the APES, and Conder had previously expressed reservations about the American expedition (see above, and Cobbing 2005, 11–12). However, the PEF did not ask for clarifications or changes in methodology from the APES and did not express dissatisfaction until much later, when the American maps had been completed and sent to the PEF.

THE RESULTS OF THE SURVEY The fourth and last APES Statement also included a report by the team’s archaeologist, Selah Merrill. This was intended as preliminary (as Steever’s had been previously), but no final report was ever published.6 Much later, Merrill went on to publish a volume titled East of the Jordan (Merrill 1881). Merrill based this volume on the information he had gathered during the APES survey but did not credit the APES for either their affiliation or their financial sponsorship. In fact, he only mentioned the APES once, in his introduction, otherwise taking full credit for himself.7 Merrill’s particular eccentricities aside, the most interesting part of the story of the APES is what happened after the completion of the 1875 survey season (the last one the organization ever conducted), while the organization was preparing its thirteen sheet maps of eastern Palestine. Roswell D. Hitchcock, still chair of the APES, sent off preliminary map sheets to the PEF in October 1878 and immediately received criticism of them by George Grove, who in a November letter stated that he would reserve judgment on the American work until after he could confer with both Wilson and Kitchener (PEF/DA/APES/1). Grove was not pleased. It seems that this was the first British awareness of the American style of mapmaking, even though the Americans had been quite public about their lack of triangulation in their published Statements. Hitchcock, offended and defensive, immediately wrote back, telling Grove that the American map was far superior to any existing map of the area (PEF/DA/APES/2). He and the APES continued to ready the survey 6

The Statement also included a catalogue of all ninety-nine photographs taken by the survey, all available to American subscribers for purchase. 7 See below on Merrill’s later career.

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materials, sending Merrill’s lists of biblical place names to the PEF in intervals, then finally, in February 1879, sending the final versions of thirteen map sheets to the PEF (PEF/DA/APES/nos. 3, 4, 5). It had now been two years since the APES had published their last statement. However, they did not appear concerned about their public image, as they anticipated solving their financial problems by selling copies of the maps to subscribers in the not too distant future. The Americans still assumed that their original 1873 agreements with the PEF about publishing the maps side by side would hold. Hitchcock specifically mentioned the arrangements that the APES was making for selling the finished, joint map in America (PEF/DA/APES/5). However, the British were now backing away from that plan. After the PEF received the final maps, W. Hepworth Dixon, the chairman, wrote to Hitchcock stating once more that the PEF would need to thoroughly examine the American maps to determine whether publication alongside the western survey map would be possible (PEF/DA/APES/6). Soon after, Kitchener himself examined the maps and reported to the rest of the PEF that the American map is a “reconnaissance sketch, but in no sense a survey … it would be unwise to expend a very large sum in its reproduction” (PEF/ DA/WS/KIT/68, in Cobbing 2005, 14). Then, in March 1879, Dixon asked Hitchcock to see a diagram of triangulation and to see any further information which could be published along with the maps (PEF/DA/APES/7). Of course very few if any such diagrams existed, because triangulation had not been done since the first expedition of Steever, and even then it was only done irregularly. Then, without waiting for Hitchcock to respond, Dixon wrote again telling the American that “it is impossible for the work to be joined to ours” (PEF/DA/APES/ 8). Hitchcock responded to both letters quickly (in April 1879), explaining that the triangulation diagram was not ready yet due to the illness of a Mr. Meyer (whose identity within the APES is unclear), and that Merrill’s final report was also not quite ready (PEF/DA/APES/9). Dixon in turn replied that the PEF did not need a final report just yet, as their own final report of the western survey would not be ready for another year (PEF/DA/APES/ 11). The Americans at this point must have been as irritated with the British as the British were with them. The APES had made quite clear in their published statements that they had abandoned triangulation as a technique early in their work and that their survey was only one of archaeological reconnaissance. And yet the British wanted triangulation diagrams. But the Americans

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were also now fully aware that the British were not satisfied with the quality of their work. In May 1879, Hitchcock sent Steever’s early triangulation diagram to the PEF, the one he had made in his 1873 survey (PEF/DA/APES/13). Of course, Hitchcock could not send a diagram from the 1875 Lane and Merrill expedition, because one did not exist. With all the materials now in hand (excepting a final report from Merrill), the British considered their options for the better part of a year before making their decision, which was to cut the Americans loose. The American map was inferior and, worse, incompatible, as the geographic lines did not match up to the British ones (PEF/DA/APES/18, 19, 20, 21; PEF/DA/ EC/1/6/1880; Cobbing 2005 15–18). They considered issuing a joint western and eastern map on a reduced scale, where the discrepancies would not be so immediately obvious, but ultimately decided that it was not financially sound to engrave an “imperfect map” (PEF/DA/APES/18, 13). Dixon wrote to Hitchcock in March 1880, informing him of the PEF’s decision and also telling him that that they were sending on fifty full-size copies of the British Western Survey Map and eight hundred reduced-size copies, presumably for the APES to sell to their subscribers (PEF/DA/ APES/13). In response, Hitchcock made one more attempt to save the American organization from disgrace. He argued with Dixon, saying that the western map alone did not serve the purpose of the APES and was not what their subscribers were expecting (PEF/DA/APES/14). The initial PEF response to Hitchcock’s argument was unreceptive. Internal PEF documents point out that the Americans could add their eastern map to the reduced British western one if they wished to do so and sell this combined form to their subscribers (PEF/DA/APES/15). However, in a move toward reconciliation, the secretary of the PEF, Walter Besant, ultimately wrote back to Hitchcock saying that the PEF would reconsider the entire matter. The PEF set up a subcommittee for the purpose (Cobbing 2005, 15; PEF/DA/APES/15). Ultimately, however, its conclusion was the same. The maps could not be joined, because the American work was too inexact. Walter Besant wrote to Hitchcock himself, pointing out that the published APES statements had always kept the subscribers fully aware of the fact that the APES was conducting “a reconnaissance and not a survey … so that no one will have any right to be disappointed” (PEF/DA/APES/17). Hitchcock did not have any response to this. It had now been three years since the publication of the last APES statement. There was nothing to show for the work, and no maps to sell from it. There was no possibility of

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future collaboration with the British, and no remaining funds for mounting an independent project. Therefore, sometime in 1880, the APES was dissolved. The Americans did not make another attempt at establishing an archaeological organization until twenty years later.

THE SIGNIFICANCE AND LEGACY OF THE AMERICAN PALESTINE EXPLORATION SOCIETY Although the picture seemed bleak when the APES was dissolved, the very existence and perseverance of the APES (if not its work) was a major stepping stone toward later biblical archaeological endeavors. The connections that allowed the APES to limp through the 1870s ultimately led to the success of the British PEF in the 1890s and then led to the founding of ASOR and its successful strategies in the first years of the twentieth century. The APES received its greatest public attention in 1873. During that year, the British still believed that the organization was a worthy counterpart, as the first expedition had finally gotten to the field. It was also in this year that the American public took note of the proposed survey work in Palestine (without the knowledge of the difficulties). The organization’s 1873 annual meeting was held at Association Hall in New York, under the auspices of the American Geographic Society, a well-known and respected organization. This meeting was given a lengthy write-up in the New York Times.8 The article brought to the public’s attention the mapping work that the APES was engaged in, and from that point forward the Times recorded the departures and arrivals of expedition members, as they were considered important personages. This public attention explains why there was a noticeable increase in donations to the Society in 1894. The Direct Connection between the APES and ASOR As Moulton noted at the outset of his brief study, the APES seemed to have been completely forgotten, even by those original members of the committee whom he interviewed about it (Moulton 1928, 55). This is likely because the main project of the APES was seen as an embarrassing failure. By the time Moulton was writing, the British had already resurveyed and redrawn the eastern map in several different stages, the first and most notable being Conder’s eastern survey (Conder 1889).9 By the time Moulton was writing,

8 9

New York Times, 6 December 1873, 12. Also note Woolley and Lawrence 1914.

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ASOR was also a well-established, respectable institution, which would not want any associations with a failed survey project. And yet Moulton correctly pointed out that there was a certain amount of crossover between the defunct APES and ASOR, which had been founded in 1900. Most notable is the figure of J. Henry Thayer, who was a member of (and contributor to) the APES in 1872 and 1873 (American Palestine Exploration Society 1873, 82). Thayer went on to become the president of the Society of Biblical Literature, and as such endorsed the creation of ASOR in 1900. Similarly, William Ward had been a member and contributor to the APES and went on to become active in ASOR (Moulton 1928, 55). The Connection Between APES and Future PEF Projects In spite of the failed mapping project, the APES affected the PEF more than the latter liked to admit. Certainly, the mapping project left the British with a distrust of American endeavors. This can be seen in the earliest relations between ASOR and the PEF. When ASOR was newly incorporated and the Jerusalem school was first planned for, its leaders requested that the PEF donate a set of their publications to their library. However, the PEF refused outright at first, then only complied once the Jerusalem school was an actual entity on the ground, not a mere proposal (PEF/DA/Executive Committee Minutes/19 June 1900). And yet, the PEF found itself indebted to the APES. Only a decade after the demise of the American organization, the PEF was forced to turn to a connection forged through the Americans in order to rescue themselves from an emergency. This was when Flinders Petrie refused to return to Palestine after serving for only six weeks as the PEF’s first excavator. The British found themselves with a permit but no excavator, and a very tight timeframe to make the replacement. This was when Frederick Bliss was hired. Bliss, the son of the president of Syrian Protestant College, was recommended by a member of the faculty of the College (see below). The British were only able to turn to SPC for help because of the professional connections they had had with the APES. Frederick Bliss proceeded to work for the PEF for ten years and became their most influential excavator. From the British point of view, it is ironic that Bliss himself was an American from a well-known American institution. The hiring of Bliss is a demonstration of the PEF’s debt to their former American partners. The very first excavations in Palestine may have been run by the British, but their only professional staff member was an American. A last comment on the erasure of the contribution of the APES also

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has to do with Frederick Bliss. Later in his life, Bliss edited and added to his father’s memoirs. In his text, Bliss discusses many of the faculty from SPC who had been associated with the APES but never once mentions the APES by name. Similarly, Bliss mentions his father’s own passing interest in archaeology, which included several expeditions in 1873 to the archaeological site of Dog River, as well as his visits to Bliss’s own excavations at Tell elHesy and Jerusalem (D. Bliss 1920, 242). However, in these discussions, he does not once mention his father’s involvement with the APES as a board member.10 The best explanation for this lacuna is that, as Moulton noted, writing his article only eight years after Bliss published his father’s biography, the APES had been thoroughly forgotten at this point. We can now go further and state that the APES’s contribution was deliberately erased, due to embarrassment over its failure. In fact, the failure of the APES was very troubling to the faculty of SPC, as they were so deeply involved with the archaeological organization. Many of the main members of the survey team had been chosen by the Beirut Advisory Committee of the APES, which consisted of faculty from the College. Furthermore, several members of the survey team were graduates of the College. In this sense, the failure of the survey team was a direct failure of Syrian Protestant College itself. When Bliss chose not to mention the APES while editing his father’s memoirs, he was writing as a representative of the College, not as an archaeologist. This is perhaps the greatest irony regarding the lost legacy of the APES—that Bliss himself helped erase the American contribution of the 1870s. Before leaving the APES behind, it is important to note that its members were already aware of a growing problem within ancient Near Eastern studies in the American academy. At its annual meeting in 1873, one of the speakers gave the following motivation for the organization’s existence: Great stress has been laid on the recent explorations in Assyria, in Nineveh, and Persia, but [it is] asked whether, while due importance and weight was given to these things, Palestine should be forgotten—Palestine, the land of the Bible and of the great civilization of antiquity.11 10

Daniel Bliss visited Dog River three times in 1873, with the engineers of the Beirut waterworks. The team followed the stream and its underground passageways. Mrs. Bliss was in America with the children at the time (D. Bliss 1920, 242–43). This was the same year that Paine and the APES were also surveying Dog River, during their long delay in Beirut (American Palestine Exploration Society 1873, 42). Although the two groups of Americans do not mention each other, it is quite possible that Daniel Bliss saw the American archaeologists at work. 11 New York Times, 6 December 1873, 12.

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These comments gave voice to an academic dispute that had been silently smoldering for decades. The overriding importance of Assyria in the public imagination, as well as in the minds of ancient Near Eastern scholars, was already quite clear. That the APES briefly offered the possibility of reversing the trend to favor Mesopotamia as the land of the Bible, over and above Palestine, is perhaps the organization’s greatest legacy.

7 THE OTHER DIRECTION OF AMERICAN BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP: ASSYRIOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES THE EXCLUSION OF THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF PALESTINE FROM AMERICAN NEAR EASTERN SCHOLARSHIP The Bible has many locales, and Palestine was just one of them. Even a cursory reading of the Old Testament makes clear that both Assyria and Babylonia were much more important political entities in the ancient Near East than the land of the Israelites. The latter was a mere backwater by comparison. Scholars understood this by the middle of the nineteenth century, not only from information from Greek historians who discussed these empires, but also via archaeology. The British and French were both unearthing major discoveries in the dirt mounds of northern Iraq, which will be briefly reviewed below. Later, the Germans did the same in southern Iraq. The first biblical archaeologists had to compete for attention with the material coming out of the ground in Mesopotamia. The great palaces of Assyria were huge and impressive, and not only from an archaeological point of view. They were also impressive as the findspots of great libraries of cuneiform documents, which were subsequently translated. Assyriology, the study of these documents, essentially replaced biblical studies as the academic field that considered the Bible from a scientific point of view. As Assyriology grew within the academy, there was little opportunity for biblical archaeology to make its voice heard. As more and more tablets were deciphered, the study of the languages of Mesopotamia became elevated in the scholarly community as the only reliable way to approach Mesopotamian and biblical history, while the study of the biblical texts themselves was seen as subjective and contaminated by religious belief. This was the intellectual situation at hand in both Europe and America when the PEF was founded in London and the APES was founded in New 69

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York. The desire within the American academy to replace the Hebrew Bible with something of greater intellectual value, something with no religious associations, is evident at almost every turn of early Assyriological writings. By the 1880s, Assyriology already viewed itself as unconnected to biblical archaeology, and barely connected to biblical studies as a whole. Some of the earliest articles on Assyriology by American authors were published in the new American Journal of Philology. This venue linked Assyriology with the very detail-oriented study of philology and denied any association with the physical labor of excavating the dirt of non-Western countries. Through these means, Assyriology was able to remove itself from the locus of the Hebrew Bible, the land of Palestine, and ultimately from the main people of the Bible, the Jews. The Jews, who still claimed the Hebrew language as their own, were no longer needed as interpreters or preservers, as the texts of Mesopotamia replaced biblical ones in intellectual arenas. Examples of this can be seen throughout early Assyriological scholarship. For instance, in an article written in 1881 that reviewed the state of Assyriology, Francis Brown explained how Assyriology had already changed the generally understood meaning of biblical words: One of the most striking discoveries is that of the true meaning of susu (Heb. ,, , “horse”). The considerations in virtue of which Lotz translates it in Assyrian by “elephant,” set this meaning fairly above the grade of mere probability. (Brown 1881, 228)

In this type of examination, even a basic noun known via the Hebrew (Jewish) Bible could come under scrutiny, to the point where its Hebrew meaning could be abandoned as less than fully accurate. Brown concluded his article by stating that scholars were hoping that the various difficulties still existing in the Assyrian lexicon would soon be resolved by the well known German Assyriologist Friedrich Delitzsch (ibid. 230). In fact, several years later, Delitzsch initiated the “Babel–Bible” controversy, making it impossible to ignore the implication that Assyriology replaced biblical studies, the former being intellectually rigorous, the latter steeped in religious superstition (see also discussion below).1 When Delitzsch published his Prolegomena a few years after Brown’s article (Delitzsch 1886), he specifically emphasized the importance of other ancient Semitic languages—including Akkadian and Aramaic—for gaining a more precise 1

The Babel–Bible controversy has been researched at length in recent years, mostly by German scholars, as well as by several Israelis. The issue of its antisemitic implications has been discussed in most of these studies. See for instance, Lehmann 1994; Shavit and Eran 2004. See also below.

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understanding of certain Hebrew words.2 The American Oriental Society (AOS) was founded in 1842 as a professional organization for American scholars interested in the languages and cultures of the greater Orient. A year after its founding, the AOS began publishing its own journal, the Journal of the American Oriental Society. Once the mounds of Assyria had begun to yield tablets, and once those tablets were translated, the JAOS became a primary outlet in the United States for Assyriological scholarship.3 However, Assyriologists published just as often in newly established philological journals. This forged an intellectual link between Assyriology and philology, and simultaneously separated Assyriology from archaeology.4 Although primarily devoted to the study of texts, the AOS concerned itself with many different aspects of the ancient Orient. This is what makes the absence of any discussion of the archaeology of Palestine in the pages of its journal, and in lectures at its meetings, so conspicuous. For instance, at the 1889 annual meeting of the AOS there were no mentions of the British archaeological excavations beginning in Palestine, although lengthy sections are devoted to the scholarship on Greek architecture in Egypt, to the goddess Tiamat in Assyrian art, and to Maspero’s identification of an Egyptian mummy—all archaeological topics themselves (American Oriental Society 1889b). This was the same year that the PEF had finally managed to send Sir Flinders Petrie to excavate at Tell el-Hesy. If ever there was a moment to mention biblical archaeology, this was it, and yet the AOS chose not to incorporate this particular part of archaeology (as opposed to Egyptian or Mesopotamian) into its mandate. The same was true for the AOS’s other publications that year. This is rendered all the more striking because the journal did include a report of Petrie’s work in the Fayyum in Egypt, without any mention of his new com2

For a contemporary English-language summary of Delitzsch’s work and its reception in America, see R. Wilson 1887. 3 Beginning in the 1860s, and continuing throughout the 1870s, 1880s, and onward, the JAOS devoted an ever greater proportion of space to articles on texts and inscriptions from Mesopotamia and surrounding regions. 4 The concentration on language above all else was criticized by insiders within the field as early as 1919, when James Henry Breasted, then head of the AOS, said, “Our enormous philological task has led us to regard even the written documents rather as a materials for building up the dictionary and grammar than as historical sources” (J. Breasted 1919b, 169). Although he was president of the AOS at the time, he went on to state that written evidence has been used to the exclusion of all other sorts of evidence, including archaeology (ibid. 170).

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mission for the PEF (American Oriental Society 1889a, cxxvii–cxxix). The next year’s reports continued to ignore Petrie’s work at Hesy, even though his earlier work in Egypt was again discussed in detail. Furthermore, when the Americans opened their own excavation in Babylonia in 1892 under the auspices of the University of Pennsylvania, the trend continued—archaeology in Mesopotamia was given considerable space, but there is a simultaneous silence about the excavations in Palestine, as if Palestine was not part of the Orient at all.5 This absence of Palestine excavation is even more striking because the AOS was one of the three academic societies that purported to support ASOR at its inception in 1900 (see chap. 12 below). Even at the moments leading up to ASOR’s founding, the AOS was silent on the subject (American Oriental Society 1900). Still more telling is the fact that it was not the AOS, but the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) that allowed ASOR to publish its own annual reports in its journal.6 The Assyriologists, perhaps worried that they might still be considered biblical scholars, were clearly not welcoming of biblical archaeologists. The absence of any trace of ASOR in AOS publications leads to the conclusion that the organization did not consider ASOR, or biblical archaeology in general, academically sound. In fact, it was not until 1921 that it appeared in any form in an AOS publication (American Oriental Society 1921, 238). This new acknowledgment stems from the fact that ASOR had proposed (and eventually made extant) a new school in Baghdad to complement the one in Jerusalem, a school that ASOR would fund itself.7 These nineteenth-century efforts by the Assyriological community to exclude religiously tainted biblical archaeology from its halls left a strong legacy in the American academy as a whole. Many decades later, in the second half of the twentieth century, Assyriology was able to insert itself into anthropologically-oriented archaeology much faster and better than biblical archaeology ever managed to. The renowned Assyriologist A. Leo Oppenheim published an article in the very first issue of Current Anthropology. The article, titled “Assyriology—Why and How?” (Oppenheim 1960), intro5 6

See for instance, American Oriental Society 1893, cxlvi–cliii. This continued until the first issue of the Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research was published several decades later. The AIA had been founded in 1879 and dealt largely with Greece and the Americas. 7 W. F. Albright was the director of ASOR at the time the Baghdad school was suggested. It is likely that Albright’s personal efforts went a long way with the Assyriologists, as Albright himself was also engaged in Assyriological scholarship.

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duced Assyriology to the fiercely systematic anthropologists when the processual school of scientific archaeology (the “New Archaeology”) was just getting underway. Among other points, Oppenheim even suggested that anthropology could use Assyriology as a model, stating that anthropologists had largely neglected the philological literature when discussing the Near East, and insisting that “no anthropological syntheses would get very far without the simultaneous employment of the cuneiform sources” (ibid. 423). In this way, Oppenheim managed to fuse the two very different disciplines, gaining even more credibility for Assyriology within the larger American academy. In contrast, biblical archaeology had not yet entered the zone of serious debate and would only gradually come to see anthropological methodologies as relevant.8

THE HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIAN ARCHAEOLOGY AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO EXCAVATION IN PALESTINE One of the interesting facets of Assyriology was that not only did it displace biblical research from Palestine to Mesopotamia, it was also a means for scholars to puzzle over ancient history from the comfort of their own homelands—no travel to uncomfortable Eastern lands was necessary. As the tablets were dug up by archaeologists, Assyriologists began to consider archaeology a mere means of finding more tablets. The archaeological context, be it palace, domestic unit, or midden, mattered only minimally. This pattern was set in place at the very birth of cuneiform studies. The simplest form of cuneiform was first deciphered in 1802 by Georg Grotefend, a German teacher who never left Germany. Grotefend worked from copies of inscriptions on the walls of Persepolis. The copies had been made decades earlier by Carsten Niebuhr, an explorer who had traveled through Persia in the 1760s (Lloyd 1980, 73–74). Niebuhr had only been able to travel to the East because of the growing Western political interest in the East—his trip had been made while he was in the service of Frederick V of Denmark (Larsen 1994, 81).9 Furthermore, the early cuneiform scholars who did travel to the East did so due to military service, not archaeological inclinations. Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, for instance, served in the British military within the East 8

Oppenheim’s article led to a short debate within the pages of Current Anthropology, as a rejoinder was published in the next issue by I. M. Diakonoff. Diakonoff debated the nature of Assyriology and highlighted his disagreement with the desire to find “absolute truths” via syntheses of data (Diakonoff 1961). 9 Niebuhr’s trip preceded Napoleon’s explorations of Egypt by over thirty years.

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India Company and spent time in both Persia and Afghanistan in this capacity. This in turn gave him enough experience to be appointed British consul in Iraq in the 1840s, and later, as an ambassador in Persia (Ceram 1956, 232– 33). He began to work on inscriptions during his time in Persia in the 1830s. George Smith, famous for translating the Gilgamesh epic, was also not an explorer, but worked from London in the 1870s (ibid. 274–75). In 1873, sponsored by the Daily Telegraph, Smith jouneyed to Nineveh in hopes of finding the missing portions of the famous Flood Tablet—and succeeded almost immediately. Similarly, Mesopotamian archaeology itself came about due to Europeans traveling east for military service or ambassadorial duties. The two most renowned—Paul Émile Botta and Austen Henry Layard—excavated the mounds of Khorsabad (Dûr Sharrukîn), Kalat Shergat (Nimrud), and Kuyunjik (Nineveh). These mounds yielded not only large-scale art and architecture, but also a library of cuneiform documents. Botta had been trained as a physician but had also traveled around the world as a young man, which made him a good candidate for French ambassador to the East. He became the consular agent in Mosul in 1840. After briefly and unsuccessfully looking at the huge mound of Kuyunjik on his own, Botta was told by a local informant that the antiquities he was interested in came from the nearby mound of Khorsabad (Larsen 1994, 14, 22– 23; Ceram 1956, 213). His initial excavations there turned up the first Assyrian palace known to the West. Layard, the first excavator of both Nimrud and Nineveh, uncovered monumental architecture as well as a library of cuneiform tablets. Unlike the others mentioned above, Layard, a lawyer, did not initially travel for a government agency, but as a private individual.10 He headed to the Orient in the 1840s, possibly inspired by reading the Thousand and One Nights (Larsen 1994, 34–39; Ceram 1956, 241). After he had exhausted his own income, he was able to interest a sponsor in supporting excavations at Nimrud in the 1840s and Nineveh in the 1850s (Larsen 1994, 66–69; Ceram 1956, 246). Although Layard’s technique was not particularly scientific—he would dig tunnels from a main shaft until he hit some promising architecture, at which point he would open up a larger area—his work signals the first true archaeological excavation in the East. This timing is interesting, as Layard’s work precedes Schliemann’s at Troy by three decades. Schliemann’s forma10

Layard’s career is also tied to government service, but after the fact: once he was considered familiar enough with the land, he was eventually appointed Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs.

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tive insight, that tells were not natural occurrences but man-made ruins, was the inspiration for the PEF to move from surface surveys to excavation. This leads to an important question: Why were the members of the PEF unable to understand that mounds were ancient cities until the example of Troy was laid before them? Not only had the tells of Iraq been excavated by Botta and Layard, but huge pieces of their architecture had long been displayed in the museums in London and France. The answer to this rather puzzling lack of recognition is in the issue of scale. Certainly the great mounds of Assyria contained never-before-seen bas-reliefs (as well as libraries), but the small mounds found all over Palestine were too small to be hiding great palaces. It was not understood that a smaller ancient city could cause a small mound to form, just as a large palatial complex could cause a large one. Moreover, Layard and Botta both had external clues to go on, clues that were not present in the tells of Palestine. Layard saw ruins still standing above the surface. Additionally, the modern names of the mounds often directly reflected descriptions given by Classical writers (Ceram 1956, 243– 44). Lastly, locals familiar with mounds and the items that could be found in and around them were helpful as informants. In Palestine, in contrast, the local informants were ignored by all but Robinson, as were the Arabic place names for the tells and nearby settlements.

THE UNEASY RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ASSYRIOLOGY AND THE BIBLE One of the most interesting facets of the AOS for the purposes of this volume is that in spite of its clear antibiblical bias, the Society initially took up investigations of places within Bible lands, as well as investigations of the ancient religions of those lands, as these were clearly part and parcel of the “Orient” of its title (see Kuklick 1996, 20). These interests were in line with other strands in American thought, namely the longstanding post-Puritan concern with the Old Testament, and also the geographic concerns of Robinson, which were also getting attention in the 1840s. The AOS thus fused the longstanding American interest in biblical studies with the European approach to biblical lands, which focused on Mesopotamia. This new possibility of doing “biblical” research outside Palestine spoke to several nineteenth-century scholarly and not-so-scholarly concerns. The need to elevate West European culture and civilization above that of the ancient Near East was particularly strong, especially because of the inescapable fact that Christianity had risen out of the East. Furthermore, archaeologists who worked in Greece already understood that Aegean civilization had

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developed with strong Egyptian influences and were already assiduously downplaying the fact.11 In fact, Classicists commonly believed that it was sacrilegious to acknowledge the Old World’s contribution to Western civilization (J. Breasted 1919b, 161). This trend to downplay the influence of the East on the West was not mere Eurocentrism; rather, it also demonstrated a newly construed form of antisemitic sentiment. In Black Athena, Martin Bernal suggests that this antisemitic strain in scholarship reached its height in the 1880s, but that it was clearly present as early as the 1840s (Bernal 1987, 364–66, 380–82; Cline 2003, 170). The Holy Land might have been the land of the New Testament and the birthplace of Christianity, but it was also the land of the Hebrew Bible and hence the land of the Jews. This identification influenced the AOS away from Palestine and toward the larger “biblical” world. It was now possible to study some biblical lands without encountering the Jews. As Assyriology grew and expanded, the anti-Palestine bias had more and more to fuel it. The Millennialists of both Europe and America had been reclaiming Palestine for the Jews since the 1840s. By the 1880s, the association with the Jews was further strengthened with the birth of modern Zionism and the large numbers of East European Jews who began to immigrate to Palestine. Within this modern political context, Assyriology became a convenient avenue through which to study the ancient milieu of the Bible without having to acknowledge the association between the Holy Land and the Jews in either ancient or modern terms. Not only could Assyriology pull the Bible away from the land of the Jews, it firmly guided the entire field of biblical studies into Assyria and Babylonia, locus of the Jewish exile. All this culminated in the first years of the twentieth century with Delitzsch’s Babel vs. Bible controversy (Delitzsch 1906). At the same time that Assyriology developed its anti-Palestine bias, biblical textual criticism in the United States was progressing along the lines of the German school, which led to the development of another academic chasm. While some biblical scholars still preferred the text of the Hebrew Bible over cuneiform texts, they were now able to deconstruct this text until they had all but abandoned the original religious associations. Even before Wellhausen collected the various theories regarding sources of the Bible into the rubric of the Documentary Hypothesis, biblical study had begun to mimic Assyriology in its objectivity. Once the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) was founded in 1880, American scholars felt that there was little need 11 See, e.g., Berlinerblau 1999; Cline 2003, 169–70; on antisemitism and archaeology, see also Kuklick 1996, 101–3.

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to explore Palestine at all: cuneiform documents were being investigated by Assyriologists, archaeology was going on in the biblical land of Mesopotamia, and the text of the Bible was being investigated by Hebraists. In the United States, these three strands of research were seen as more than sufficient, and the British interest in archaeological survey seemed unnecessary, especially since the latter was still seen as having religious (missionary) goals rather than purely academic ones. In this context, it is not at all surprising that Americans interested in exploring Palestine were few and far between, and, in the case of the APES, not always successful.12

HERMANN HILPRECHT’S ATTITUDE TOWARD BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY For its first decades of existence, the AOS relied on the abundance of tablets excavated by European archaeologists for its material. However, by the latter part of the century, American Assyriologists realized that archaeological excavation might be a worthwhile enterprise. The hope was that excavations in Mesopotamia would yield new tablets. If tablets could be not only analyzed by Americans, but discovered by an American team as well, the American claim within the discipline would be complete (Kuklick 1996, 143). Therefore, in 1887 some of the members of the AOS founded the Babylonian Exploration Fund, an American organization specifically intended to sponsor archaeological excavations in Mesopotamia. The Babylonian Exploration Fund was deeply influenced by German and French Orientalists, whose approaches to scholarship in turn were influenced by Wellhausen. While the leading institution was the University of Pennsylvania, several other American institutions became involved with this non–Palestine-oriented strand of biblical archaeology. These included the University of Chicago and Harvard University (Kuklick 1996, 27). The Mesopotamian bias of the Babylonian Exploration Fund and the AOS dictated the path of biblical studies in the United States for the rest of the nineteenth century, a path that led directly away from the possibility of exploring Palestine itself. This is best exemplified by the career of Hermann Hilprecht, a German-born Assyriologist who taught at the University of Pennsylvania. In Germany, Hilprecht had studied at Leipzig with Delitzsch 12

At best, biblical archaeology was seen in those years as a foil to Assyriology. A. H. Sayce, who officially held an Assyriology appointment at Oxford, but as we shall see in the next chapter was deeply immersed in biblical archaeology, viewed biblical archaeology as an answer to the German Higher Criticism, to which he did not subscribe (Zevit 2004, 11).

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himself. Although Hilprecht disliked fieldwork intensely, and disliked being called an American scholar, as opposed to a German one, he was considered the foremost American archaeologist working in the Near East at the time, as he excavated extensively at Nippur for the Babylonian Exploration Fund (Kuklick 1996, 106, 143). Among Hilprecht’s publications were two edited volumes, both intended as summaries of the archaeological aspect of the discipline of Assyriology. The first was published in 1897 and the second in 1903. The length of the chapters in each volume, and the scholars that Hilprecht chose to author them, demonstrate what he and other Assyriologists believed to be important and irrelevant within the discipline. The earlier, shorter one, Recent Research in Bible Lands: Its Progress and Results (Hilprecht 1897), included chapters on Palestine, Babylonia, Egypt, Arabia, and the Hittites, although no serious excavations had yet taken place in Anatolia, nor had the Hittite language been deciphered. The section on the Hittites was written by William Hayes Ward, an American clergyman and editor without an academic affiliation who was also an archaeologist. The section on Palestine was written by Frederick Bliss (1897e), who was then at the height of his career and was probably chosen for this chapter because he was an American (see below). The Reverend Dr. Sayce, a London biblicist and Assyriologist, and an associate of the PEF, wrote the section on Egypt. Fritz Hommel, of the University of Munich, wrote the chapter on discoveries in Arabia. Finally, Hilprecht himself wrote the chapter on Babylonian exploration. Clearly his desire was to have as much American representation as possible and to include all the Bible lands. The result was a balanced volume. But this balance was broken in the next volume, as the agenda of Assyriology and of Hilprecht in particular became apparent. This volume, titled Explorations in Bible Lands during the Nineteenth Century (Hilprecht 1903), was intended as a history of the discipline of Near Eastern Studies, as opposed to a history of the Near East.13 While Hilprecht appears as the sole author, he notes on the frontispiece that it was written “with the cooperation of four others,” and these others actually wrote the non-Mesopotamian chapters themselves. J. Benzinger of the University of Berlin wrote the chapter on Palestine, Fritz Hommel of the University of Munich, who had written the chapter on Arabia in the previous volume, did so again in this volume. P. Jensen of the University of Marburg wrote the chapter on the Hittites, and G. Steindorff of the University of Leipzig wrote the chapter on Egypt. 13

See discussion of Bliss’s Ely Lectures, below.

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Unlike in the earlier volume that pointedly included American authors, the influence of the German school is quite apparent here. The choice of Benzinger over Bliss for the Palestine chapter is interesting. First, Benzinger was German and Bliss was not; and second, by the time this volume appeared, Bliss had already been asked to leave the PEF and was no longer active in the field. Benzinger’s chapter on Palestine is particularly short, taking up only 42 pages of the 810-page volume. Hilprecht himself wrote three full chapters on Mesopotamian research and discovery, totaling 580 pages, demonstrating that Mesopotamia was the locus of American biblical archaeology, not Palestine.

THE PLACE OF JEWISH ACADEMICS IN AMERICAN BIBLICAL STUDIES AND ASSYRIOLOGY There were a few quiet voices that objected to Hilprecht’s Mesopotamian approach to biblical studies. The loudest objector was Morris Jastrow, one of very few Jewish scholars involved in Assyriological studies. Jastrow was among a small handful of Jews who taught in American universities in the 1880s and 1890s. Most of these had originally been courted as Hebraists, as this was a field where they had been allowed to participate since the eighteenth century.14 By the late nineteenth century, there were several well-known Jewish scholars teaching biblical studies in American universities besides Morris Jastrow. These included Emil Hirsh, Felix Adler, and Richard Gottheil. All these men were from prominent Reform rabbinic families, and all felt that academia was open to them as well as the Rabbinate (Wechsler 1985, 338). But of these men, only Jastrow and Gottheil were taken seriously on the academy’s own terms. Gottheil stands beside Jastrow as a known quantity in Semitic studies, as he was a professor of Semitic languages at Columbia. Jastrow’s scholarship, which included an early translation of the Gilgamesh Epic, was better known than Gottheil’s.15 Jastrow cut a rabbinic 14 In the 1860s Harvard had accepted Judah Monis, a Jewish convert to Christianity, as an instructor. 15 See chap. 13 below for Gottheil’s involvement in Zionism. Hirsch was a professor of rabbinic literature at the University of Chicago, still marginalized into Jewish scholarly circles, while Adler is best remembered for founding the Ethical Culture movement rather than for scholarship. In fact, Jewish scholars were still the exception within Assyriological and archaeological circles in the early twentieth century: Max Margolis worked in the 1920s as a biblical scholar but stayed within the world of Jewish education and academics by teaching at Dropsie College, which was, although nonsectarian, a center for Jewish study. Nelson Glueck, a Reform rabbi,

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career short to train as an Assyriologist in Germany and eventually earned a position at the University of Pennsylvania as a Semitist. He was never offered the Assyriology position at the University, because that position belonged to Hermann Hilprecht himself. Although Jastrow published extensively throughout his career on Assyriology, he was never truly considered an Assyriologist by his colleagues; rather, he was thought of as a Hebraist who also partook in Assyriological discussions (Clay 1921, 333–36). Thus the academic rivalry between Jastrow and Hilprecht was well in place before the publication of Hilprecht’s unevenly presented Exploration in Bible Lands. Jastrow did not take Hilprecht up directly on the subject of the uneven publication; rather, he questioned Hilprecht’s methodology, as Hilprecht had passed off artifacts found years earlier as new finds and took liberties when discussing provenances of tablets (Kuklick 1996, 128). Jastrow’s significant criticisms of Hilprecht should be seen in the light of Jastrow’s role as the only Jewish Assyriologist in the years that Assyriology had dissociated itself from contact with the Bible and Jewish Palestine. Jastrow’s background made his position uniquely convoluted. Although he was a strong subscriber to the Reform Jewish stance against Zionism, he suddenly found himself in an academic camp that separated the Jews from their land and put the Bible in Babylon, a position of discomfort even for Reform Jews. This in large part explains the notes of protest and personal conflict in Jastrow’s later writings, specifically in a 1919 volume, Zionism and the Future of Palestine. In it, Jastrow carefully defends the legitimacy of religious and economic Zionisms, while at the same time reiterating the anti-Zionist Reform stance. This late volume makes clear the irresolvable contradictions inherent in being a Jewish Assyriologist in those years.

THE RECONCILIATION BETWEEN ASSYRIOLOGY AND BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY: DAVID LYON AND THE HARVARD SAMARIA EXPEDITION The divisions between biblical studies and Assyriology were not easily resolved. While a later chapter discusses James Henry Breasted’s early twentieth century desire to encourage intellectual discourse among the fields of Assyriology, Mesopotamian archaeology, biblical textual criticism, and biblical archaeology, we will now look at a less positive attempt at discourse, namely an effort by Assyriologists to utilize biblical archaeology for the sole purpose of furthering Assyriological concerns. became involved in the archaeology of the eastern side of the Jordan in the 1930s. See Greenspoon 1985; Glueck 1940; Ritterband and Wechsler 1994.

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It has been noted in the context of the APES that the American public was excited by biblical archaeology over and above Assyriology, but that the academy held the opposite view. It was the public interest in the archaeology of Palestine, and the potential funding sources that this interest brought with it, that stimulated Assyriologists to reconsider the possibility of excavating in Palestine rather than in Mesopotamia. The Harvard University expedition to Samaria of 1907 was the first American-led archaeological expedition to Palestine.16 It began almost twenty years after the PEF had first sent archaeologists to Palestine (see below) and only came about because of the research interests of Assyriologists, not biblical archaeologists. Harvard University was already home to a divinity school and also employed several professors who taught Semitic languages, including the Assyriologist David Lyon. Lyon, as the Harvard faculty member best connected to the Babylonian Exploration Fund, had wanted to set up an excavation in Mesopotamia since the late 1880s, along the lines of Hilprecht’s expedition to Nippur. However, it was apparent that Harvard would not be able to rival Hilprecht’s University of Pennsylvania team, in part due to lack of funding. Lyon’s vision of the expedition had to evolve. Gradually, the need to house objects that might be excavated in the future became a main concern—that is, the idea to form a museum at Harvard. The desire to find funding both for the museum and for archaeological expeditions that it could sponsor ultimately led to Harvard to consider an expedition to Palestine instead of Mesopotamia. This trajectory began because of a preexisting connection between Harvard’s president and a well-known Jewish banker in New York, Jacob Schiff. Schiff, whose fortune came largely from financial interests in railroads, was deeply engaged in Jewish philanthropy oriented toward the growing Jewish settlements in Palestine. For instance, his pre-Harvard patronage included substantial support of the Jewish Agricultural Society, which helped Jews become farmers in Palestine (see Fairchild 1910, 376–77). The president of Harvard, Charles Elliot, hoped to interest Schiff in his University but needed to find something within Harvard that would attract Schiff. A museum that housed artifacts relating to the Jews in the ancient world was the perfect point of intersection. 16

ASOR, founded in 1900, several years before the Samaria excavation, did not yet sponsor or even directly affiliate itself with excavations. It conceived itself solely as a school. This is why, when the Samaria expedition began, ASOR followed its work with interest, but not with the pride of accomplishment (see chap. 13 below).

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In their interactions with Schiff, both Elliot and Lyon were enacting a major (albeit short-lived) change regarding Harvard’s policy on Jews, as there was a strong undercurrent of antisemitism at Harvard. The president who followed Elliot, Abbott Lawrence Lowell, was well known for his antagonistic attitude toward Jews in the University, and Elliot himself objected to Lowell’s attitude (Synnott 1979, 68–70). Elliot’s friendship with Schiff was an attempt to break down such barriers at Harvard, perhaps toward the goal of expanding endowments. Schiff found the idea of a Semitic museum attractive. Although a layman, Schiff had been aware of the old images that Americans had of Oriental Jews and of Palestine, as exemplified at the world’s fair exhibits discussed in chapter 4. In fact, colleagues of Schiff ’s in the Jewish community had vehemently objected to these images (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 1998, 63–64). Schiff in turn may have seen Harvard’s proposed museum as an opportunity for the scholarly community to correct the antiquated image via a permanent museum, which was even better than an ephemeral fair exhibit. In fact, Schiff ’s interest may have been a direct response to the recent world’s fair representations, as David Lyon himself had been involved in the “Parliament of Religions” of the 1893 Chicago fair. In the publication of the Parliament of Religions, Lyon had stated that, no matter what country they claim to be from, Jews are distinguishable by their physiognomy, and had defined the term “Jew” as an ethnic identifier rather than a religious one. Both Cyrus Adler and Morris Jastrow had objected to this in their professional capacities (ibid. 64–65). Schiff, aware of Lyon’s attitude, saw the Semitic Museum as a ray of hope that Lyon and the rest of the scholarly community could portray Jews in another, more positive way. Thus, the specific purpose of Schiff ’s gift to Harvard was to construct a building on the campus that would house a small collection of Oriental artifacts. This building was dedicated in 1903 as the Semitic Museum.17 Schiff and Lyon and Elliot all shared the hope that the museum would grow and be successful. Ultimately, the Semitic Museum should house artifacts that university teams would excavate at sites in Palestine (Cohen 1999, 76–79; Kuklick 1996, 101; Ritterband and Wechsler 1994, 101–7). But Schiff was a businessman, not a scholar, and therefore not aware of the intricacies within biblical and Assyriological studies—he did not understand that all previous Assyriologists had engaged in fieldwork in Mesopotamia as the locus of biblical events, rather than Palestine. Lyon’s own first 17

Although the museum was officially established in 1889.

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interest was Mesopotamia, as we have seen, and the idea of digging Samaria, a site of biblical importance in Palestine, largely came about to appease Schiff. Samaria was not only the capital of the ancient northern kingdom of Israel, but it also had direct implications for Assyrian history, as the Assyrians had utterly destroyed it in 722 BCE. As such, it was the perfect site for the intersection of biblical studies and Assyriology. However, the firman from the Ottoman authorities took several years to come through, and Schiff became increasingly impatient. Furthermore, during these years of waiting, Harvard became significantly involved in Egyptian exploration, which frustrated Schiff even more, as Egypt clearly began to hold a position of prominence in the university’s archaeological plans (Kuklick 1996, 103). In fact, when the firman for Samaria finally did arrive, the excavator Harvard chose was George Reisner, who had gained all of his field experience in Egypt. As it happened, Reisner’s work in Palestine, though influential, was only an interlude in a career that was mainly set in Egypt. The expedition finally got underway in 1907. But by then, Schiff had lost his initial enthusiasm. In 1914, he declined to support Harvard further despite his initial investment, citing their “lukewarm support” of the project.18 Clearly American scholars were not quite ready to reincorporate the Jews into the history of ancient or modern Palestine. The Semitic Museum itself remained for many generations a small concern. Fittingly, much of its small collection came not from independent excavations, but due to the generosity of Selah Merrill, many years after his involvements in the APES and archaeology (Goldman 1997, 168). Merrill donated his personal collection of artifacts from Palestine to the Museum.

18

Bruce Kuklick retrieved this particular objection of Schiff ’s from within the David Lyon Papers, Harvard University archives, “Relations of Jacob Schiff to Harvard University” (Kuklick 1996, 104).

8 FREDERICK JONES BLISS: BACKGROUND AND AMERICAN IDENTIFICATION In a previous chapter, we saw that the American Palestine Exploration Society could not compete with the British PEF. It could also not compete with Assyriology in the American academy. This weak position of biblical archaeology in the United States explains why the usual narrative of Palestine exploration contains such large gaps. With the dominance of Assyriology and the failure of the APES, it appeared as if little was happening within biblical archaeology prior to the Samaria expedition, and even Samaria came about due to Assyriological aspirations. With the directions of American biblical scholarship in mind, it is time to turn to the career of Frederick Jones Bliss himself, the figure whose personal background formed a link with the previous efforts of the APES, and whose modern methodology inspired the future of both British and American excavations. Frederick Jones Bliss was born in Suq el-Garb, near Beirut, in 1859, to Daniel Bliss, founding president of Syrian Protestant College, and Abby Wood Bliss, of Amherst, Massachusetts. The fact that Bliss was born and partially raised in the Near East adds a particular nuance to his later career but should not be allowed to eclipse the fact that he, as well as his expatriate family, first and foremost identified themselves as Americans. Bliss’s ties to the British PEF were most definitely secondary, as both he and they recognized the importance of his American nationality to various aspects of the association. Frederick Bliss’s illustrious father is better known than his mother. However, it was his mother’s family that was responsible for his formal education as well many of his social connections.

DANIEL BLISS, ABBY WOOD BLISS, AMHERST SOCIETY, AND EMILY DICKINSON Frederick Bliss’s father, Daniel Bliss, was born to a farming family in Vermont. His mother died when he was a child, and his father moved the family 85

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to Ohio. His path to a career in the ministry was not a straight one, as there were no ministers or missionaries in his family. While still attending school, Daniel Bliss worked in tanning, and later in grafting; however, even during these years, he hoped to be able to continue his education. Ultimately, he secured a position teaching in a small school but continued to study and was eventually able to attend college. He apparently chose Amherst on a whim, but his attendance began a multigenerational association with the College (D. Bliss 1920, 17–52). Following Amherst, Bliss attended Union Theological Seminary in New York and was ordained as a minister in 1855, at which point he decided to do missionary work (ibid. 79–81). His marriage and move to Syria followed immediately. In contrast to the farming background of Frederick Bliss’s father, his mother’s family was deeply connected to Massachusetts aristocracy. Bliss’s mother, born Abby Maria Wood, was the daughter of Joel and Abby Wood of Westminster. Both her parents died when she was quite young, and so from the age of three she was raised by her uncle Luke Sweetser and his wife, of Amherst, Massachusetts.1 Luke Sweetser and his younger brother Joseph owned a successful business in Amherst and by the mid 1800s were well-respected members of Amherst society. In addition to raising Abby, Luke Sweetser had one son of his own and also took in another cousin (Bingham 1955, 506–7; Johnson 1965, 955). The most interesting facet of Abby Wood’s youth in the quiet and privileged town of Amherst was her girlhood friendship with the poet Emily Dickinson. Not only was the Dickinson family lifelong neighbors of the Sweetser family, there was a connection by marriage as well. Abby’s other uncle, Joseph Sweetser, was married to Emily Dickinson’s aunt, Catherine Dickinson Sweetser, meaning that Abby Wood shared a set of cousins with Emily Dickinson (Bingham 1955, xi). It is through this Dickinson connection that we learn the most about Abby Wood’s religious awakening, which ultimately led her to marry Daniel Bliss. Abby Wood Bliss’s particular mix of Amherst society values, and missionary and religious impulses, combined with a sense of adventure, allowed her to marry a man who immediately took her to far-off and unknown Syria. Abby Wood, Emily Dickinson, and a third friend named Abiah Root all grew up together in Amherst. When Abiah Root went away to school, the girls corresponded with each other, and these letters are a valuable source of information on Abby’s religious awakening. In several of her letters to 1 While most sources say she was brought to Amherst at three, Daniel Bliss’s Reminiscences state that she was eight years old.

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Abiah, Emily Dickinson gossips about Abby, who was about to formally convert (that is, accept her religion) in the Congregationalist revival that was sweeping through Amherst in those years. In a letter of 16 May 1848, Emily described her own religious ambivalence and her mild guilt for remaining “evil” herself, as compared to Abby. Emily further described Abby’s new interest in Christian work with a certain lack of approval and asked Abiah her opinion. Emily, however, was looking to the wrong person for solidarity, as Abiah converted soon after (Burbick 1980, 65–69; Franklin 1995). These letters document Abby Wood’s own acceptance of religion as the guiding force in her life at the young age of twenty.2 At twenty-five she married Daniel Bliss. As Emily Dickinson became a recluse in later years, she lost touch with most of the friends of her youth. However, Abby Wood Bliss insisted on continuing the friendship. On a rare visit to Amherst from Beirut, she succeeded in visiting with a slightly reluctant Dickinson (D. Bliss 1920, 62). Frederick Bliss and his siblings all continued their mother’s connection to Amherst and also to the Dickinson family. Frederick’s brother Howard Sweetser Bliss, who succeeded their father as president of SPC, became very close to Emily’s nephew Ned Dickinson during their Amherst school days, writing in his letters to his family that “Ned Dickinson is my seatmate and best friend” (Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Bliss Family Papers, HSB to Family [series 3, box 1, folder 22], 17 January 1874). His letters home describe holiday visits to the Dickinsons (ibid., series 7, box 2, folder 28, 1879–80), and in an 1886 letter he includes a description (secondhand from a Dr. Chickering) of “Miss Emily’s” funeral (ibid., series 3, box 1, folder 53, 12 June 1886). Frederick Bliss also kept up the connection between the two families. In the 1930s he was interviewed by John Erskine about the Dickinson family feud that ensued following Dickinson’s death, over the rights to edit and publish her poems. Erskine specifically asked Bliss about Martha Dickinson Bianchi, the niece of Emily Dickinson, who had taken the editing upon herself without the consent of the rest of the family. Bliss remembered Martha (Mattie) well, as they had spent much of their youth together in Amherst (Erskine 1947, 128–29).3 It is also clear from Bliss’s later letters home that the two families remained in touch (see PEF/DA/Bliss/152/153). It was Abby Wood Bliss’s deep attachment to Amherst as her childhood home, combined with the belief that American children should be 2 3

Daniel Bliss’s Reminiscences state that she was sixteen, rather than twenty. See below for discussion of Bliss’s relationship with Martha Dickinson.

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educated at home rather than in Lebanon, that prompted her to send her children to live with the Sweetser family in Amherst for long periods. Staying in this household greatly influenced Frederick Bliss’s development, and it is in these years that we can see the evolution of his self-identification as a cultured American, in spite of his alternate background as a Near Easterner. It was at the Sweetser household, for instance, that Bliss became an accomplished piano player and developed a love for music, documented throughout his early letters home (see Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Bliss Family Papers [series 7, box 2, folders 161 and 162], 1880). The Sweetser household in Amherst during those years was vividly described in a brief privately published pamphlet written by the wife of Emily Dickinson’s brother Austin. The parlors of Deacon Luke Sweetser set the standard of elegance and struck the grand note in these affairs [suppers and tea parties]. There was more light, more inherited silver, a certain pomposity on the part of the hostess, who always received in purple gloves, and with a long dipping backward curtsy, a relic of her gay education at boarding school. She waved aloft a feather fan sent her from a thousand miles up the Nile by a missionary friend, and after supper Syrian relics were handed about, musky curios of Arab and Greek,—lentils, from the Holy Land, husks,— “such-as-the-swine-did-eat,”—inlaid coffee cups, attar of rose bottles, sent home by their niece the wife of the Rev. Daniel Bliss, founder of the Protestant College at Beyrut, Syria. (Dickinson 1913, as quoted in Bianchi 1924, 38)

Not only was Frederick Bliss growing up in America, he was part of an Amherst family with a particular social standing. In the years when he lived abroad and worked for the British, this identity remained with him. Classifying him as a mere employee of the British PEF who by chance happened to have American citizenship is absurd in light of this examination of Bliss’s early life and social world.

BLISS’S AMERICAN IDENTITY DURING HIS YEARS WITH THE PALESTINE EXPLORATION FUND Indeed, it was especially in the years that Bliss was worked for the PEF that his American identity was the clearest. It was stated above that the American public was interested in biblical archaeology, even though American academics were not. This public interest is why Bliss and his excavations received public acclaim in the United States. Had Bliss not been American, the work of the British PEF in Palestine would have received less coverage.

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It is more than a coincidence that ASOR was founded in 1900, on the heels of the publicity of Bliss’s work of the 1890s. In fact, in the United States, Bliss was known specifically as an American who was excavating in the Holy Land, with little mind paid to the fact that he was working for the British. This is almost certainly due to his family connections and is evidenced by the places in which his work was published. Not only did Bliss write occasional articles in Scribner’s Magazine, but all his books were reviewed by widely read American newspapers. The reviews were positive not only about the books, but about Bliss himself. “Mr. Bliss has shown himself to be the man for the place and interesting developments may be looked for.”4 Additionally, the British public strongly acknowledged Bliss’s American identity, even as the PEF itself tried to downplay it. This is demonstrated by a piece of humor from the Court Circular of the London Times of 25 August 1896 (Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Bliss Family Papers [series 7, box 2, folder 175]). The short piece was published at the height of Bliss’s fame as he excavated in Jerusalem. The gist of the joke is that because of his great finds of the mummies of the biblical kings David and Solomon, Bliss has been given several British titles (Viscount Hesy, Marquis of Siloam, and Duke of Ophel among them), but the question of whether an American should be allowed to hold these titles has brought the countries to the brink of war. The humorous conclusion was to propose that Bliss be naturalized as a British citizen, but as he is opposed to naturalization, he should be allowed to keep his titles anyway. The humor indicates quite clearly that the British public could accept Bliss because of his accomplishments and forgive him for being an American. Such a piece would never have been written had Bliss been attempting to blend in with British society. In fact, it is his very Americanness that made the piece funny and that helped make him briefly famous in London. Furthermore, Bliss’s nationality was clearly known to the American travelers who journeyed to Palestine during the years when he was excavating for the PEF. A telling instance of his appeal to such Americans is the visit to Tell el-Hesy of Charles Foster Kent, the well-known American stereoscopic photographer. Kent, whose background in biblical studies is discussed in chapter 4 above, sought out Bliss specifically because he was an American engaged in biblical archaeology and in spite of the fact that the 4

“Review of Tell el-Hesy, by Frederick Jones Bliss,” was published in the New York Times, 5 August 1894, 12, with no byline. Examples of advertisements for the books can be found in the New York Times, 4 February 1906 and 17 March 1912.

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expedition was run by the British. Bliss recorded his initial exchange with Kent in a letter to his family: A gentleman rode up saying, “I am Kent of Yale, are you an Alpha Delta?” I said yes and took his hand, squeezing it in different ways hoping they would include the forgotten grip. (PEF/DA/Bliss/152, first cited by Tufnell 1965, 18; see also Long 2003, 94)

The supposed Alpha Delta connection emphasized a kinship that only two Americans could share. This trumped both the British sponsorship of the excavation and the Ottoman soil on which they stood. Later, Charles Kent proved a very useful connection for Bliss, as he arranged a lectureship for him at Yale in 1906 (Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Bliss Papers [series 7, box 2, folder 183], 23 Oct 1906). The last and perhaps most important benefit of Bliss’s American identity is discussed in the following chapter, as there is a moment in Bliss’s professional career when his nationality, specifically his identity as a son of SPC, actually saved the Palestine Exploration Fund from losing its excavation permit.

FREDERICK BLISS’S EARLY YEARS, PERSONAL LIFE, AND REASONS FOR CAREER CHOICE As the oldest son of Daniel Bliss, it is curious that Frederick Bliss did not follow in his father’s path in the ministry. Frederick’s younger brother Howard Sweetser Bliss was the one to become a minister and ultimately to succeed their father as president of SPC. From an early age is was clear that Frederick Bliss might not be able to meet the expectations that his family had for him in terms of career. Bliss suffered from ill health throughout his life, both physical and mental. While still in his early twenties, Bliss had a nervous breakdown, and another one two years later. After each of these episodes, his confidence was badly shaken, and he never fully recovered it. Although he was very successful as an excavator, he did not have the wherewithal to successfully confront the directors of the PEF regarding either approach or methodology. Because of this lack of personal strength, his name and particular contribution to archaeology were all but lost within the larger story of archaeology, in spite of his brief moments of fame. The Bliss family was very tightly woven, perhaps because they were isolated from their extended family back in the United States. Abby Wood Bliss was the force that held the family together, as Daniel Bliss was constantly engaged in college business and travel. The four Bliss children were all close

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in age. Frederick Bliss was the oldest son, but not the oldest in the family, as he had an older sister, Mary Wood Bliss (who later married Gerald Dale). There were two brothers younger than Frederick, Howard Sweetser Bliss and William Tyler Bliss. Although sickly during his youth, Frederick ultimately outlived all his siblings. All three of the Bliss boys were sent back to Amherst for parts of their education, as noted above, and all three attended their father’s alma mater, Amherst.5 As the family dispersed, each member wrote to the others regularly. Frederick Bliss was by far the most loquacious, writing long and detailed letters in his sprawling hand. Frederick and Howard were the closest of the siblings in age and attachment, and they overlapped at Amherst. Frederick Bliss was the son assigned great responsibility within the family, as he was the oldest child living in the United States. As soon as he graduated from Amherst, his parents appointed him keeper of the family finances, so that he could wire money for travel when needed (Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Bliss Family Papers [series 7, box 2, folder 161], 15 June 1880). The family letters show that he kept this role for many years, even during the years of his breakdowns, although when Howard was living in New Jersey, the role passed to him, as Frederick was then in Palestine digging for the PEF. Following their Amherst years, first Frederick and then Howard attended Union Theological Seminary in New York, just as their father had done. Later, their younger brother William did the same. Both Howard and Frederick had periods of questioning whether the Church was the correct career path, but while Howard ultimately decided it was, Frederick got off track.6 For some years, Frederick was confused about his next step. Clearly his family was pressuring him to enter the ministry, but he thought he might like to go back to SPC for a while and teach English, as he was not ready “to decide exactly what I want to be” (ibid.). In his letters from this period he already mentions the “nervous headaches” that he periodically suffered from. Frederick did return to Lebanon and was presumably teaching at the college for 1881–82. At this point, at age 24, he asked for advice from his 5

Frederick Bliss received his A.B. from Amherst in 1880 and then during his years excavating was awarded an A.M. in 1893 and an honorary Ph.D. in 1894 (Albright 1965, 44) 6 Of the three brothers, Howard was the only one to become ordained, as William gave up the church for a career in journalism in New York.

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younger brother Howard about what to do next but still remained undecided for a while (ibid., folder 164A, 26 December 1882 and 28 February 1883). Howard was teaching in Kansas, following his own graduation from Amherst, and was struggling with his own decision about whether to attend Union immediately, or to teach a while longer (ibid., series 3, box 1, folder 46, 17 January 1883). In 1883, Bliss had his first breakdown. The reasons for the breakdown are unclear, as he was home in the bosom of his family when it occurred. Certainly there were tensions at the College that year, as the Lewis Affair of 1882 had shaken the entire faculty and staff.7 One may speculate that perhaps Frederick was in agreement with Professor Lewis and the faculty that supported him, in the opposite camp from his father. This might have exacerbated any issues that Frederick was already having. If this was the case, it is doubtful that he discussed it openly with his father, as there was no break between them. Howard Bliss tried his best to help his brother. In May 1883 he begged Frederick to come live with him in Topeka, saying that he “ought to leave Syria on account of the climate which evidently does not suit you,” and telling him that there was a good research library and perhaps even opportunities to teach in Topeka (ibid., 6 May 1883). But Frederick refused to join Howard and spent the rest of the summer and autumn recovering at home in Beirut. By early 1884, he was well enough to return to the United States. In the summer of 1884, both brothers headed to New York and attended Union together for the next two years. The first year seems to have passed quietly enough, but in the summer of 1885 Frederick took a teaching job, tutoring the boys of the Church family. This was apparently a very stressful situation and caused him to break down again. Later, Howard wrote to their parents that “evidently the responsibility of it was too great for him last summer,” (ibid., folder 52), 22 September 1885), and much later Frederick himself told his father that he “broke down under the daily fret and worry” of the job (PEF/DA/Bliss/ 152/9A). In the middle of that summer, Frederick wrote that he often had nervous headaches, that he was homesick and miserable, and that the boys did not know how to study. He counted down the days to the end of August, when the boys were supposed to go back to regular school and his job would end (Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Bliss 7

In his 1882 commencement address at SPC, Edwin Lewis, professor of chemistry, praised Darwin’s theories. This led to severe criticisms by Daniel Bliss and to the resignation of three professors. Several medical students were suspended as well.

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Papers [series 7, box 2, folder 162], 16 August [1883]; see also folder 174). In spite of this second, more serious breakdown, Frederick tried to pull himself together, and he returned to Union in the fall. But his poor mental state was quite evident. It was the only time in Frederick’s adult life when he did not correspond regularly with his family. Meanwhile, Howard’s letters home are full of concern for his older brother, documenting every change in his health, whether he had a good day or a bad one, how he looked, what he complained of, how often he had headaches, what he ate, and whom he visited with.8 Although Frederick kept up with his studies for the most part, he was clearly still ill.9 While Frederick got through that year in New York under his younger brother’s constant supervision, his poor mental and physical health ultimately got the better of him and he left Union in the spring of 1886, to return to Beirut once again.10 He remained with his family for the next four years, largely but not always in Beirut, as they made trips to London and Oxford as well as to Amherst in those years. Frederick often commented about his ill health in his letters to Howard, either complaining or mentioning slight improvements (ibid., folders 165–66, [1886–87]). By 1889, Frederick and his parents were back in Beirut. Howard wrote to him there in March of that year, privately announcing his engagement to Amy Blachford (he told the rest of the family soon thereafter) (ibid., series 3, box 1, folder 73, 19 March 1899). Fred responded with great excitement and later said how much he wished he could be there to attend the wedding (ibid., series 7, box 2, folder 167, 16 October 1889). An interesting undercurrent within these years is that even after he was relatively healthy once more, Frederick Bliss chose not to return to Union and never became an ordained minister like his father or brother. This was an aberration for the oldest son of Daniel Bliss. Another, possibly related aberration is the fact that he chose never to marry, and he seems to have taken the fact that his younger brother married before him easily in stride. In fact, Bliss is quite clearly not interested in getting married at all. Upon 8

Howard’s letters home document that during their years at Union, both Bliss boys spent many weekends in New Jersey, at the Booth residence. William A. Booth was a longtime friend of Daniel Bliss and a contributor to SPC. Booth had also been a member of the APES in the 1870s (Moulton 1928, 56). 9 See letters from Howard Bliss to family, Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Bliss Family Papers (series 3, box 1, folder 52), 26 September 1884, 22, 30 September, 6 October, 8 December 1885, 2 January, 8, 15, 23 February, 15 March 1886. 10 However, he graduated from Union in 1887 (Albright 1965, 44).

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Howard’s engagement, he refers to himself as “crawl[ing] in selfish bachelorhood” (ibid.). Ten years later, when his youngest brother William announced his own engagement, Frederick made his only other direct comment on the subject, writing to his family, “To think that I have not attended one of the weddings in our family. Shall I ever attend my own?” (PEF/DA/152/152B). This is the closest to an admission that he will not. It is tempting to speculate about Bliss’s bachelorhood. One could suppose that if Bliss had recognized a lack of interest in women, or perhaps even an alternate preference, early in life, this realization could have caused his breakdowns, as well as a decision not to become ordained.11

FREDERICK BLISS AND HIS FATHER Perhaps because of the unusual path his life began to take, Frederick Bliss’s relationship with his father became very important. He had a lifelong need for his father’s approval, a need which was intensified by the fact that his younger brother Howard was clearly following in their father’s footsteps, while he himself was not. It was partly due to his father’s encouragement 11

If this speculation is correct, there is no reason to think that Bliss ever acted on these tendencies. In fact, some of his youthful letters will mention various female friends within his social circle (see, e.g., Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Bliss Family Papers [series 7, box 2, folder 164], 26 September 1881; [folder 166], 4 January [1888]). Most interesting, although not entirely relevant, is Bliss’s relationship with Emily Dickinson’s niece Martha (Mattie) Dickinson Bianchi. Martha was the niece who caused the feud within the Dickinson family by publishing Emily’s papers without permission. Years later, Frederick Bliss was interviewed about Martha: Dr. Fred Jones said frankly that during his College course he had been madly in love with Martha and was still proud of his good taste, but she was too much for him. He and she both, at the age of eighteen or nineteen, were ambitious to talk like the characters in George Meredith’s novel. Martha believed it was an art and therefore could be learned, so she had him over, quite frequently, to sit on the Dickinson porch and practice Meredithian conversation. But one day, after a few minutes of it, she stood up and told him to go home. He gasped, but she meant it. “I told you to go home, Fred! You are not subtle today.” Then he laughed at her, but it did him no good. “Fred, you weary me today—you are not subtle!” He took his hat and went, but as he slammed the gate, looking back angrily at the tall figure, he called, “I am too, subtle!” (Erskine 1947, 128-129)

Bliss also referred to Martha in a letter written in the fall of 1899, referring to her “enigmatic style, which I wish she would confine to her focus” (PEF/DA/ Bliss/ 152/153A). Since, from all Dickinson accounts, Martha was a difficult person, Bliss’s relationship with her shows more about his interpersonal skills than about his romantic preferences.

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that Frederick had the courage to accept the position with the PEF. He had confided his concerns about breaking down again to his father alone, not to the rest of the family, admitting in 1891 that he was only just beginning to feel recovered from the breakdown five years earlier. To his father alone he weighed the pros and cons of accepting the PEF offer and expressed his fear that the job would cause him to break down again. He also told his father that he was miserable about not having had a salary, which seemed to propel his decision to accept the offer (PEF/DA/Bliss/152/9). Later, after accepting the job, he continued to confide only in his father, admitting that he was afraid that he would “make a mess of it this first season” (ibid.). One of the proudest moments in Bliss’s professional career came when Daniel Bliss visited him at the Tell el-Hesy excavations. Daniel Bliss came out early in the first season, most likely to check on Frederick and make sure that he was not going to break down again. Frederick was extraordinarily glad to have his father see how well he was doing. Father and son wrote a joint letter to Frederick’s mother as soon as Daniel Bliss arrived. “Darling Wife (wrote Daniel Bliss), I got here at three o’clock. … Found the Tell crowded with men and girls with Fred and the lead—all cheered—Fred came to the tent and I had the freshest tea I have tasted since Mrs. Klein’s at the Mermand House—Fred is well and full of zeal” (Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Bliss Family Papers [series 7, box 2, folder 172], 27 March 1891). He goes on to comment that his son is able to explain the context and type of every piece of pottery found. And Frederick wrote in the same letter, “I am so enjoying Papa both for himself and for his delight in the life and place. I asked him after lunch if he was going to take a nap. ‘If I have time,’ he said, smiling. He finds such engrossing occupations in … chatting with the workmen and visiting the workshop.” This visit made such a deep impression on Frederick Bliss that years later, when he was editing and adding to his father’s memoirs, he commented on it fondly in print: “With what eagerness did the father—close on seventy years of age—follow each detail of the son! The Fellahin workmen gave moonlight dances in his honor. The Arab sheiks paid their homage” (D. Bliss 1920, 242). Three years after that first visit, both of his parents, as well as his older sister Mary and some of her children, visited him on site again, when he was working in Jerusalem. That visit also pleased him, although not as much as this early, lone trip by his father.

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BEGINNINGS OF BLISS’S ARCHAEOLOGICAL CAREER Between 1886 and 1889, following his decision to leave Union and during the period of recovery from the second nervous breakdown, Frederick Bliss began to travel in the larger vicinity of Beirut on his own, doing research on the sites and people there. Eventually he produced two articles, one on the dialect of Ma‘lula (1890a), and the other on the ruins of Tadmor (1890b).12 The latter article was published in Scribner’s Magazine, and while it is firmly in the genre of travel writing, it also contains a significant amount of archaeological observation. As such, it served to qualify him professionally on archaeological matters, which was extremely important for the PEF position. These archaeological interests had almost certainly been stimulated when Bliss was just a boy. When the first APES expedition had stopped for several months at SPC in Beirut while waiting for funding, Bliss was just twelve years old. This was the same year that Daniel Bliss visited the Dog River excavation site. When the second APES expedition, headed by Selah Merrill, stopped at the College due to the cholera quarantine of Beirut, Bliss was fourteen years old. It seems that when he began to research archaeological matters in the late 1880s, he was in fact investigating subject matter that had long intrigued him. The article on the Christian village of Ma‘lula, which he visited in 1888, was a sophisticated mix of ethnographic observation and linguistic analysis. He submitted it to the Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement, and it was accepted there. It is likely that Bliss chose this journal on the advice of his father’s colleague at SPC, Dr. George Post, who also published in the journal at various points. The article discusses the dialect of Aramaic spoken by villagers but has an archaeological component as well, as Bliss also publishes the inscriptions in the caves in the surrounding cliffs, which were once inhabited. He also writes an ethnographically-based social history of the people of the village, which includes folk traditions related to the history and physical remains of the region. This article signals Bliss’s first professional contact with the PEF. At the same time Bliss was preparing the Ma‘lula article for publication, he was also researching another long essay, on the Maronite community of Leba12

A manuscript copy of the Ma‘lula article is housed in the Amherst Archives, titled “The Ma‘lula Breadboys of Damascus,” and was apparently originally meant to be published by Harper’s Bazaar. It too contained detailed linguistic as well as ethnographic discussions (Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Bliss Family Papers [series 7, box 2, folder 194], 24 March 1890).

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non. This was completed in 1890 and published by the PEFQS soon thereafter (Bliss 1892a). Although Bliss was still recovering from his breakdown in these years, his archaeological interests were now solidified. These early researches, undertaken independently, ultimately led to Bliss’s hiring by the PEF as chief field excavator.

9 THE PEF EXCAVATIONS AT TELL EL-HESY SIR FLINDERS PETRIE AND THE CHOICE OF TELL EL-HESY Frederick Bliss was not the first excavator employed by the PEF, but the second. The organization came to him when they found themselves desperate, after the sudden departure of their first field man. We have seen that in the 1870s, the PEF had surveyed the western half of Palestine. That survey was completed and published in 1880 (Conder and Kitchener 1880). Following this, the PEF had moved to the east, to survey the area originally under the charge of the APES. Claude Conder, who had led the survey team in the west, began work east of the Jordan in 1881 and continued working until the map of the east was complete (Conder 1889). During the course of the 1880s, as the eastern survey was underway, the interests of the PEF were expanding. The leaders of the organization were considering the feasibility of excavating a tell. Part of their inspiration came from the new understanding of the nature of mounds, through Heinrich Schliemann’s successful work at Hissarlik in Turkey, the presumed site of ancient Troy. Troy was not the only inspiration. Closer to home were the recent efforts of another British archaeological organization, the Egypt Exploration Fund. The EEF had been founded by Amelia Edwards in 1882. Tell elMaskhuta in the Nile Delta was the first site excavated under EEF auspices, under the direction of Edward Naville. Naville identified the site as biblical Pithom, one of the cities built by the Hebrew slaves according to Exodus 1:11 (Drower 1985, 69).1 The second excavation project begun by the EEF was Tanis (San el-Hasar), also in 1883. This was excavated by Sir Matthew Flinders Petrie. Petrie went on to dig other sites in Egypt during the 1880s, including Naucratis, Tell Nebeshah, and Defeneh, and became one of the EEF’s prime field men. The Maskhuta excavations were as influential for the PEF as they were for the EEF. The possibility of identifying a site of biblical significance 1

Later this identification was proven wrong.

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through excavation as opposed to mere surface observation was well within its own mandate. Therefore, in the second half of the 1880s, the PEF began to look for an appropriate tell site to excavate in Palestine. Jerusalem was the obvious choice, as it was the Old Testament political and religious center, as well as the site of Jesus’s death and resurrection in the New Testament. In the middle of the 1860s, Charles Warren had undertaken excavation through tunneling in the city. Because of the difficulties Warren encountered, it was now clear to the PEF that Jerusalem was not a traditional tell but a populated, modern city, with other, current religious structures obscuring its ruins, and could not be clearly defined and excavated according to the new principles. A different site had to be found for excavation.2 However, rather than choosing a site immediately, the board of the PEF, which was largely composed of laymen, decided to find an excavator first, someone who could himself make the decision about what site would yield results. There were very few knowledgeable excavators to choose from in those years, so Walter Besant, the chairman of the PEF, approached Sir Flinders Petrie, who had been digging for the EEF in Egypt. Petrie, who was between seasons in Egypt, accepted (ibid. 156). Although Petrie agreed to participate in the project, he did not know Palestine and was reluctant to choose a site without consultation. He therefore asked for advice from his old friend and colleague Dr. A. H. Sayce. Sayce, a minister and Oxford professor of Assyriology, was known for his dislike of the German Higher Criticism and was therefore very interested in the archaeological approach to studying biblical history. Because of the Old Testament preoccupations of both American and British religious thought and biblical study in these years, all of the sites Sayce suggested were Old Testament ones. Sayce mentioned several sites in southwestern Palestine, including ‘Ajlan and Tell ez-Zeita, which might be identified with either biblical Eglon or Lachish (ibid. 157). Clearly, Lachish was more interesting from the biblical standpoint, but an identification based on location alone was not enough to be sure which tell had been which ancient city. When the Ottoman authorities finally issued the PEF the firman for the region, the final decision about where to excavate still had not been made. Petrie traveled to the area himself and investigated the sites that Sayce had suggested, as well as a few others. Some of the tells only had Roman-period sherds on the surface, and nothing earlier, leading him to believe they could 2

We will see that Jerusalem was the second site excavated by the PEF.

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not have been occupied in the biblical period. Based on the surface ceramics, he settled on Tell el-Hesy as the best possibility for being the ancient Lachish (ibid. 159). Although Sayce had mentioned Hesy among several possibilities for Lachish, Petrie began his excavations prematurely certain that the identification was correct.3 His certainty came from the size and location of the tell, the presence of early pottery sherds on its surface, and also the fact that Conder himself had identified the mound as Lachish during his survey (PEF/DA/Executive Committee Minutes/1 July 1890). Lachish had long interested scholars of biblical history, not just for its smallish role in Joshua 10, as one of a number of cities that formed a southern coalition against the incoming Israelite tribes, but also because of its prominence in 2 Kings 18, where it became the seat of the Assyrian king Sennacherib when he entered and all but conquered Judah during the time of Hezekiah. Most importantly, Sennacherib’s palace at Nineveh had long since been excavated by Layard, the British excavator who had worked there in the 1850s (see chap. 7 above). Among the many extraordinary items found by Layard were monumental wall reliefs depicting events previously known only from the Bible: the siege and capture of Lachish itself. These finds had in essence proven the story of the Bible true—even today, the capture of Lachish is considered one of the rare instances where biblical history is confirmed by other sources. This was why Petrie (as well as Sayce) was so intent on excavating the remains of the destroyed city itself. Once again, Assyriology led biblical archaeology. Petrie excavated at Tell el-Hesy for a short six-week season, in the spring of 1890. He camped at the foot of the tell itself and employed workers from the nearby village of Bureir as well as local Bedouin. His work mainly consisted of cutting what would today be called a step trench through the northeastern quarter of the tell. While Petrie excavated parts of walls and other architectural features, his work at Hesy is best remembered for his realization that ceramics were associated with layers of architecture. At Hesy, Petrie discovered that pottery changed over time, meaning that the sherds lower down in the debris, associated with the lower architectural features, were of a different period than the sherds higher up in the debris, and that this difference was reflected in their appearance. Ware, shape, and decoration all varied according to chronological period. This 3

Later archaeological work refuted Petrie’s claims. Tell el-Hesy is now identified as biblical Eglon, while Tell ed-Duweir to the north is quite firmly identified as Lachish.

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understanding was formative for all future archaeological work in Palestine (Petrie 1891, 14; Bliss 1894c, 5–7).4 Petrie first put his crucial observation into print early in 1890, in his first preliminary report on Hesy, published in the PEFQS: “In future all the tells and ruins of the country will at once reveal their age by the potsherds which cover them” (1890c, 134; see also 1890a, 141–43). Later, Bliss was able to build on this aspect of Petrie’s work. But Petrie did not enjoy his time in Palestine. Unlike the huge cemeteries of Giza that were packed with artifacts of significance, little had turned up at Hesy besides pottery and small fragments of architecture. Furthermore, digging a Palestinian tell required an enormous amount of difficult earth-moving, and this took much more time and energy than the careful work of excavating an Egyptian tomb. Finally, Petrie had lost much of his workforce at the beginning of Ramadan and could not figure out a way to compensate. Petrie was frustrated and believed that the tell had little more to yield. By the end of his six weeks of excavation, he had decided to return to Egypt, where sites were more approachable and where his career was mainly oriented. He would not return to excavate in Palestine until many decades later.5 At first the PEF begged Petrie to reconsider his decision, as the firman for the area was still valid and was in his name. But Petrie was adamant both about wanting to return to Egypt and also about the poor nature of the site of Hesy. In fact, he recommended that the PEF abandon Hesy altogether and find another, better site. Before leaving Palestine, Petrie had even looked around for a site that might be more productive, so as not to leave 4

Petrie’s other important realization that stemmed from his work at Hesy was that ceramics could serve as evidence of contact between neighboring civilizations. When Petrie found Cypriote ware at Hesy that was identical in form and style to Cypriote ware from an Eighteenth-Dynasty tomb at Giza, he realized that that level of Hesy also dated to the Eighteenth Dynasty (Petrie 1891, 46–47; Weinstein 2003, 145). 5 Petrie returned to Palestine to excavate in 1922, after Egypt gained its independence and laws regarding possession and removal of antiquities were tightened. From 1923 to 1925, Petrie unsuccessfully attempted to get permits to excavate in Jerusalem and at Byblos. Finally, in 1926–27, as part of the British School’s “Egypt over the border” program, he was able to excavate at Tell Jemmeh, which he wrongly identified as Gerar. Petrie enjoyed these excavations in Palestine much more than his time at Hesy and found the Bedouin easier to work with than he had previously (Drower 1985, 356–66). Later, Petrie joined Starkey at Tell el-Far‘ah, mistakenly identified as Beth Pelet, and later still, worked with Starkey at Tell el-Ajjul, thinking it was Gaza. Not a single one of Petrie’s site identifications in Palestine was correct.

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the PEF in the lurch. Once it was clear that Petrie would not return, the PEF was ready to follow his advice and find another site, hoping it would produce more artifacts relating to the Bible. The PEF leadership was thinking practically at this point, as there was a need to worry about finances. A tell that could yield artifacts more directly related to biblical themes would be very helpful in attracting greater philanthropic interest. One of the sites that Petrie had suggested as an alternate to Hesy was Tell es-Safi, so the PEF began to consider Safi, as well as Tell Hum in the northern part of the country, for excavation. Tell Hum was (correctly) thought to be ancient Capernaum (PEF/DA/Executive Committee Minutes/5 and 11 August 1890).6 However, the excavations at Hesy were saved by the urging of two men. Professor A. H. Sayce, who had suggested Hesy in the first place, now urged the Fund to return there, albeit with a new excavator. By now Sayce agreed with Petrie that the site was definitely Lachish and was still considering it in the Assyriological light of Sennacherib’s conquest. He expressed his hope to the PEF that clay tablets might still be found somewhere in its strata (ibid., 16 September 1890). But Sayce’s voice was not the deciding one. The PEF’s own Charles Wilson, the original surveyor of Jerusalem, was still active in the organization, even though he was not present in London at the time. Wilson, worrying about any further delay when there was still an active firman for the site, wrote to the Fund’s Executive Committee asking that they continue excavating at Hesy (ibid., 7 October 1890). It was the weight of Wilson’s influence that convinced the Committee to continue excavating.7

THE CHOICE OF BLISS AS EXCAVATOR With Wilson guiding them, the PEF set about the task of looking for a new excavator and asked all involved in archaeology, no matter what the nationality, for suggestions (ibid., 1 July 1890). A number of suggestions came in, including one from Dr. George Edward Post of the SPC in Lebanon. Post had published articles on biblical themes in the PEFQS and had a strong relationship with members of the 6

Tell Hum was the only New Testament tell site considered for excavation during these early years (see above on preferences for Old Testament sites). Tell es-Safi was excavated later in the 1890s. See below. 7 See Moscrop 2000, 152, 156, 161ff. on Wilson’s enormous influence on PEF decisions.

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PEF Executive Committee, a relationship that stemmed from his days as a member of the APES advisory committee in the 1870s, when the APES was collaborating with the PEF. Post had been a professor of botany in SPC since the year after the College’s inception. He was a well-known botanist, but he also lectured in archaeology (D. Bliss 1920, 189; Musselman 2002). Post was also a close friend of Daniel Bliss and had known Frederick Bliss since the latter’s childhood. He had followed (and most likely encouraged) Bliss’s burgeoning archaeological interests since 1886, when Bliss, based at the College during his years of mental recovery, began to write and publish on the Maronites, on Tadmor, and on the village of Ma‘lula. Because of their scholarly and personal relationship, George Post wrote a letter of recommendation to the PEF for Frederick Bliss. This letter was read, along with several other letters advocating other candidates, at the October meeting of the Executive Committee. The Committee considered “Mr. Fraser, Mr. Bliss, Mr. Neugedoht, Mr. Strong. Mr. Fraser and Mr. Strong not being available at this date; it was unanimously agreed after reading Dr. Post’s letter, to invite Mr. Bliss to undertake the work,” (PEF/DA/ Executive Committee Minutes/7 October 1890). Thus Bliss’s PEF affiliation began largely because of his immediate availability—he was clearly the third choice, followed only by Mr. Neugedoht. This fact explains much about Bliss’s later relationship with the PEF. He was always something of a consolation prize after Petrie quit. Furthermore, PEF documents demonstrate that the Committee chose Bliss not because of his rather limited archaeological knowledge, but rather for his familial connections. The correspondence of November and December 1890 shows this clearly. When the PEF announced the appointment of Bliss to the Undersecretary of State, their reluctance is clear: “The Committee have experienced considerable difficulty in procuring a man suitable to carry out such important work. … They have now secured the services of Mr. Frederick Jones Bliss and request that the firman for Kh. Ajlan be renewed in his name.” Their thought process on explaining to the government this baffling choice of an inexperienced, unemployed American is further elucidated by the first draft of this letter, which contained a line that was later edited out: “Mr. Frederick Jones Bliss, son of the President of the American College in Beirut” (PEF/DA/Bliss/1/43/2). The initial inclusion of this clause, followed by its ultimate removal, reveals that the Committee had largely chosen Bliss for his connections, rather than his own experience, but then thought better of letting that reasoning be known publicly. Bliss himself seems aware of the reasons for his being hired, as he peppered his early letters to the PEF with unnecessary references to his father,

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as if to keep in their good graces (see, e.g., PEF/DA/Bliss/2/10; PEF/DA/ Bliss/3/1E).

BLISS’S APPRENTICESHIP WITH PETRIE Bliss came to the PEF with no background in what we today define as archaeology—that is, with no excavation experience or experience dealing with small-scale artifacts. He only qualified as an archaeologist in the older sense of the term: he had experience looking at ancient ruins on the ground. This is why the PEF decided to give Bliss a period of apprenticeship with Petrie before sending him off to Hesy alone. Petrie was already back working in Egypt, at Meidum (Wasta), by the time Bliss was hired, so this is where Bliss went to learn how to excavate. Bliss arrived at Wasta at the end of November 1890 and stayed until early February 1891, learning from Petrie all that was known to date about tell excavation in Palestine. Bliss was still unsure of himself and of his capacity for work since his breakdown five years earlier and confided his doubts to his family privately. He also recognized Petrie’s eccentricities, recounting to his family Petrie’s peculiar habit of wearing no stockings while excavating and the fact that he would not eat anything until eleven in the morning (Tufnell 1965, 114–15; Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Bliss Family Papers [series 7, box 2, folder 171], 16 January 1891). Ultimately, Bliss got along very well with Petrie, as they shared interests in music and literature (ibid.). Furthermore, Bliss began to enjoy life on an excavation. It was a new and exciting sort of work. He calls excavation work “exciting at times and stupid at others” (ibid.) and expresses surprise at all the basic aspects of excavation: “You never know when something new will turn up. Tracing brick walls buried in sand—digging the sand out of walls, … making trial trenches to discover probable buildings—trying to find the corner[?] of pyramid buried over with debris” (ibid., 19 January; 1 February 1891). Petrie himself was pleased with Bliss’s progress and reported to the PEF in early February 1891 that Bliss “has given great care and attention to all the details of excavation while he was here; and there is not a point in which he has spared any trouble to master it as far as possible” (PEF/DA/ Petrie/26). Petrie further assured the Committee that he had given Bliss lists of the men who are good to work with in Palestine as well as those he should avoid. While with Petrie, Bliss thoroughly immersed himself in the details of Petrie’s excavation journal from Hesy and discussed approaches to the tell with him (ibid.). Petrie was not always positive in his mentoring, as he shared

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with Bliss the reasons he refused to return to Hesy, telling him that Hesy was in a state of complete decay and that it was very difficult to separate mudbrick layers all the same color from each other. Bliss learned archaeological procedure during these months and noted Petrie’s practice of touring each excavation trench at least three times a day (Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Bliss Family Papers [series 7, box 2, folder 171], 16 January 1891). He also commented more than once about how much work Petrie could get out of his men (ibid., 7 February 1891).

BLISS AT TELL EL-HESY The transition from apprentice to excavator was difficult for Bliss, as we see from his letters home. He worried about every detail months in advance, and it is likely that without the help of his parents in Beirut, the Hesy excavations would not have been successful. Due to a lingering dependence on his family from the years spent recovering from his breakdown, Bliss relied on his parents for almost everything, asking them to send a variety of supplies down to Palestine, from equipment to three months’ supply of tinned food. Most significantly, he asks that Yusif Abu Selim, a Lebanese Christian who had long been employed by the Bliss family and by Syrian Protestant College, be sent down for the season (ibid., 16, 26 January 1891). Abu Selim became the majordomo for all of Bliss’s excavation seasons, until his death in the middle of the Jerusalem project. It took Bliss three weeks of work in February and March 1891 to get everything arranged. This included gathering the tools and books he wanted from Beirut and the supplies that Petrie had left at the tell. It also meant arranging for the Turkish inspector. In Jerusalem, Bliss was assigned the same man who had worked as inspector during Petrie’s season, Ibrahim Khaldi (whom Bliss referred to by the respectful title of Ibrahim Effendi). As an untried excavator, Bliss went through a difficult haggling process regarding the Effendi’s payment. Trying to stay within the PEF’s suggested budget, he offered the Effendi 13 napoleons, feeling that this was generous, as Petrie had suggested only 10, an amount that Bliss recognized as low. The Effendi countered by explaining that he was used to being paid 15. At this point Bliss pretended to offer the job to the Effendi’s inexperienced nephew for only 10. In the end, he got the more experienced man, although his letters do not specify at what price (PEF/DA/Bliss/2/9; Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Bliss Family Papers [series 7, box 2, folder 171], February ’91[?]). This is the first hint of differences with the PEF over how money should be spent.

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RELATIONS WITH LOCALS Unlike Petrie, who condescended both to his workers and to the Turkish authorities, Frederick Bliss had excellent relationships with all the Arabs he encountered. As an American brought up and educated in Lebanon, as a fluent Arabic speaker, and, as the son of a well-known American long involved in Near Eastern matters (SPC was a respected institution even in Muslim eyes), Frederick Bliss brought unique advantages to all his interactions with locals. We will see later how his American nationality and family connections actually saved the PEF from a serious confrontation with the Ottoman authorities. Another reason Bliss did not exhibit an attitude of Western superiority has to do with the fact that he was an American archaeologist working in a country dominated by British and German interests.8 Beginning with Petrie, the British PEF excavators were all well aware of themselves as citizens of an imperial power, one which was vying for control of the Holy Land both politically and socially.9 Petrie had in fact shown a great deal of bigotry when dealing with the people of the village of Bureir, home to many of his workers. His poor relationship with the locals was partly why Petrie believed it was so difficult to excavate in Palestine. In contrast, Bliss’s positive, friendly attitude toward locals helped him to overcome a variety of obstacles that Petrie could not. In his final report on Hesy, Petrie wrote that only a small proportion of the natives there are fit to work; each group of men that I engaged rapidly dwindled down by weeding out the hopelessly lazy ones; so that in two or three weeks half of any lot would be dismissed, and in six weeks but an eighth of the original party remained. … The Bedawin were troublesome … the common herd were always in mischief; lounging about the excavations, carrying away things that were found, overthrowing any masonry … generally being about as much in the way as they could. It would have been a treat to have made them do a hard honest day’s work: for nothing is more annoying than a pack of ne’er-do-weel. (Petrie 1891, 10–11)

Bliss, on the other hand, was very solicitous of the locals with whom he worked. A typical comment made in print is, “These men grew wonderfully interested in the work. … Several of them showed both daring and skill in mining, working quite cheerfully through the most insecure debris” (Bliss 8

The German Kaiser was to visit Palestine a few years later. See the discussion of Gottleib Schumacher and German archaeological interests below. 9 See generally Silberman 1982.

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1898a, 339). Furthermore, Bliss had a close personal relationship with Yusif Abu Selim throughout his years at Hesy and Jerusalem. They traveled together to receptions in Jerusalem and also worked together on the tell (Amherst Archives, Bliss Papers [series 7, box 2, folder 171], 25 February 1891). Bliss even mourned Abu Selim’s death in the body of his final published report on Jerusalem and also included in the same volume an obituary for Ibrahim Effendi, who died during the same season, devoting several pages to praising both these Arabs, one of whom was not even Christian, an unheard-of gesture at the time (Bliss 1898a, 359–62).

BLISS’S FIRST SEASON AT TELL EL-HESY Bliss’s first season of work at Hesy began on 16 March and ended on 15 May 1891. He began with a great advantage, as Petrie had explained how pottery changed over time, and Bliss was able to approach the tell with this as a given. This was why, over the course of his excavations, Bliss was able to leap beyond Petrie’s insight. Not only did Bliss recognize that ceramics changed with periods, but he also figured out that stratigraphy was crucial to understanding the chronology of a site, specifically for approaching how various architectural levels relate to each other. While Petrie may have grasped this implicitly, he did not state it in his writings, as he was more interested in the relative chronologies of tells in Palestine to sites in Egypt. Bliss was the first archaeologist to concentrate on establishing an internal chronology of a single site in Palestine. Petrie had excavated a step trench along the northeastern side of the tell. Bliss, after his training with Petrie, was confident enough in his abilities as an excavator to depart from this deep trench. Bliss had a very methodical goal in mind, the complete excavation of a tell. Unlike Petrie, who intended from the beginning to spend only a short amount of time at the site, Bliss planned to take his time about doing things properly. His goal was to dig a portion of the site—one third of it—down to bedrock while carefully recording everything he found in every habitation level (Bliss 1894c, 8). Petrie had suggested that Bliss excavate not on the acropolis, but on the western side of the “low” town, because there were no Roman remains to dig through there. However, this part of the tell was covered with crops, and Bliss could only dig on its northernmost extent—and that, with difficulty. In spite of the crops, he managed to make thirty soundings in the lower city, as he recognized that it was an important area archaeologically (1891c). The thirty trial trenches ultimately produced remains of burials, walls, and ceramics (1891b, 282). Bliss then moved to the acropolis itself and began excavat-

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ing on its northeastern ridge. Because the Fund was still interested in Hesy for its biblical significance, it was clear to the Executive Committee back in London, as well as to Bliss, that anything on top of the biblical period needed to be removed relatively quickly. Despite this pressure to move fast, Bliss set up a grid system of 10' × 10' squares and meticulously recorded where architecture and artifacts were found within this grid. From the beginning, crops were a constant problem. Before Bliss could even remove the first layer of disturbed later material, he had to purchase the crop of beans growing on that portion of the tell from its owner (1894c, 8). This became a particularly difficult issue, as this season the crops were rather rich. The previous year, when Petrie was excavating, the harvest had been late and poor (PEF/DA/Bliss/3/2c). Bliss therefore had to negotiate and pay more for the crops than Petrie had. Because of all the disturbances and the amount of time clearing the top level away, in the first season Bliss only excavated some graves, ovens, and fragments of architecture (1894c, 8, 1891b, 284). Petrie had recommended specific workmen to Bliss and recommended against certain others (PEF/DA/Petrie/26). Bliss took those recommendations, but over the course of the two years he worked at Hesy, he got to know all the workers very well. He kept his staff small and chose carefully, because it was clear to him from the moment he began that detail work was required for excavation, and he wanted to be able to supervise closely. He began with thirty-five men from the village of Bureir, located six miles from the site (Bliss 1891b, 284, 286). Bliss became so interested in the lives of his workers that he included ethnographic comments in most of his excavation reports, including the final one. The ethnography was for its own sake, and yet he understood that there could be connections between life in an ancient village and life in a modern village at the same location that was still dependent on the same resources. This is why he occasionally made allusions to features of the modern town in his text. For instance, the many pits he was uncovering at Hesy were clearly comparable to pits of similar size and shape that modern residents of Bureir would dig on their properties (ibid. 286). Later, during his excavations of sites on the Shephelah, when LMLK jars turned up for the first time, Bliss used a similar but more striking ethnographic comparison to figure out the problem of which direction the jars might have traveled—to or from the city marked on the handle. It was actually his Arab foreman (another Yusif who had replaced Yusif Abu Selim upon his death) who pointed out to him that several cities in the region still used names of cities to designate measurements, as three cities within three

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miles of each other (Safi, Zakariyah, and Beit Nettif) all still used slightly different measurement for wheat. Yusif knew about this phenomenon from his own interactions with the locals, and Bliss extrapolated from this fact that in antiquity there might have been a “Hebron measure” and a “Ziph measure,” (Bliss and Macalister 1902, 114). This suggestion, as well as several others that Bliss put forward, opened up a debate on the topic that lasted for decades. During the first season, Bliss spent much time trying to build a tram system for removing the many pounds of dirt. This necessitated building a short railroad (Tufnell 1965, 116; PEF/DA/Bliss/152/151). The system was ultimately a failure, since the area was too small to make it efficient. Instead, Bliss employed women from the town of Bureir to carry baskets from the excavation trench to the side of the tell and dump them over by hand (Bliss 1894c, 148). Thus he gave opportunities to both the women and the men of the town and got to know the daily routines and needs of all. When Ramadan came, rather than lose all his workers to the hardships of the fast as Petrie had done, Bliss let the women off an hour earlier than the men, so that they could walk the several miles home and begin preparing the nighttime meal for their families. Bliss began by using Petrie’s trench as a guide, and for a while continued to refer to Petrie’s scheme of eight superimposed “cities” (ibid. 8–9), although by the time he published his final report, he had renumbered the cities with the understanding that the most recent remains were on the top of the tell. That first season he removed all of the remains of the “first city,” (later renamed the eighth city) and the “second city” (later renamed the seventh city) (1891b, 289; 1894c, 90–127). The material he excavated included the remains of Turkish military trenches and Muslim graves, as well as some Roman occupation. Bliss ended that season in May of 1891, due to the intense heat of the southern Shephelah, and also due to the beginning of the wheat harvest, which caused his workers to abandon the excavation in large numbers, as tending the wheat was their real work. Bliss was disappointed to find so many late pits on the tell and by the dearth of biblical-period material in general. When he wrote to his superiors at the PEF, he was only able to describe the vast amounts of pottery he had excavated and could not even present any architectural elements associated with biblical figures, as Petrie had previously done (PEF/DA/Bliss/3/1E).10 The tell was as frustrating as Petrie 10

The pottery that he reported on included large amounts of what he and Petrie referred to as “Phoenician” ware, which was in actuality Cypriote (base ring and other forms).

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had predicted, and Bliss, still influenced by Petrie’s opinion, was deeply concerned about the viability of further excavation.

THE SECOND SEASON AT TELL EL-HESY After the hot summer ended, it was possible to resume excavation. Bliss began his second season in the autumn of 1891, but this season was beset by malaria. He had again pitched his camp at Bureir, rather than at the tell (Bliss 1892b, 36–37), which meant that again the workers had to walk the six miles in the morning and afternoon. Bliss himself (and most likely his immediate underlings, including the Effendi and Yusif) traveled back and forth by camel. The distance was even harder to manage this season because of the sickness and the harsh beginning of the winter. The Effendi and the cook both took ill at various points (Bliss 1894c, 150). Continuing to dig down in the previous season’s trenches, Bliss found a structure that seemed to be large and public. This is part of what Bliss initially called the “third town,” (after Petrie) and later described as part of the fifth city in his final report (1894c, 90–96). Bliss excavated in front of this public structure, aware that Petrie had already seen and excavated part of it and had named it the Pilaster Building. Petrie’s main interest in this building had been that he found it representative of “Jewish” (Israelite) architecture. He had even brashly suggested that it might be comparable to the architecture of the Temple in Jerusalem (Petrie 1891, 24). In contrast, Bliss recognized that the structure had nothing to do with the Temple, or even with temple architecture, and stated his belief that the pilastered structure might well be part of the streets of a bazaar (Bliss 1892c, 95–99, 1894c, 90–96). Not only was Bliss beginning to recognize the limits of his mentor’s understanding, he was also now willing to break away from interpretations that were solely based on the Bible, as the Bible was clearly not always the appropriate lens. Late in this season, Bliss finished with the Pilaster Building. When he dug beneath it, he reached the “Amorite” levels of the tell (1892b, 38).11

11

This was also the season when Bliss excavated an ostracon that various scholars have read in different ways. Sayce, always geared toward the Bible, read it as “to Shemach,” based on a biblical name mentioned in 1 Chronicles 26; Clermont-Ganneau read it as “for libation”; and Conder read it as “may you profit” (Bliss 1894c, 105–6). Interestingly, Bliss did not offer his own opinion or preference.

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THE THIRD SEASON: THE BED OF ASHES AND THE AMARNA TABLET After a break for the worst of the winter rains, Bliss began his third season in the spring of 1892. Most of this season was spent removing a strange and huge bed of ashes, which was located under another large public building that had to be removed as well (Bliss 1893b, 9–10). Bliss helped excavate this building himself, jumping into the trench alongside the workmen. He uncovered a bronze figurine and also a ceramic female figurine, both of which heartened him as to what else might be found on the tell (1894c, 67–68). These levels above the ashes also yielded winepresses and a variety of architectural details such as doorjambs, bronze weapons, and scarabs (ibid. 69–89). The ashes themselves were a puzzle to Bliss. Petrie had also come across the ashes and decided that they must have been borne by wind all across the tell, and that they must have originated with alkali burners nearby who sold their materials in the vicinity (ibid. 64–65; Petrie 1891, 16). Petrie had formed his opinion rather cavalierly, as he had come to it by guesswork based on little evidence. Because Bliss actually excavated beneath the ash layer, he came to a different conclusion, again surpassing his mentor in archaeological understanding. By this point, Bliss had a healthy appreciation of how little was really known, even by Petrie, and readily admitted it to some. He wrote about the debate over the formation of the ash bed in a letter to his family: “I shall write some learned pages showing the ancient way of making alkali. In the meantime I don’t really know what alkali is … or just why people want to use it!” (Tufnell 1965, 121; PEF/DA/ Bliss/152). Underneath the ash layer, Bliss found what he called a furnace.12 The presence of a furnace in the “third city” explained the ash layer in the “fourth city” much better than the notion of material blowing in from off the tell (Bliss 1894c, 65). Interestingly, neither Petrie nor Bliss associated the ashes with a destruction by fire, although Bliss did speak of a temporary abandonment of the site. It was while he was digging through this ash layer, and before he found the only historical document that the site yielded (the Amarna tablet to be discussed below), that Bliss became very frustrated with the site. His writings from this phase hark back to the unhappy descriptions Petrie had given him of the site during his apprenticeship and show that the student had not yet fully realized that his own methodology of tell excavation had surpassed Pet12

He came down to it in the third season but fully excavated it in the fourth.

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rie’s mere six weeks of experience. Bliss wrote home in March 1892, “This tell is a fraud! Hardly anything has turned up—a wine press of the time of Solomon has been neatly extracted, but what is that—and is it worth two Napoleons and more? Just going to take a cup of tea before returning to the old tell; I hope it will give me occasion to speak better of it before long” (Tufnell 1965, 117; PEF/DA/Bliss/152.) Very soon after Bliss wrote that frustrated letter, the tell did produce something significant. Bliss uncovered a written tablet within the remains of “city three” (Bliss 1893b, 16–17, 1894c, 51–56). The Amarna tablets had been discovered in 1887, five years before Bliss’s find, but Bliss had never seen them. He of course recognized that he had a cuneiform inscription and in fact was greatly inspired by the discovery, writing home, “Hurrah! It is darkest before the dawn and today we found a small stone—2 inches square—quite covered with tiny cuneiform (Assyrian) letters! It will be very valuable [to the Fund]” (Tufnell 1965, 117; PEF/DA/Bliss/152.) Bliss did not immediately recognize that the tablet was made of clay, not stone, and in fact argued back and forth with the PEF and also specifically with Sayce about the medium as well as the content (PEF/DA/Bliss/ 11/3/1–4). Bliss perpetuated in print his mistaken belief that the tablet was of stone, although others had told him sight unseen that it must be clay. He did not realize his mistake until almost a full year after the tablet was found, when he traveled to Cairo in March 1893 to look at the entire collection of Amarna letters (PEF/DA/Bliss/17/5A). Luckily, little had been printed about the tablet in the interim, as Bliss himself came down with typhoid fever immediately after the end of the season and could not write his report for the Fund until some months later (Bliss 1893b, 17; see below on Bliss’s illness). Upon finding the tablet, Bliss immediately took a squeeze of it and sent it off to Sayce in London for translation. Sayce published the translated text in the very next issue of the PEFQS (Sayce 1893), and Bliss included the translation as an appendix to the final report of the excavations (Bliss 1894c, 184–87). Bliss wishfully speculated about finding more tablets in further excavations, perhaps even an archive room (ibid. 57–60). One of the main reasons for Bliss’s personal excitement regarding the tablet was the nature of the history it reflected. The Amarna tablet was not evidence of biblical history; rather, it reflected a newly known period in the history of Egypt, the international “Amarna Age,” which had no obvious connections to biblical events. Bliss’s scientific—as opposed to biblically or religiously based—interest in archaeology begins to be evident at this point. The Amarna archive was already causing a revolution in the understanding

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of the relationship between Egypt and Palestine and Syria in Egypt’s Eighteenth Dynasty. Now a find from a clear context within a site in Palestine was confirming this new historical information. Furthermore, the archaeological level from which the tablet came clearly predated the Israelite settlement of the land, and the writing itself was in a language of Mesopotamia, not biblical Hebrew. All this likely pleased Bliss from the scientific point of view, as the tablet could be viewed as historically relevant even by those inclined toward Assyriology (see above). In spite of his missionary background, Bliss rarely mentioned biblical connections in his own writings. And yet Bliss remained cautious. His approach to the information was almost that of hypothetico-deductive reasoning, many decades before such a technique became popular in archaeology. He wanted external evidence to confirm everyone’s initial hypotheses regarding both the site and the tablet. Specifically, although the tablet seemed to confirm the possibility that Tell el-Hesy really was Lachish, Bliss still doubted the identification. He pointed out that, although other Amarna letters give the name of the governor of Lachish as “Zimridi,” and the Hesy tablet mentions a “Zimrida,” this is still not proof that this site was itself Lachish, and tentatively expressed his doubt about the identification (Bliss 1893b, 55, 139). Rather than taking circumstantial evidence as final proof, and in spite of the fact that Petrie had published the site definitively as Lachish in his slim volume on his six weeks there, Bliss still hesitated.13 Hindsight has proven that Bliss’s caution was warranted, as it has been clear since the British excavations of the 1930s, led by J. L. Starkey, that Tell ed-Duweir is actually Lachish, not Tell el-Hesy. Interestingly, Bliss had been the first to suggest that Tell ed-Duweir would be a fruitful site for excavation, although his suggestion had been ignored. He had made the suggestion in 1920 to Albright himself, then head of the American Schools in Jerusalem 13

The hesitation about the identification is apparent in many other ways as well. Because Petrie had made the assumption that the site was Lachish, he had constantly turned to the Bible to get his bearings and associated various architectural features he excavated with biblical persons. He identified a particular wall with Rehoboam, because according to the Bible, Rehoboam was said to have fortified Lachish (Petrie 1891, 21). He therefore associated the next fortification wall he found with Ahaz (ibid. 27). Bliss was stuck with these biblically based references and retained the terms in order to avoid terminological confusion in the days before locus numbers. However, while Bliss did refer to Petrie’s biblical identifications in his field notes and letters (cf. PEF/DA/Bliss/6), he never mentioned any of the kings of Israel or Judah when he discussed the fortification in the final report (Bliss 1894c, 98–101).

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(ASOR), when Albright was looking for a site to excavate (Albright 1921, 60). Albright considered the suggestion twelve years before British interest in the site gained momentum but excavated Tell el-Ful instead. While suggesting Tell ed-Duweir as a site for the Americans to excavate, Bliss never actually voiced the belief that it might be Lachish; but he had clearly been curious about the possibility since his time working at Hesy.

THE FOURTH SEASON AT TEL EL-HESY Unfortunately for the PEF and for Bliss, the Amarna tablet was the last exciting find the team was to have. The fourth and last season at Hesy, which took place in the autumn of 1892, was not productive. But it was in this season that Bliss exhibited another attribute of the modern archaeologist: he carefully excavated the building with which the Amarna tablet was associated. He did this because he understood that the find only had real archaeological value if its context was understood as well. Instead of jumping ahead and opening new trenches in the hopes of finding an archive, Bliss properly finished the job at hand. He worked on excavating other contexts during this last season as well, including a circular building that turned out to be a furnace associated with the ash level. The furnace was a complex structure with a variety of connecting passages for heat, and a pit for slag. His foreman Yusif was the first to understand its use, and Bliss gave him credit for this in print (Bliss 1894c, 48). Bliss also found bits of iron tools near the furnace, which he speculated were for smelting iron, as he had found slag at the base of the furnace (Bliss 1893a, 108–9). He sent the slag off to Professor Gladstone in London, who analyzed it and showed that the proportion of iron in it was far too small for iron manufacture. In spite of this information, Bliss still preferred this theory to Petrie’s alkali suggestion. By the end of the fourth season, Bliss had excavated down to the earliest “Amorite” (Bronze Age) town and finally reached bedrock, which was his methodological goal.14 Immediately following this, he was eager to publish the results and move forward, for several reasons. First, he was personally exhausted from the years at Hesy. The fieldwork had taken a toll on his 14

By today’s standards, it is considered poor practice to dig away everything. However, Bliss was ahead of his time in that he tackled only a third, rather than the whole, of the tell. The Germans were soon going to attempt to peel entire tells down to their bedrock, leaving nothing for later generations. By comparison, Bliss’s methodology was undestructive.

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health, as he had contracted typhoid fever between the third and fourth seasons and was still recovering from its aftereffects (see below). Second, bedrock had always been the goal of the excavation. Clearly the tell had yielded all the information it had, and Bliss, like Petrie before him, was eager to move on to a more productive site.

BLISS’S UNDERSTANDING OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL STRATIGRAPHY AND CERAMICS Bliss returned to London for the first months of 1893 to write the final report on Hesy and to help the PEF make its decision about where to excavate next.15 The final report he produced was more detailed than Petrie’s had been, and in terms of organization, it set the stage for modern excavation publications. The depth of Bliss’s understanding of chronology and stratigraphy is apparent in this final publication. As mentioned above, Bliss understood that the upper levels of the tell represented the later phases of occupation of the site. Petrie had not emphasized this in his publications, instead discussing the ceramics extensively. But Bliss’s stratigraphic understanding went farther than Petrie’s. Bliss refined the layered city structure of Hesy that Petrie had established, and while he stayed within Petrie’s eight-city scheme, Bliss added several subphases (City Sub I, City Sub II, and City Sub IV), meaning that he had recognized at least eleven distinct strata, and also that not all these strata were of equal chronological length, as the subcities were shorterlived phenomena that related to the main phases (Bliss 1894c, 138–39). Bliss can also be credited with understanding how ceramics changed over time beyond Petrie’s initial insight. Specifically, Bliss was the first to understand the importance of ceramics, even potsherds, as opposed to whole vessels: I now come to the Proof from Pottery. Unless the reader totally refuses to admit this sort of evidence, he must agree that it could never have a higher value for chronological argument than it has at Tell el Hesy, where each city or group of cities is characterized by especial types and styles, most of them known elsewhere, and where specimens were found, not by the dozen only, but by the hundred and thousand. … [The pottery sherds] appeared in great numbers, invariably confirming not only each other, but the experts as well. (ibid. 135)

Bliss purposely discussed the ceramics after he had already analyzed the 15 He first passed through Egypt, where he spent some time in Cairo looking at the Amarna tablets to compare to his own tablet (PEF/DA/Bliss/17/5A).

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bronze and iron objects and the inscribed objects (ibid. 132–36), since he recognized that his readers and sponsors at the Fund would be more interested in those. And yet he strongly argued that the ceramics, including mere sherds, were in fact far more indicative for dating. He also made clear his hope that in the future an absolute chronology might be created based on extensive saving and recording of ceramic finds (ibid. 138). Bliss worked on his report in London throughout the winter of 1893. When he was not writing, he had a busy social schedule, as he spent many weekends as a guest in a variety of country estates, riding and hiking. He even had an audience with the aging Lady Isabel Burton and politely sympathized with her disappointment in the public’s reaction to her husband’s adventures in the East (Tufnell 1965, 121). Because there were virtually no excavation reports from a site of this type (as opposed to the gigantic mounds of Mesopotamia), Bliss essentially invented the components that belonged in one. The report was well written and detailed. It was also strikingly modern in some aspects, as he included several appendixes. Appendix A consists of Sayce’s line-by-line translation of the Amarna tablet. Appendix B is an analysis of the metal objects found on the site, written by Dr. J. H. Gladstone. Appendix C is a report on the “zoology” of the site, written by Alfred E. Day, and appendix D is a report on flint objects found on the site, written by F. C. J. Spurrell. Each appendix is quaintly in the form of a letter from each expert, each describing his analyses of the materials Bliss had sent—for he had painstakingly shipped out several boxes. Rather than including the information on metal, fauna, and stone in a single narrative with citations, Bliss, in his desire for precision, chose to separate each out and let each scholar have full credit for his own work. Part of this was due to a fear on Bliss’s part that mistakes might creep in if he attempted to summarize the technical reports himself. He was very meticulous and had a great need for scientific precision. Today, no final publication of an excavation is considered complete without chapters by specialists who have analyzed flora, fauna, metallurgy, stone, and other finds as well. Bliss set the standard for this style of reporting. However, although many followed this style in later years, Bliss himself only utilized appendixes in the Hesy report. He did not include such sections in his Jerusalem report or his Tell es-Safi report. In fact, the more years he spent in the field, the more Bliss began to conform to the underdeveloped archaeological norms of the day, especially as his pioneering efforts went unappreciated. By the time he published the Tell es-Safi excavations, he was extremely resentful of his treatment by the PEF. While that last report is in some ways the most meticulous of them all, it was not full of innovations in

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the way that the Hesy report was. When the report on Tell el-Hesy was published in 1894, it was reviewed favorably in both Britain and the United States. A particularly positive review appeared in 1894 in the American Journal of Archaeology and the History of the Fine Arts, the precursor to the American Journal of Archaeology, published by the Archaeological Institute of America.16 The AIA was one of the three American scholarly organizations to participate in the founding of ASOR, six years later. Clearly, the American archaeological community was paying attention to Bliss and his work, even though he was working for the British.

BLISS’S PERSONALITY AND PERSONAL AND HEALTH ISSUES, AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE FOR HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH THE PEF While fully professional in the field, Bliss often let personal issues intrude on his work schedule. Even though each instance of this was fueled by a legitimate issue, cumulatively they affected his relationship with his employers. The first major example comes from October 1891, when Bliss’s association with the PEF was less than a year old. While at the tell, Bliss received word that his sister Mary’s young daughter had died. He immediately set out for Lebanon to be with her, as their parents were in America and she was all alone. Bliss did not wait to consult with the PEF Committee; rather, he explained the situation after the fact (PEF/DA/Bliss/6), once he had returned to Hesy. Although he was careful to insert some archaeological content into the same letter (discussing the direction of a particular wall), he ws sending a clear message to his superiors in London that personal and family issues took priority over professional ones. From this point forward, the PEF understood that their field man could not be trusted to put the work first and might run off whenever he felt the need. The same is true regarding Bliss’s own health. In fact, too many missed days of work due to poor health was the excuse the PEF ultimately used to fire him. This pattern of sickness and lack of understanding on the part of the London Committee began in June 1892, when Bliss came down with typhoid fever, at the very end of the third Hesy season, the season when the Amarna tablet had been found. Bliss was supposed to have headed straight to London to make his report to the Committee, but he was too sick and did not arrive in London until a full year later, after the next and last field season (PEF/DA/Executive Committee Minutes/30 May 1893). 16

Anonymous 1894.

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That summer, Bliss was too sick even to write his own letters to the London Committee. He returned to Lebanon once more, where his family nursed him back to health over the course of several months. Sick as he was, Bliss attempted to communicate with the London office through his family. He instructed his older sister Mary to write to the Committee for him. She did so, carefully conveying not only the facts of his illness, but a professional message as well, writing that “in his feverishness his work is uppermost in his mind. I remember his remarking then that he feared in the hurry of his last letters, he has neglected to tell you that the inscribed statue is very hard” (PEF/DA/Bliss/12/3). Mary wrote to the PEF again of her own volition just twelve days later, saying that her brother was still very sick and that they should not expect to hear from him for a long time (PEF/DA/Bliss/12/4). The following month, Bliss’s youngest brother William also wrote to the Committee (Howard Bliss was in America during these years). William wrote of his brother’s plans to return to the tell in September and included a list of supplies that he would like the PEF to send ahead (PEF/DA/Bliss/12/5). However, the PEF did not acknowledge any of the family’s letters officially, perhaps feeling that such correspondence was not up to their professional standards. In fact, the only source for Bliss’s condition that they acknowledge is a letter from Dr. George Post of SPC, the man who had originally recommended Bliss for the job and who still maintained his own connection to the PEF. In addition to the letters from Bliss’s siblings, Post also informed the Committee that Bliss had headed home to Lebanon rather than to London (PEF/DA/Executive Committee Minutes/2 August 1892). When, in August 1892, Bliss was healthy enough to write to the PEF himself, he told the Committee that he would like to put off his return to the field, asking them to ask the Pasha for permission to wait another three months, as he was better but still shaky and exhausted (PEF/DA/Bliss/12/ 7A). However, the Executive Committee rejected this request outright. Enough time had been lost due to this illness. Bliss did not argue; instead he had the camp set up later that same month and returned to Palestine himself in mid-September, to begin his last season at Hesy on 24 September 1892 (PEF/DA/Executive Committee Minutes/2 September 1892; Bliss 1894c, 154). Bliss was sick during his later years of excavation as well, although never as severely as in this instance. Thus the PEF had lost its patience with his personal issues at this early date.

10 THE JERUSALEM EXCAVATIONS SCHUMACHER, THE RAILROAD SURVEY, AND TELL EL-MUTESELLIM With Tell el-Hesy now excavated and published, it was up to the PEF to find another site to excavate. The Executive Committee was determined to find a site to dig that would yield more interesting results than Hesy had. Interest in biblical archaeology was growing internationally, and the Germans were gearing up for their own excavations. No time could be lost. Bliss had made some suggestions about sites even before returning to London to write the Hesy report. His suggestions came from his now very clear ideas about what excavation entailed physically, and also from a greater understanding of the internal politics of the larger region. Before leaving Palestine, he had toured the southwestern part of the country, looking for suitable sites. He had looked at Ashkelon and Tell es-Safi, the latter previously suggested by Petrie several years back. Between the two sites, Bliss clearly preferred Safi, stating that Ashkelon “has not been definitely identified, but it will keep.” He also stated his belief that it would be easier to reach the lower levels at Safi (PEF/DA/Bliss/17/4, 1 March 1893).1 In late May 1893, while Bliss was in London finishing the Hesy report, he was present at a meeting of the PEF Executive Committee. Petrie was present too, as he felt a lingering interest as well as responsibility toward helping Bliss and the PEF fulfil their goals (PEF/DA/Executive Committee Minutes/30 May 1893). At this meeting there was no more talk about either Ashkelon or Tell es-Safi. The Fund decided to apply for the permit to excavate Jerusalem. Jerusalem had been the domain of the PEF since the surveys done by Warren and Wilson. As other nationalities were beginning to express interest in the Holy Land both politically and archaeologically, the Committee decided that Britain needed to reclaim the city as its own scholarly territory. When the Fund finally sent Bliss back to Palestine in the fall of 1 It is interesting that his advice was ultimately taken in a limited way—several years later, the PEF did send him to Safi, not to Ashkelon.

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1893, he was sent to excavate in Jerusalem. However, in spite of the PEF decision, the permit for Jerusalem was not a certainty and would in fact take several tense months to arrive. Rather than let Bliss sit inactive for several months, the Fund allowed him to look for alternative sites to excavate while he waited.2 One of the sites he suggested was Tell el-Sultan (Jericho), as well as other tells in its vicinity (Bliss 1894d: 177). More significantly, during the fall of 1893 Bliss traveled to northern Palestine, to the area that he personally thought might be a good place to excavate. He made his survey trip in the company of Gottlieb Schumacher, who later worked for the Deutsche Palästina-Verein (DPV). In fact, it was Schumacher’s survey that Bliss participated in, rather than the other way around. Although Gottlieb Schumacher was born in the United States, in Zanesville, Ohio, where his parents briefly worked for the Templar church, he and his family soon moved to Haifa, where his father continued to work for the Templar community. Schumacher studied engineering at Stuttgart, and when he returned to Palestine, he was appointed Chief Engineer for the Province of Akko by the Ottoman government. In this capacity he was commissioned to survey the proposed line of the Haifa–Damascus railway. The railroad project was a moment of opportunity for all those interested in excavating in Palestine. Schumacher had a prior relationship with the PEF that dated back to the 1880s. This is why some of the results of his railway survey were republished in English in the PEFQS after their initial German publication in the journal of the Deutche Pälastina-Verein. Although he shared results with the PEF, Schumacher’s first and only excavation for the DPV was the 1903 expedition to Tell el-Mutesellim (Megiddo). Because of this cooperation between the PEF and the DPV, Bliss accompanied Schumacher to the Golan and Hauran and Ajlun in November 1893. As they traveled together, exploring the proposed rail line, Schumacher prepared his survey maps and Bliss looked for future sites for PEF excavation, in spite of the fact that the Jerusalem plan was already voted on by the PEF Committee. It had been Bliss’s own idea to accompany Schumacher on this survey. In spite of the PEF’s insistence on Jerusalem, Bliss felt that following the railroad was the best approach to archaeology at the moment, as it would 2

The Fund made good use of him in these months, as they also asked him to take a group of 120 British clergymen on a tour of the ruins of Jerusalem, which he did (Bliss 1894a, 169).

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open up significant opportunities to discover sites (Bliss 1894c:108). Several ideas occurred to Bliss as a result of this trip. Midway through the survey, he stopped proposing northern Palestine as a possibility for excavation and instead suggested that the PEF send him to work on the eastern side of the Jordan River. In a twelve-page letter to the Executive Committee, Bliss outlined in great detail his reasons for wanting to work in the east. Some were very persuasive; for instance, he mentioned the fact that since the locals in western Palestine already knew him as an archaeologist, it would be more trouble than it was worth to try to survey or excavate in any of the sites there. In eastern Palestine, however, he could present himself as an anonymous engineer and not be bothered by local objections. Most interestingly, in this same letter to the Executive Committee, Bliss described his visit to Tell el-Mutesellim (Megiddo). He praised the site enormously: The tell is splendid, with an height of remains at the north of 80 feet. What riches are inside it! These is much stone in the upper layers—but the lower layers probably contain mudbrick remains, as it is mud that forms a tell. The owner came along at the end of his day and we chatted as to whether he would let us have stones from the tell for the railway. He seemed favorable. (PEF/DA/Bliss/17/10, 18 November 1890)

Clearly, Bliss was interested in exploring Tell el-Mutesellim himself, as he even took measurements of height and area at various points on the mound. However, immediately after expressing such enthusiasm for Tell elMutesellim, he went on to state that he and Schumacher were in complete agreement that it would be better for Bliss to dig elsewhere, specifically east of the river. In spite of his enthusiasm about the site, he never brought Megiddo up as a real possibility for excavation to the PEF. With historical hindsight, it seems likely that Schumacher already had an agenda in mind, wanting Tell el-Mutesellim for himself. Germany had long been trying to increase its presence and influence in the Holy Land, a desire that culminated with the successful visit of the Kaiser to Jerusalem in 1899. By 1903, Schumacher had secured the firman for Tell el-Mutesellim for Germany, with himself as the primary excavator. Based on Bliss’s comments in 1893, it is likely that during their 1893 survey, Schumacher convinced Bliss that it would be too hard for the British to get permits for Tell el-Mutesellim and too hard to work with the reluctant locals—even though Bliss seemed to think that the locals might cooperate. Because of Schumacher’s greater experience and influence, Bliss did not attempt to convince the PEF to send him there, and Tell el-Mutesellim remained untouched until Schumacher himself began excavations. Schumacher’s excavations were partially

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financed by Kaiser Wilhelm himself, his interest in these matters awakened during the 1899 visit to Palestine (Bliss 1906, 284). As plans for the emperor’s visit were already underway at the time of the 1893 survey, Schumacher may well have been biding his time, keeping the site in reserve for Germany. While Megiddo was an opportunity missed by Bliss and the PEF, the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago eventually carried out major excavations there, several decades after Schumacher left the site. It is a testament to Bliss’s archaeological eye that he recognized the potential of Tell elMutesellim on that early survey.

BLISS’S AMERICAN NATIONALISM AND THE PERMIT FOR JERUSALEM The Jerusalem excavations represent a very interesting moment in Bliss’s archaeological career. He was now no longer a novice. Not only had he completed several seasons of work at Hesy, he had also published intermittent preliminary reports in volumes of the PEFQS and written the final report, all of which were well received. Additionally, and most important to his selfconfidence as an archaeologist, he had lectured on the Hesy excavations for the local Jerusalem chapter of the PEF, as well as in London; and in that context he had been praised highly by the members of the PEF Executive Committee (PEF/DA/Bliss/152; see also Tufnell 1965, 121). Although he had already experienced disagreements with the PEF over where to excavate, and over his health during the Hesy years, he was now sure of his own approaches to archaeological excavations and knew better than anyone else how to analyze the data excavated. He also had a firm grasp on the historical periods in Palestine, on the history of the city of Jerusalem in particular. And he had a better grasp of the ceramics of Palestine than any of his contemporaries, even Petrie. Although Jerusalem was not Bliss’s first choice of site, it had qualities that Hesy lacked. From the beginning, Bliss had thought of Hesy as an unproductive mound—Petrie had planted this idea in his head before he ever set foot on the site. Jerusalem, on the other hand, clearly had important remains, some of which were visible above ground. Jerusalem could generate public excitement, which was what the PEF needed to continue its stream of funding. Once Bliss realized that Jerusalem was the final choice of the Fund, his enthusiasm for the project was apparent and lasted throughout the years of work there, even through a variety of hardships. This enthusiasm seems to have buoyed him through the difficult tunneling process, the loss of the permit midway through excavations, and the deaths of his foreman and

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inspector. We have seen previously how the PEF recognized Bliss’s prominent family as incentive to hire him as their chief excavator. During the very beginning of the Jerusalem phase of his career, Bliss himself, generally modest, capitalized on his family name. Bliss’s association with Syrian Protestant College, as well as the mere fact that he was not British but American, were most useful during the wait for the Jerusalem permit—in fact, the permit might never have been obtained had the excavator not been American. Obtaining a permit for excavating Jerusalem was never an easy task. In the years since Wilson’s survey, it had become harder and harder for the British to get the Turkish authorities to issue permits for anything, as there were more Westerners wanting to work in Palestine than ever before (Moscrop 2000, 189–90). Unlike the firman for Hesy, this one had some particular peculiarities. Bliss waited for it patiently in Jerusalem in December 1893, after his return from his tour of the north. In the interim, a dispute between the British and Turkish authorities broke out, jeopardizing an already uneasy relationship. At the center of the dispute was a British teacher who lived in Jerusalem, G. Robinson Lees. Lees headed a British-run school for boys in Jerusalem, but in addition to teaching, Lees had published a book titled Jerusalem Illustrated. The content of the book included vehement criticisms of the Turkish government of Palestine. Lees’s publication infuriated the Pasha of Jerusalem, along with many other members of the Turkish government. In order to get permission to excavate, the PEF needed the angry Pasha as an ally, but they handled the situation clumsily. The Executive Committee decided to react to the situation the same way the British consul in Jerusalem had. The consul had chosen to merely distance himself from Lees, something not easily accomplished, as Lees was not only a British citizen but also the representative of an official British institution in Jerusalem. The PEF was caught in the middle of these bad British–Ottoman relations and therefore could not get their permit. Although the PEF could not budge the Turkish authorities on the Lees issue, Bliss could. As an Arabic-speaker, Bliss already had a good relationship with the local authorities in Jerusalem, especially with Ibrahim Khaldi (Ibrahim Effendi), the inspector who had supervised the Hesy excavations for the Turks. Ibrahim had lived with Bliss’s team at Hesy for weeks at a time to carry out his official duties.3 The Effendi considered Bliss a friend, because of Bliss’s consistently good treatment of himself and the local workers. 3

He would do the same at the Jerusalem excavations, until his death in 1896.

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Therefore, Bliss was able to ask him to petition the authorities on his behalf. The argument that the Effendi used was supplied by Bliss himself. He pointed out that although Bliss worked for the PEF, he was not a British subject but an American citizen, and as such should not be associated with the British consul, with Lees, or with the controversial publication. And if his American citizenship did not carry enough weight by itself, Bliss was not just any American, but the son of Daniel Bliss, who was doing so much good in Syria (PEF/DA/Bliss/17/19; Tufnell 1965, 123). These arguments held weight. The permit came through not too long afterward. The PEF, which had often tried to downplay Bliss’s American nationality lest it take glory away from the British, now owed its continued claim on Jerusalem to Bliss’s American identity. Ironically, when the permit came through in April 1894, the wording was the same as on the old Hesy one (from which it was almost certainly copied): “Mr. Frederick [Bliss], a British subject having applied for a permission to excavate in the vicinity of Jerusalem in search of antiquities …” (PEF/DA/Bliss/153/5). Bliss was officially British in the eyes of the PEF when it applied for the permit, even though the misworded permit would never have been granted in the first place if he had not been the son of the American benefactor of Syria.

MOTIVATION FOR THE JERUSALEM EXCAVATIONS The specific plan that the PEF had for the Jerusalem excavations was very much in line with its original mission. They hoped to trace the biblicalperiod walls of the city. If they succeeded, their work might shed light on a particular problem that was currently being debated—was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre truly the tomb of Jesus? Because the New Testament clearly stated that Jesus was buried outside the walls of the city, and because the Holy Sepulchre was just as clearly inside the sixteenth-century Ottoman walls, an earlier set of walls must have followed a different line in antiquity, passing to the east or south of the modern wall line (Silberman 1982, 151– 54; see also Warren 1880).4 Scientific excavation of the ancient walls of the 4

Already in 1883, General Charles Gordon had suggested that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was not the real tomb of Jesus, and as an alternate suggested a site outside the Ottoman walls. Many pilgrims had begun to visit the Garden Tomb, as it came to be called. These included many Americans, as Selah Merrill took up Gordon’s claim. Bliss himself spent time discussing the issue of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and devoted an chapter of his seminal work on the archaeology of Palestine, published in 1906, to it. See discussion of Ely Lectures below.

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Holy City could solve this religiously oriented problem. Bliss’s excavations were concentrated on the southern and eastern parts of Josephus’s “First Wall,” which enclosed Jerusalem during the Herodian Period. This was later excavated, and its identification as such confirmed by C. N. Johns, Kathleen Kenyon, Yigael Shiloh, and other later excavators. Bliss opened his excavations with a very modern archaeological premise in mind, beginning at an area that was known and understood and only then proceeding toward the unknown. He began work near the old English School, where Henry Maudslay had excavated some visible remains of walls and towers back in 1874. These early excavations had been published by Conder in 1875 in the PEFQS. Additionally, Warren had dug in the area in the 1870s. Maudslay’s work was Bliss’s starting-point.

BLISS’S TUNNELS Although Bliss came down to many interesting ruins and encountered many difficult methodological problems, he never lost sight of his assignment, which was tracing the walls. This was in spite of the decision to tunnel, and in spite of listening to PEF injunctions against his better judgment. The tunneling which Bliss undertook is probably what the Jerusalem excavations are best remembered for. It is astounding that Bliss, with virtually no training in mining, and with his history of bad health, managed to do the tunneling in the first place; and more astounding that he did it successfully, with no injuries, and actually managed to record and draw his results. There are several reasons that Bliss turned to tunneling as an excavation methodology in Jerusalem—something he had not done at Hesy, because there was no need, and would never repeat at any other site. The ostensible reason was that tunneling was the only way to get at the ruins that were in close proximity to the Haram esh-Sharif. Jerusalem was a fully inhabited city, and the notion of clearing an entire section of it to bedrock— as the PEF had asked Bliss to do at Hesy—was an impossibility. Tunneling allowed the team to get close to the Haram, as well as to various occupied Christian sites, without disturbing the religious authorities. Another reason for tunneling instead of opening excavation trenches had to do with wanting to disturb as few of the landowners’ crops as possible, as purchasing crops at inflated prices had cost the PEF too much money during the Hesy years. But the main reason for tunneling now was because there was already a long history of mining as excavation strategy in Jerusalem. When it came time for the PEF to appoint an excavator in the late 1860s, Charles Warren was chosen largely because of his experience as a military miner, and mining was needed in order to carry out excavations secretly over the objections of

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the Ottoman authorities. Warren had come prepared to use military mining techniques and had in fact done just that. Charles Wilson, who had done the main survey of Jerusalem prior to Warren’s excavations, had happened on many underground water passages and cisterns, and Warren’s mining work was undertaken in part to explore the water systems further.5 Although he did not mine himself, Wilson had also been trained as an engineer. Bliss was neither an engineer nor a miner, and the Hesy excavations had been a very different sort of digging environment from Jerusalem. With Wilson’s and Warren’s as the previous PEF standard of work in Jerusalem, Bliss had to prove to the PEF that in spite of his lack of training, he was as capable an engineer as his predecessors and still the right man for the job. Because Bliss was a great admirer of Warren, who had mined in the area of the southern wall already, Bliss determined to continue in Warren’s tradition.6

THE AQUEDUCT: BLISS VERSUS THE PEF The Jerusalem years demonstrate Bliss’s resilience when confronted by poor methodological decisions made by the PEF. Not only did he have to engage in the very dangerous tunneling operations, teaching himself how to fortify the tunnels with wood beams so that they would not collapse on top of his men, Bliss also had to follow directives which he knew were not strategically appropriate. He managed to complete his mission in spite of following discomforting instructions. Early on, while excavating the southern wall and its towers, Bliss came upon an aqueduct. While his team excavated east and south of what he called Tower ABC (still referred to as such in some literature on Jerusalem excavation), they crossed a fosse, on the other side of which was the aqueduct. The aqueduct was also visible from the surface (Bliss 1898a, 11, 53).7 In all his preliminary reports as well as his final one, Bliss described the masonry construction of the aqueduct in detail and returned to it several times in his text. In his architectural plans, he carefully distinguished 5

The original impetus for the survey had been improving the water systems of the city. See chap. 4 above. 6 He later dedicated the final report of the Jerusalem excavations to Warren. 7 Previously, Warren had traced a different part of this aqueduct—what came to be known as “Warren’s Shaft” (C. Wilson and Warren 1871, 233; see also Bliss 1898a, 8). Also, what Bliss refers to as “Schick’s ‘Second Aqueduct,’” also referred to as a rock-cut conduit, in distinction to the aqueduct in the southwest, is actually Hezekiah’s Tunnel. (Bliss 1898a, 115, general plan no. 2). Bliss did not quite realize that all the water systems were connected.

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between the “lower water conduit” and the upper “aqueduct” (ibid. 53–55, 332, 355, key map, general plan 1). However, Bliss’s understanding of the water system was hampered by incomplete evidence.8 But the incompleteness of evidence was far from Bliss’s fault. Although his primary assignment was to follow the walls of Jerusalem, he wanted to understand the entire archaeological picture and suggested to the Executive Committee early on that he follow the line of the aqueduct to see where it met up with the other various water conduits. However, Charles Wilson himself wrote to Bliss in no uncertain terms, telling him that he was not to follow the aqueduct anymore. “It will not answer the main questions at hand” (PEF/DA/Executive Committee Minutes/28 June 1894, letter inserted into minute book). This caution was reiterated in the next meeting of the Executive Committee (PEF/DA/Executive Committee Minutes/3 July 1894). Clearly, the Committee was worried about Bliss going off on a tangent and spending too much time on the water system while neglecting the issue of the walls. What the Committee members did not understand was that, in order to fully understand the fortification system, it was necessary to see how the fortifications related to the water system. One system had to have been built before the other, and they therefore had to relate to each other in terms of construction and perhaps direction. Bliss grasped this, which was why he pushed for permission to follow the aqueduct. Permission was not granted, and Bliss had to stop his work on the aqueduct. The result is a broken line for the upper aqueduct on his plans and a sketched-in, assumed line for the lower water conduit. This gap was particularly frustrating as he also had to skip large areas where two cemeteries were located, guessing where the wall would continue on their other sides. By modern excavation standards, it is imperative to understand the stratigraphic relationships between features such as a water conduit and a city wall. Bliss intuited this, and so when he was stopped from excavating the aqueduct, he continued to struggle to figure out the stratigraphy of the area, working from incomplete information. This is a clear example of his scientific approach to archaeology being thwarted by the larger, biblically inspired goals of the PEF—because the mission was to trace the walls in order to figure out the extent of the city in the biblical period, the PEF did not stop to consider that figuring out the date of the walls might be helped by understanding the water system. 8 Even today, the water system of Jerusalem is considered one of the most complex by archaeologists.

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BLISS’S UNDERSTANDING OF THE JERUSALEM CHRONOLOGY Kathleen Kenyon was the first to point to the extraordinary accuracy of Bliss’s plans, made with his assistant Archibald Dickie. When Kenyon worked in Jerusalem, seventy years after Bliss had left it, archeological methodology had virtually been reinvented. Every time one of Kenyon’s carefully measured excavation squares reached the level of a Bliss tunnel, all the measurements proved so exact that the new drawings barely changed from the old. Although Kenyon was frustrated that Bliss’s tunnels had cut through much of the archaeological context, she admitted that enough context was left to determine date. She found Dickie’s drawings and Bliss’s descriptions to be still useful, even so many decades later (Kenyon 1967, 156, 164). And yet, Kenyon did Bliss a disservice, stating that Bliss had thought that the walls he found were early in date. Indeed, the assumption within the archaeological community at the commencement of Bliss’s work was that at least some of the walls must have dated far back in time, to the time of the Judahite monarchy. However, Bliss himself found few remains of that period. Even though he could not see the full chronological picture, due to the narrow cuts he was forced to work in, he recognized that most of the fortifications were Roman (Bliss 1898a, 314, 319ff.). In fact, Bliss stated unequivocally that “probably most of the masonry now in situ in the lower wall dates from the time when the wall was rebuilt after the destruction by Pompey, though parts of it may go back as far as the reparation by Nehemiah” (ibid. 335). Here he suggested that nothing is earlier than the Persian period, and in other places he suggested that at most part of the masonry might have traces of material from the end of the period of the kings of Judah (ibid. 322). Kenyon, however, did not interpret Bliss’s text in this way and perpetuated the belief that Bliss had claimed that much of the wall dated to the time of the kings of Judah. This belief may have begun because the line of the third wall that Bliss had traced was unexpected and contradicted Wilson’s own previous assumptions about the city, adding another element to the rivalry between Bliss and Wilson (Moscrop 2000, 169). Kenyon herself asserted that it was her own excavations alone that resolved the dating and proved that all of Bliss’s architecture dated to the time of Herod and later (Kenyon 1967:156).

PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL DURING THE JERUSALEM YEARS Bliss began work in Jerusalem in May 1894 and excavated there until June 1897, with a few breaks in between. Much of the life on the dig continued as

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it had on Hesy. At the beginning of the excavations, Ibrahim Effendi was still acting as inspector for the government, and Yusif Abu Selim was still the foreman. By coincidence, both of these men died in the spring of 1896. Yusif, the loyal Lebanese Christian who had worked for the Bliss family for twenty years, died of pneumonia after a sickness of only a week and was buried in the Protestant Cemetery very close to the excavations. He was replaced by the cook of the expedition, Yusif Abu Kina’an. The Effendi, who died of a heart attack, was replaced by another government inspector. (Bliss 1898a, 358) The Jerusalem years signal a further break between Bliss and the PEF. During the winter of 1895, when the weather was too harsh to work, Bliss suggested to the Executive Committee that he make a reconnaisance trip across the Jordan River. Bliss had been interested in excavating sites in eastern Palestine since his trip with Schumacher a year and a half earlier. The PEF granted permission, and Bliss visited several sites, including Madeba, Kerak, Mashetta, and Amman (ibid. 348–49). While Bliss was out of touch on the other side of the river, the PEF did not sit idle. In his absence, they began a process which would result in the ultimate removal of Bliss from the post of chief archaeologist. In their view, Bliss had been a constant irritation, and the PEF never understood that it was only due to his family connections that they had been granted the firman for Jerusalem in the first place. One of the key irritants was the fact that Bliss was constantly asking for more money, money that the PEF did not have. Bliss did not know the dire financial situation of the Fund and only knew that he needed to cover the excavation expenses. The PEF thought he was being wasteful. One issue they clashed over in particular was the need for wood, because good-quality wood was essential to keep the tunnels from collapsing (see, e.g., PEF/DA/ Executive Committee Minutes, 3 May 1895). The other large clash that had taken place was between Bliss and Wilson himself, over the issue of following the aqueduct (see above). When Wilson himself had written to Bliss telling him to abandon this, it was a signal of greater than usual frustration. Additionally, during the course of the Jerusalem excavations, Bliss had given the Executive Committee an opening to diminish his role as chief excavator. In the summer of 1894, he had asked permission to hire a Welshman who was living in Jerusalem employed in a local soap factory. The PEF granted him permission but wanted to know more about the man first—specifically, what work he would do (PEF/DA/Executive Committee Minutes/ 3 July 1894). The fact that Bliss had requested help was taken by the PEF as

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a sign of weakness, perhaps meaning he could not handle the job after all. It is also clear that the PEF knew of Bliss’s history of mental breakdown under stress. The worry about his mental capacity, combined with his seemingly unreasonable financial demands and his reluctance to give in on the aqueduct issue, all led to the decision to hire someone to assist him. Measures were taken while Bliss was on his trip east of the Jordan in the winter of 1895. Ostensibly the new hire was to act as an assistant to Bliss, but it is likely that the PEF was intentionally trying to groom a successor. On the surface, the intention seemed good. In a letter dated December 1894, a member of the Committee who had been supporting Bliss’s plan to travel in the east, and who was pleased with the progress tracing the wall in Jerusalem, wrote the following to George Armstrong: “I think too that we should give Mr. Bliss some assistance … in the form of a draughtsman. If we do not do so I am afraid he may break down as he never seems to spare himself ” (PEF/DA/Bliss/18/55). It is possible that this was merely an expression, but in light of Bliss’s history, it was more likely meant literally. This is the letter that prompted the hiring of the Scotsman Archibald Dickie first, and after his resignation, R. A. S. Macalister, who ultimately replaced Bliss as chief excavator several years later. The PEF viewed the hiring of an assistant for Bliss as necessary, in spite of the extra salary it would entail. Although the PEF had been planning the hire for weeks if not months, as many letters and references were exchanged between George Armstrong and Archibald Dickie, Bliss was kept in the dark. Finally, Bliss was informed by letter that he would be getting an assistant. But because he was still off site, the letter did not reach Bliss until after Dickie himself had arrived. Bliss could not conceal his surprise upon finding Dickie waiting for him in Jerusalem. He had been appointed architect and assistant without Bliss’s knowledge and clearly without his consent (PEF/DA/Dickie/1; Bliss 1898a, 348– 49). Immediately following Dickie’s appointment, Bliss became ill, most likely from the stress of realizing that the Committee no longer trusted him to work alone, as he had been completely healthy until this point. His illness was so great that he traveled home to Beirut to recover for six weeks in the spring of 1895, leaving Dickie in charge of the fieldwork, as well as allowing Dickie to write up the quarterly preliminary report that spring (Dickie 1895). From this point forward, Bliss’s health began to deteriorate.

PUBLICATION OF THE JERUSALEM EXCAVATIONS While Bliss published many preliminary reports on the Jerusalem excavations in the PEFQS, unlike the Hesy preliminary reports they were unsub-

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stantive due to the fragmented nature of the excavation area (Bliss 1894a, 1894b, 1895a, 1895b, 1895c, 1896a, 1896b, 1896c, 1896d, 1897a, 1897b, 1897c, 1897d). Most of the information was republished in a better organized format in the final report (1898a). Bliss arranged the final report in a way that reflected the difficulties of pleasing the Executive Committee, pleasing the locals, and pleasing his own scientific inclinations all at the same time. In his text, he allows the reader to follow the progress of the excavation, rather than laying the work out by chronological period. This approach has made his work more useful for later archaeologists who have sorted through the complicated Jerusalem stratigraphy, as his descriptions are presented without an overlay of chronological assumptions. In the first five chapters, Bliss chronicles the pattern of the excavations, describing the southeastward progress from the beginning point at the English School building, toward the Siloam pool. In the next chapters, he lumps together some minor discoveries, including tombs, then describes small finds and additional masonry. Only then, in the second half of the volume, does he outline a historical sketch of Jerusalem from the Jebusites through the Middle Ages. To write this, he cites the Bible as well as numerous late Classical and early Medieval travelers.9 Finally, he establishes the chronology of the archaeological evidence as he understood it. His accurate understanding of architecture, stratigraphy, and ceramics is clear from the publication and had certainly advanced since the end of the Hesy project. Hesy was a fairly straightforward tell site, but Jerusalem was quite the opposite. Yet in the Jerusalem publication, Bliss was able to describe casemate wall systems quite precisely, although the term “casemate” had not yet been applied in this sense. Furthermore, when discussing ceramics, Bliss made a giant leap in how all later excavation reports would approach ceramic evidence. Because Jerusalem was the second scientific excavation ever carried out in Palestine, and because Bliss himself had been in charge of the first one as well, he knew the pottery of both sites intimately and was in an excellent position to make comparisons. This is why, when he wrote his section on ceramics, he naturally made comparisons to types of pots he had found at Hesy (ibid. 261). Bliss was not able to do this too often in the final report, as most of the 9

This historical sketch foreshadows his later Ely Lectures, where in much more detail he describes interest in the history of Jerusalem from antiquity onward. See below.

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material from Jerusalem was later than the material from Hesy; however, the system of comparative ceramic chronology became a standard method for publishing ceramics from archaeological excavations. Most modern excavations still publish their pottery in tables that include references to previous excavation reports. As the decades have passed, this system has become increasingly awkward, as there are now hundreds of excavations throughout the larger region of Syria-Palestine, and yet this comparative method begun by Bliss has persisted into the modern age. After a stay in London in late 1897 and early 1898, to write the report on Jerusalem, the PEF sent Bliss back to Palestine for one final excavation project.

11 THE EXCAVATIONS IN THE SOUTHERN SHEPHELAH AND THE END OF BLISS’S ASSOCIATION WITH THE PEF The Jerusalem excavations had come to a close abruptly. The permit had already expired once, in May 1896, and after a two-month hiatus in operations, an extension had arrived in July. That permit was only for one year, and when it expired in June 1897, there was no renewal forthcoming. Although the PEF had wanted to continue, and Bliss actually dug through the night the day before the permit expired in order to gain time, the work had to end. Jerusalem was then off-limits to the PEF for several decades. The inability to continue in Jerusalem was why the PEF returned to excavating tells. Hesy had not been seen as a successful project, and while it was clear to the members of the Executive Committee that another tell needed to be chosen, they were reluctant to commit themselves to another site that might drain resources with little to show for the effort. This is one reason that the Fund encouraged Bliss to excavate at more than one site at a time.

THE CHOICE OF THE SITES IN THE SOUTHERN SHEPHELAH In searching for a site to excavate, the PEF revisited suggestions made before the Jerusalem years. Bliss for his part was silent during these discussions. Clearly disillusioned with his employers since the hiring of Dickie, he did not reiterate either his desire to dig in the north of the country, or his interest in eastern Palestine, but instead let others made recommendations. It seems he was not even asked for his opinion. The idea of excavating sites in the southern Shephelah, with Tell es-Safi (already thought to be the biblical Gath) as the centerpiece, had originated with Petrie when he was leaving the Hesy excavations in June 1890. At that point, he had suggested several sites, including Tell Negilah and Umm Muarif, Beit Khalil, Ramah, or Hebron, Tell Sandaannah, and Tel es-Safi (PEF/DA/Bliss/1/36). 135

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At the time, Petrie pushed these sites to the PEF as hard as he could, mentioning that Tell es-Safi and Beit el-Khalil were the most inviting sites for excavation (PEF/DA/Executive Committee Minutes/1 July 1890). However, the discussion was tabled, as work at Hesy resumed. Although the Shephelah plan had been abandoned, Bliss himself had expressed interest in the sites, traveling to the area in 1890, most likely during his first season at Hesy when he was already in the vicinity. Bliss rode around the region and on his own initiative produced a sketch map which he labeled “Detailed map showing with red lines the area of the proposed excavations.” The sites included were Tell es-Safi, Khirbet Dhikern, Dudra, Khirbet Judeideh and Tell Judeideh, Khirbet Okbur, Khirbet Nuwetin, Khirbet Askalen (Ashkelon), and Tell Zakariya (PEF/DA/Bliss/1/54). This early sketch included three of the four sites that he was finally allowed to dig a full eight years later. It was with this background that the PEF sent Bliss to the southern Shephelah in 1898. The possibility of excavating more than one site within the ten-mile radius allowed by the permit, and thus learning about the entire region, was a very attractive notion to Bliss. The concept of a regional survey is very modern, and in this case, Bliss’s inclination was to study the region as a whole. For its own part, the PEF Committee saw an advantage in multiple excavations, as they might allow for more finds and thus more interest and financial support from the public. And yet even before work began, Bliss and the Committee had a difference of opinion over approach. Bliss assumed that he would be allowed to work at each site until it was finished and then move on to the next. But the PEF wanted him to work on several sites simultaneously. In the end, the PEF had their way, and Bliss often had several teams in the field at once, a scattered approach that would have left a less organized individual unable to complete the tasks at hand. Bliss did manage to complete all the sites to his own satisfaction, and then before he had a chance to catch his breath, the Committee fired him. Furthermore, even before he arrived at the first Shephelah site, Bliss was joined in Jerusalem by R. A. S. Macalister, who was replacing Dickie as Bliss’s assistant. Macalister, a British archaeologist whose specialty was Celtic archaeology (he later held a professorship of Celtic archaeology at University College, Dublin), knew little about the archaeology of Palestine and soon proved uninterested in the minutiae of excavation.1 Macalister was hired by 1 While the final publication of the southern Shephelah project was written by Bliss and Macalister together, a nd is cited as such, in the present work the parts that

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the Fund in July 1898 and arrived in Jerusalem in September of that year (PEF/DA/Bliss/50).

THE COURSE OF THE SOUTHERN SHEPHELAH EXCAVATIONS Once the permit was obtained (after a frustrating three-week delay), it was left to Bliss to decide which site to excavate first. Tell es-Safi was long considered the most important site archaeologically, because of its associations with biblical history, but true to character, this was not enough to persuade Bliss that it was the best place to begin. Instead, Bliss began at Tell Zakariyah, as he correctly thought the work conditions would be better there than at any other proposed site. The village of Safi was known for being infested with malaria, because of the stagnant water of its stream. Another difficulty with Safi was that the huge tell itself was burdened with a modern village and cemetery, as well as a large Crusader castle, Blanche Garde, on its southern end. Lastly, the locals at the village of Safi had a reputation for being unwelcoming (Bliss 1898b, 224; Bliss and Macalister 1902, 3). After two consecutive seasons at Zakariyah, Bliss moved over to Tell es-Safi in May 1899, taking some of the workers from Zakariyah with him, as the men of Safi were considered unreliable. During the second half of 1899, he managed to excavate at Safi, then again at Zakariyah, then again at Safi. At this point, Bliss began to balk at what the PEF Committee was asking of him. While he was still in favor of studying the entire region by digging at all the sites, he felt rushed and unable to properly analyze material from any of them, due to the pressure put on him by his superiors at the Fund. Not only was he being forced to work in more than one place at a time, but his work teams were suffering from the extreme heat of the summer months, and yet they had to keep on going. He wrote about the situation in letters and in one of his official reports, complaining to Armstrong that “both Mr. Macalister and myself find ourselves much fatigued as the season draws to a close. It has not been one of encouragement” (PEF/DA/Bliss/100, 4 December 1899; see also Bliss 1899a, 189). To his brother Howard, he expressed the most frustration of all.2 each wrote are clearly delineated. In fact, Bliss wrote the bulk of the volume. Macalister only independently wrote the third section of it, the chapters on the rock cuttings that he personally had explored (the Beit Guvrin caves). 2

His letter reads in part, “Brother, a somewhat discouraged man is writing you. Supposing you preached to empty pews—supposing in your parish work doors were slammed in your face—supposing the end of your work was not accomplished you would still have the consolation of home. But here I am with all the spoiled[?] details of work. … We are now leaving this place [Tell es-Safi] (the people are odious)

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Finally, in great frustration, Bliss asked permission of the Fund to shut down Safi once and for all and move over to Judeideh (Beit Jibrin, modern Beit Guvrin). The Fund, however, wanted him to continue at Safi as well as begin the work at Judeideh—of all the sites, the Fund deemed only Zakariyah finished. This was in part due to the influence of Macalister, who was actively advocating digging in more than one place at once, in agreement with the Executive Committee (PEF/DA/Executive Committee Minutes/ 1 November 1899). When Bliss received the request to open up Judeideh as well, he balked. There was not enough time before the rains—he estimated less than three weeks until they would close down for the winter, and he complained that it was not practical to begin the new site while still working elsewhere (PEF/ DA/Executive Committee Minutes/4 December 1899). In the end, he did what he thought was right, finishing off Safi as he saw fit—but the Committee never agreed to it. In October 1899, weeks before the first rain fell, Bliss moved his team at Safi over to the center of the tell, as the crops there had already been reaped. He spent a short while excavating there, in order to feel that he had done all he could at the site. He found a few inscribed jar handles and scarabs, but he was forced to work fast (Bliss 1900c, 17). As soon as he had ascertained that nothing more significant was going to come up in the new excavation area, he stopped work at Safi of his own accord, in late November 1899. Within days, Bliss had moved his workers over to Judeideh and opened up an excavation trench there, still hoping to fulfil the PEF’s directive to begin the new site (Bliss and Macalister 1902, 7). However, Bliss did all this without waiting for the Committee to respond to his last letter with permission to close Safi. In fact, the Committee still expected him to continue at Safi and would never have granted their permission. The Committee never said a word to Bliss about closing Safi against their recommendation, but this was the last straw for them, and Bliss’s days as their chief excavator were numbered. This independent decision, combined with Bliss’s defiance on the separate issue described below, led the PEF to immediate action against him. Once Bliss opened up Tell el-Judeideh, he spent two short seasons excavating there (November–December 1899 and March–May 1900). During his time at Judeideh, he was fired by the Executive Committee. He received their first letter in early May (see appendix A) and was forced to I hope forever … to move to Tell-Judeideh, a proven site. (Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Bliss Family Papers [series 7, box 2, folder 176], 19 November 1899).

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write his official letter of resignation before the month was out (see appendix C). Nonetheless, he finished off the work at Judeideh, then moved over to his last site, Sandaannah, where he excavated throughout the extraordinarily hot summer of 1900, amid a deep sense of betrayal.

THE RESULTS AND PUBLICATION OF THE SOUTHERN SHEPHELAH EXCAVATIONS During their seasons at Zakariyah, Bliss and Macalister uncovered stone towers from a late-period structure, a fortification wall associated with a fortress, cisterns, and pits (Bliss and Macalister 1902, 12–27). At Safi, more was accomplished. They were able to trace the city wall all around the tell, cleared a building with standing pillars that they identified as a High Place, and also investigated the Crusader castle. In his publication, Bliss made a rare chronological mistake, as he was inclined to date the city wall to the time of Rehoboam, based on biblical discussions of Rehoboam building fortifications at sites including Gath (ibid. 35). Also, while Bliss and the members of the PEF Committee also understood that Safi was likely Gath, there is no mention of the Philistines in the reports, either in terms of biblical history or when describing Philistine pottery—in fact, ceramics that were reproduced in the report that are clearly Philistine are called “pre-Israelite” (Bliss 1899c, 317) . However, Bliss does correctly identify Mycenaean sherds at the High Place (Bliss and Macalister 1902, 35, 65), although he misses their significance. At Judeideh, Bliss similarly traced the city wall and also excavated a building in the center of the tell that he referred to as a Roman villa (his dating was correct). Other trenches were opened as well, but with no interesting architectural remains (ibid. 44–51). At Sandaannah, Bliss excavated the entirety of the Greek city and also excavated a dozen tombs in the valley north of the tell (ibid. 52–61). After he was dismissed as chief excavator of the PEF, the matter of publishing the results of the excavations remained. Surprisingly, for all their effort and financing, the PEF was rather uninterested in the publication phase and even set up roadblocks to it. The members of the Executive Committee had already moved forward toward their next excavation. They were very pleased with the work of Macalister, who tended to agree with them at every turn, including in his opinion of Bliss. Already in 1900, the Fund was making arrangements to send Macalister to excavate at Gezer. Charles Wilson, who had long since found Bliss to be difficult, suggested Gezer as the next site to be excavated on the same day that he suggested that Bliss be dismissed as excavator. This decision was

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approved, and a letter was drafted immediately (PEF/DA/Executive Committee Minutes/23, 24 April 1900). Clearly, Wilson considered Bliss and the sites he was excavating old business to be discontinued and very soon elevated Macalister to the position of chief excavator. Macalister soon excavated Gezer on his own between 1902 and 1909 (Macalister 1906, 1912; see also 1925). In later years, Macalister became known for his poor excavation methodology, easily seen during the Gezer excavations. Not only did he attempt to supervise more than forty workers single-handedly, he also trenched out walls without realizing he was doing so and misidentified an Iron Age gate as a “Maccabean Castle.” Even as the PEF made preparations for the Gezer project, Bliss, who had already sent in his resignation, made numerous requests to be allowed to publish the last three years’ worth of results. His requests were all but ignored. The Committee felt that such a publication was not entirely necessary, since this would be an expensive undertaking and Bliss’s preliminary reports had been rather extensive (PEF/DA/Bliss/121, 122; PEF/DA/ Executive Committee Minutes/19 June, 10 August 1900).3 Ultimately the publication went forward, and Bliss returned to London to write it. The final report of the work in the southern Shephelah (Bliss and Macalister 1902) was the largest excavation volume that had ever been published. This was because it contained the results of the excavation of four separate sites, and also because it was replete with drawings and ground plans, not only of the sites themselves and their specific architectural structures, but also of the environs of the sites, especially the many caves in the vicinity of Tell Sandaannah. The report is much more than a mere summary of work completed. Bliss included several synthetic discussions of issues in biblical archaeology. One of these was the nascent arguments regarding the LMLK jar handles that had been uncovered during the excavations.4 Perhaps the most interesting of these discussions was Bliss’s section on the identification of sites (ibid. 62–70). Bliss’s approach was clearly derived from Robinson’s, as he concentrated on the similarity of sound between biblical names of cities and modern Arabic names of tells, as well as of nearby villages. Based on this system, Bliss also admitted that sometimes sites simply cannot be identified. As an 3

Preliminary reports include Bliss 1899b, 1899d, 1899e; 1899a, 1899c; 1900d; 1900c; 1900a, 1900b; 1900e. 4 See chap. 8 above for some of the archaeological and historical issues involved.

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excavator and historian rather than a geographer, Bliss’s methodology went farther than Robinson’s had, as he took into account more details, such as the history of a site, its position relative to other sites, and similarity of sound to existing sites. In this, his approach was very similar to that of modern mapmakers and geographers, who in the mid twentieth century continued to use these same clues as evidence for identifying modern sites with biblical ones (Benvenisti 2001, 11–54).

THE SPECIFICS OF THE FIRING OF BLISS: FINANCES AND THE CONTROVERSY OVER THE MUSEUM Finances and Lost Work Days We have seen that Bliss’s trouble with the Fund’s Executive Committee began early on, but it is easiest to see the Committee’s growing dissatisfaction with him in the later years. The dissatisfaction stemmed from a fundamental disagreement over what the goals of archaeology in the Holy Land should be, and how excavations there should be conducted. As a perfectionist, Bliss liked to excavate slowly. He was very careful about interpreting what he found, and while his interpretations have largely held up to modern analyses, Charles Wilson and the rest of the PEF did not like the directions he was taking the Fund. Few objects or buildings were uncovered that clearly related to the Bible. Furthermore, Bliss’s approach to archaeological methodology was often in conflict with Wilson’s own. But the PEF did not mention any of this when they suggested that Bliss step down. The reasons they cited for letting him go were financial and health-related ones. Because these were the Fund’s ostensible concerns, we will address them first, as there were grains of truth behind them. For all his scientific enthusiasm, and for all his financial capability (Bliss was still manager of his family’s finances), it is fairly clear that Bliss did not recognize the dire monetary situation of the PEF during the 1890s. For its part, the Fund did not fully grasp the extent of the expenses involved in carrying out a proper excavation in Palestine. The result was that the moneys portioned out to Bliss by the Executive Committee were usually inadequate, and Bliss often complained to the Committee about this and asked for more. The Fund’s frugal budgeting, although based in the reality of having little in the bank, was certainly shortsighted, as the Committee in London did not understand precisely what Bliss was doing in the field and therefore did not view his efforts as worthwhile. Bliss was conducting precise scientific excavations, implementing a new approach for study of the biblical world. The Committee did not know what such an approach entailed, as it had

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never been done before. While Bliss sent back extraordinarily detailed reports, the Committee still believed that aspects of his work were extraneous—a lot of time and money spent for very few display items and incomplete architectural remains. It is even possible that the amount of detail he included in his reports turned the Committee against him, as it proved that he was concentrating on actions that they thought unnecessary. The Committee continually second-guessed Bliss’s budgeting, even though they had no firsthand knowledge of his costs or what was necessary to maintain an excavation in Palestine. For example, the minutes of the Executive Committee of 19 September 1899 reflect the fact that Bliss had asked for £190 to cover his September expenses, but the Committee believed that he had overestimated his costs by a full £100 (PEF/DA/Executive Committee Minutes/19 September 1899). Then, once again, in the following month, Bliss asked for £130, but since the Committee had just sent him a check for £100 (to cover the previous month), they decided that this should be sufficient and refused to give him more (PEF/DA/Executive Committee Minutes/17 October 1899).5 This was not the first such financial irritation, as the Committee had been implying for years that Bliss mismanaged money. A second aspect of the PEF’s dissatisfaction on the financial front had to do with the lack of understanding of the pace of business in the Near East. Although the members of the Committee understood that the firmans were not immediately forthcoming, they were frustrated that in each case Bliss spent between three and seven weeks waiting in Jerusalem while already on payroll. Of course, he was active at intervals during this time— working to facilitate the process, as we have seen. But from the Committee’s point of view, he was squandering their money. A third aspect of the Fund’s irritation with Bliss, and one that the Committee cited specifically in its letters to him in the spring of 1900, had to do with what they considered squandered work time, which directly translated into squandered money. Ultimately, Bliss was accused of spending only 222 days excavating, while the excavations were closed for 237 days.6 This was another issue that was fraught with misunderstandings. As with the financial issue, the members of the PEF Committee in London did not understand the realities of working in the field in Palestine. 5

There are no records reflecting how Bliss paid his bills that month. It is possible the money came from his own pocket. 6 The details of these criticisms can be read in their letter of dismissal, reproduced below in appendix A.

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The main reason for workdays lost was related to the climate, as it was difficult to work in both summer heat and winter rains. Although Bliss did often continue his seasons into the summer months, due to the hardship of working in the heat and the related difficulty of getting workers to stay during the heat, he would shut down excavations before the middle of the summer. Another calendar-related reason for shutting down had to do with the consistent loss of his work crews at the time of the annual wheat harvest, which began in May. For instance, the 1891 work season at Tell el-Hesy ended on 15 May because of the harvest, and the hiatus continued through the hot summer months. That year, work resumed in October (Bliss 1894c, 149). Similarly, the 1892 season at Tell el-Hesy began in April, because the rains prevented an earlier start, and continued through June, then broke due to the summer heat, as well as due to Bliss’s long bout with typhoid fever. Excavations resumed in September and continued through December. The bout of typhoid fever brings us to issue of Bliss’s health, cited as partial grounds for dismissal in the Committee letter of April 1900. Certainly, Bliss did lose some field time due to poor health. We have seen that Bliss had been sickly since his youth, and certainly, the months recovering in Lebanon when Hesy was closed affected the work schedule. But other than that, Bliss’s ill health had not had significant consequences. When he became ill during the Jerusalem excavations (immediately following the appointment of Dickie as his assistant), he had also returned to Lebanon, but in those months (as during the typhoid episode) he did not take his salary. Furthermore, the Jerusalem work was not significantly affected by his absence, as he left Dickie at the helm and the excavations did not shut down. Lastly, during the Shephelah excavations, Bliss had had days when he was personally too ill to be on site, but he had had no long stretches of illness, and the excavations were never closed. Furthermore, he was also not the only one sick, as Macalister was also unwell during their first season together. Finances and health concerns were the excuses that the PEF gave for dismissing Bliss, but as we have seen, the real reason was rooted in disagreements regarding archaeological approaches. In truth, there was one particular issue that might have been the specific catalyst for firing Bliss. This issue was the establishment of a museum in Jerusalem. Unlike some minor methodological issues, where Bliss gave in to the Committee’s demands (such as not following the aqueduct in Jerusalem), this museum was a cause that Bliss actively propelled forward, even though he knew that the Committee disapproved.

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Bliss and the Jerusalem Museum The issue began when local officials in Jerusalem asked Bliss to help them establish a museum to house the antiquities found at the Jerusalem excavations. Bliss thought a local museum was a wonderful idea and agreed to help without first consulting with the Committee. This was not intended as an act of defiance; rather, Bliss seemed to assume that establishing such a museum was a foregone conclusion. But the Committee members thought quite differently. In fact, they were planning on shipping all the important artifacts home to London, to establish a museum at the PEF offices. A Turkish official in Jerusalem, Ismaine Bey, first came to Bliss in the spring of 1899 with the idea of establishing a museum. Ismaine Bay was the Head of Public Instruction in Jerusalem. After discussing the possibility with Ismaine Bey, Bliss apparently did mention it Sir Charles Wilson, although it is unlikely that Wilson was supportive (PEF/DA/Bliss/85, 12 September 1899). However, it is possible that even before he was approached by the Turkish official, Bliss himself conceived of a local museum. The possibility that this was Bliss’s own idea is strengthened by the fact that several years earlier, in the spring of 1897, Bliss had established a little field museum in his office at the excavation camp in Jerusalem. His intention then was for visitors from the PEF as well as other visitors to be able to see the finds from the excavation site (Bliss 1898a, 369). He had written to the Committee in the winter of 1899, several months before Ismaine Bey’s visit, explaining that the government would not allow artifacts from the excavations to leave the country. Because of this, he suggested that the PEF abandon their plan to start a museum in London. He told them, “We can go on excavating only if we keep the law” (PEF/DA/Bliss/63, 9 January 1899). After Bliss agreed to help the local authorities with establishing a museum, plans began to move forward quickly. By the summer of 1899, the idea was full blown, at least in Bliss’s view. “A local museum is to be arranged at Jerusalem by the authorities, to include all the finds, and to be open to the Public, and it will naturally devolve upon me to arrange it,” Bliss wrote to the Committee. He then added as an afterthought, “In fact, I have been requested so to do by … Bey Hamdi.” He then went on to justify his unilateral decision: “This is a very good thing for archaeology in general and for the PEF in particular. Travelers will … see the result of the work—the history of the pottery may be studied. … I have spoken with Sir Chr. Wilson on this matter” (PEF/DA/Bliss/82, 18 July 1899). But by late summer of that year, things had gone wrong. Bliss received a letter from the Executive Committee asking him not to get involved in any sort of museum, almost certainly because they still hoped to display the arti-

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facts in London. On 4 August they wrote, As some communication with one … Dr. Wheeler about starting a museum in Jerusalem is in progress, the Committee do not favor the undertaking [of] anything to do with forming a Turkish museum (at least for the present.) You had better wait til matters are more matured and from instructions from the Committee. (Committee letter quoted by Bliss himself in PEF/DA/Bliss/85, 12 September 1899)

Unfortunately for Bliss, the Jerusalem museum was already well underway when he received this letter, and it was too late to go back. Bliss therefore responded by explaining how over 465 objects had already been turned over to the Turkish authorities, how lists of these objects had gone back and forth and been checked and rechecked by both sides, and how the objects had already been placed in the government school by Herod’s gate. Bliss furthermore reiterated the fact that he had long since given his promise to arrange this museum to Ismaine Bey and pointed out the necessity of a museum in general: This promise was made solely in the interests of the Fund, as of course it is of great importance that the objects should be preserved in cases, instead of lying about on the floor, and it is of equal importance to keep friendship with the Turks, and do nothing to shake their confidence. (ibid.)

Clearly this last argument touched on the delicate issue of maintaining good relations with their local hosts—an issue that the PEF had discounted more than once. In a last attempt to win his case, Bliss brought in the opinion of the British Consul, who agreed with him: I have consulted the consul, Mr. Dickson. He feels that I am bound by my promise to help arrange the objects; that my refusal would offend the authorities, that they are to have the things in any case, and that my arranging of these would prevent their getting lost before our museum [the proposed one in London] is [established], that my refusal would probably stand in the way of their even … [sending] us any objects for our Museum in the future. Accordingly, I have arranged to carry out my [plan] in a few days. (ibid.)

The Executive Committee discussed the matter in their 17 October meeting, having received not only this letter from Bliss, but also letters from Dr. Wheeler and Charles Wilson from Jerusalem outlining where the situation stood. After some discussion, the Committee agreed to respond by saying that it

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In spite of this negative response, Bliss’s letter had made it clear that the Museum was already a fait accompli.7 Bliss had acted against the express wishes of the Committee. The matter was never referred to again in the minutes of their meetings, although Bliss continued to mention it in his letters to Armstrong, which served to irk the Committee further.8 The museum was established as Bliss had wanted. However, a permanent rift was created between the Committee and its employee. Only a few months later, the Committee fired Bliss. Interestingly, Bliss, who outlined every detail of his work troubles in his letters to his family as a cathartic process, did not discuss this matter with them. The only reference he makes to it in his personal correspondence was toward the end of a long a letter dated 13 October 1899, written at Tell esSafi, the bulk of which talks about family issues and the Dickinson relatives back in Amherst. At the end of all this he says merely, “I was kept fairly busy in Jerusalem till Friday when we came here” (PEF/DA/ Bliss/152/153). It is possible that he realized he had a victory over the Committee, and since he was sure he was acting responsibly in the matter, it did not even bother him enough to recount. It is also interesting that in his letters home in May 1900 regarding being let go by the Fund, letters in which he analyses every nuance of the situation, he does not mention the matter of the museum at all. It seemed not to occur to him as a source of disagreement or tension. He was wrong about this, as the timing of events demonstrated that the museum was the last straw for the Committee. From this point forward, Bliss’s financial demands and his suggestions about which of the Shephelah sites to dig were all ignored by the Committee. The fact that he was now dispensable—that Macalister was a seemingly able assistant, and clearly much more of a team player—put the final nail in Bliss’s coffin. 7

Bliss’s little museum became the basis of the collection of the Rockefeller Museum, which was officially opened in 1938. 8 Cf. a letter of 26 December 1899: “Our finds are all carefully placed in a small museum in the government school near Herod’s Gate. They make a fine show” (PEF/DA/Bliss/101/26 December 1899).

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When Bliss received the PEF’s letters of the spring of 1900, he was devastated and wrote of his anger and resentment to his brother Howard (then in America) and to his parents (see appendixes A and B). He handcopied the first and second letter twice to share with family members and refuted every accusation in excruciating detail. However, he seems never to have expressed his frustration to the Committee itself. The loss of his position sent him spiraling into a deep depression, punctuated by periods of manic optimism. He had not been so mentally unstable since his nervous breakdowns years before. In several of the letters to his family that summer, he makes it clear that he had been enjoying the work immensely, feeling fine physically. In these letters, he even strongly implies that his days as an archaeologist were not necessary over and gives the first hint that he would like to work for Americans in the future. He has even found himself a potential American philanthropist: “By and by I may excavate again with American money. Mrs. Maitland is not the only American interested in archaeology” (PEF/DA/Bliss/152/155, 11 May 1900). Bliss’s reference to an American donor interested in supporting an excavation is notable in light of the fact that ASOR was in the process of being founded in these same months. A reference to ASOR even appears in the PEF minutes of this period, as the Americans sought the help and cooperation of the PEF, in the form of requesting copies of all their publications for their Jerusalem library. Although Bliss’s Mrs. Maitland is not listed among the earliest subscribers to ASOR, the larger implications are unmistakable—there clearly was new American interest in the archaeology of Palestine at this time. Bliss, betrayed by his British supervisors and the British organization that had trained him and then taken credit for his work, had reason to consider working for Americans. In spite of his early optimism, Bliss was unable to recover emotionally or professionally from the PEF’s decision and never found another niche in the field, not even years later when Albright recognized his talents. When the PEF fired Bliss, it effectively ended the career of the first real field archaeologist to work in Palestine.

12 BLISS’S LIFE AND CAREER AFTER THE PEF Even after he officially tendered his resignation, Bliss continued to work for the PEF for several months. Just days after the Committee had sent him the letter of dismissal, they gave him a new, albeit brief assignment—to explore a cave on the west side of the old Pool of Siloam in Jerusalem that had been mentioned by Clermont-Ganneau (PEF/DA/Executive Committee Minutes, 1 May 1900). Bliss complied. There was also the matter of publishing the Shephelah excavations, which he worked on in London from late in 1900 through 1901. On the surface, the relationship between Bliss and the PEF ended on good terms—when the Executive Committee moved to accept his resignation, he was unanimously voted onto the General Committee (PEF/DA/ Executive Committee Minutes/17 July 1900).1 The cordial relationship did in fact continue, as he continued to publish occasionally in the PEFQS. For instance, because of his early expertise on Baalbeck, he wrote an Englishlanguage summary of the German work (Bliss 1902). But in 1902 Bliss 1 A minor but interesting saga which is indicative of Bliss’s general treatment by the PEF culminated at the time of his resignation. When Bliss first began work at Tell el-Hesy, he immediately realized that the PEF was not supplying him with all the instruments necessary for surveying. One of the ones he felt was indispensable was a prismatic compass, which in the days before transits and theodolites could take precise direction measurements. Petrie had long used one in Egypt. Because the PEF did not buy him one at the outset, Bliss first borrowed a prismatic compass from Syrian Protestant College—it arrived in February 1891, before his first season at Hesy began (Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Bliss Family Papers [series 7, box 2, folder 7], 15 February 1891). He then immediately ordered one of his own, at his own expense, which arrived in Beirut in March 1891. His father personally carried this one down to him when he visited the excavations that year (PEF/DA/Bliss/2/10). But at the time of his resignation, the PEF seems to have forgotten that they had not paid for it, as they record the generosity of their decision to allow him to keep it (PEF/DA/Minutes/August 1900). This is part of a larger pattern of taking Bliss’s contributions, large (such as methodological innovations) and small (supplying the Fund with a tool for precise measurement), for granted.

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returned to Beirut to live with his family. For the next several decades, Bliss split his time between Beirut and the United States. While in Beirut, he worked at the College, helping his family in the administration of the school.2 While in America, he accepted a variety of short-term lectureships. He seems never to have held a single position for more than a few years. Although Albright lauded him as a great mind, Bliss never broke into the community of American biblical archaeologists. So soon after his influential work was completed, American biblical archaeology was already relegating him to the status of a footnote. Bliss’s health began to deteriorate quickly after his digging years ended, no doubt due to his unhappy mental state. He began to complain of a variety of physical ailments, especially spinal and back pain, and pain in his hips and feet, although he was only in his middle forties at the time. In fact, after consulting with a specialist, he was hospitalized and placed in casts for several for several months in 1905–6. It is not a coincidence that in the series of letters he wrote from this period (Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Bliss Family Papers [series 7, box 2, folder 182], November 1905–January 1906), five years after leaving the PEF, Bliss, the unordained son of a missionary who devoted his career to biblical topics, spoke for the only time in his life about praying and about his personal relationship with his religion and the Bible: “Now I find much comfort in the Gospel of John” (ibid., January 1906). This is the only point in all his correspondence with his family that he expressed any sort of personal religious faith. It is probable that his return to faith was part and parcel of the physical and emotional breakdown that was precipitated by being fired by the PEF. Although Bliss had been somewhat famous in both Britain and America, it was only a single American connection that gave him a career opportunity. This American connection was Charles Kent, of Yale University, whom Bliss had first met at Tell el-Hesy some years earlier (see chap. 8 above). Kent helped arrange a lectureship for Bliss at Yale in 1906 (ibid., folder 183, 23 October 1906). This opportunity began a semi-successful stint of teaching in American universities, as Bliss was also asked to lecture at Cornell in 1906, by Dr. Nathaniel Schmidt (ibid.). Schmidt had just finished his year as director of the American School in Jerusalem in 1904–5 (see below), so 2

When Howard Bliss died in 1920, having served as second president of the College following their father, Frederick Bliss broke the news to the students in a letter signed “Uncle Fred” (Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Bliss Family Papers (series 7, box 2, folder 192), 6 May 1920).

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Bliss’s accomplishments were well known to him. Bliss also taught at the University of Rochester in 1905–6.3 But invitations to teach quickly dried up. The further Bliss got from his PEF years, the more the discipline seemed to ignore him. It was in these years that American biblical archaeology was reshaping itself in the form of the American School in Jerusalem, and while we will see that Bliss had some nominal involvement in the early years of ASOR, he was largely passed over, incorrectly viewed as a discard of the British endeavor. In the next few years, Bliss traveled extensively, to Europe in 1908 (where he found Naples dull; ibid., folder 184, [1908?]), back to Beirut for stretches, and to Atlantic City, where he stayed at Craig Hall and had many meetings regarding SPC business (ibid., folder 187, 28 December 1909). From 1911 to 1914, Bliss was back at the University of Rochester, this time as Dean of Men. After this position ended, he moved back and forth between Europe, Lebanon, and New York, where his youngest brother Will then lived. Will was often sick himself in those years. Bliss’s peripatetic lifestyle continued through the war years (ibid., folders 188–91) and only ended in 1920, when his brother Howard died. From 1920 onward, Bliss lived in New Haven.

THE ELY LECTURES A few invitations to publish and lecture were forthcoming immediately after Bliss left the PEF. In 1902, the editors of the American publication Biblical World asked for an article on biblical archaeology (Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Bliss Family Papers [series 7, box 2, folder 176], 4 February 1902). More significantly, Bliss was invited to deliver the prestigious Ely Lectures at Union Theological Seminary in New York, his alma mater. Bliss spent the rest of 1902 researching and preparing his material and mentioned in a letter to Howard that the library at SPC was better than he had expected, although he would still have do supplementary research in New York and London when he readied the lectures for publication (ibid., folder 179, 26 May 1902). He delivered the lectures as planned in 1903. The invitation from Union was an honor, as it was a distinguished lectureship. Bliss delivered eight lectures in all, choosing as his subject the development of Palestine exploration. In fact, he had been asked to lecture 3

It was during this same rather busy academic year that he was hospitalized for hip and back pain. The hospital in Clifton Springs is located halfway between Rochester and Ithaca.

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on the general topic of exploration (Bliss 1906, vii), which most likely meant that his hosts assumed he would speak about the sites that he had excavated in Palestine for ten years, and the work of the PEF in general; but he gave them much more than that. He essentially wrote the first history of the discipline. The Ely Lectures are certainly one of the most significant contributions that Bliss made to the field of biblical archaeology; however, perhaps because he was lecturing at a religious seminary, or perhaps because his achievements were already being ignored by most American archaeologists, they were quickly forgotten. The lectures traced the development and history of the exploration of Palestine. During the course of the series, Bliss placed his own work into the larger context of the history of the field as a whole. It is most interesting that he viewed his own career as a continuation of a trajectory, not the beginning of one. He listed many predecessors, including biblical scholars and theologians (but not Assyriologists), and with characteristic modesty counted Petrie’s work at Hesy, not his own, as the beginning of the new scientific approach to exploration. Bliss also outlined his understanding of stratigraphy during these lectures. While he had explained the relevance of stratigraphic understanding in each of his excavation reports, it was always presented in relation to the specific work at hand, not as a methodology that could stand alone. In the Ely Lectures he rectified this, defining and explaining stratigraphy for all to understand, so that any archaeologist who followed him could no longer ignore the layers in the dirt. The published form of the lectures differed slightly from the original spoken form in one significant way. In the written introduction, Bliss explained that his seventh spoken lecture had not been about the history and excavations of the PEF (as the written version was), but included significant sections on the controversy surrounding the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and alternate possibilities for the tomb of Jesus, such as the Garden Tomb (see chap. 10 above). In the published form, however, much of that material was removed, and what was left was folded into the fifth lecture, within a discussion of Edward Robinson’s critique of the issues surrounding the Church. The reason Bliss removed the bulk of the Church material from the published version of his lectures was that in the intervening years, Charles Wilson had prepared a publication on the topic. Bliss stated that he did not want to go over territory already discussed by Wilson’s (ibid.). The antagonism and jealous rivalry that Wilson felt for Bliss has been described above

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(see also Moscrop 2000, 166–79). In this instance it is unclear whether Wilson had told Bliss not to write anything else that might contradict his own views on the location of the real tomb, or whether Bliss had made the decision himself in order to head off potential controversy. In his first lecture, Bliss discusses the beginnings of Palestine exploration. He locates the field’s origins in Antiquity itself—counting the legendary Sinuhe of the Egyptian Middle Kingdom and Thutmose III of the New Kingdom among the first travelers to Palestine. He continues with the Assyrians and then the Greeks, analyzing the value of the works of Greek historians such as Herodotus and Strabo in terms of their accuracy and therefore usefulness to the modern scholar of Palestinian geography.4 The chapter also includes an interesting discussion regarding “proving” the geography of the Bible, explaining that actual exploration is necessary to clarify points that the biblical writers left out. Bliss’s second lecture continues his survey of early explorers, from Eusebius and Jerome to the travelers of the pre-Crusader Middle Ages and makes mention of well-known travelers such as Arculf, as well as lesserknown ones. He also includes an interesting summary of Arab geographers of this period, a topic that is still rarely explored in Western literature today. In his third lecture, Bliss tackles the period of the Crusades and the centuries immediately following, pointing out that the Crusaders were not accurate geographers. In this lecture, he also discusses the accounts of Abbot Daniel, Benjamin of Tudela, and the anonymous guidebooks so popular in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. His fourth lecture continues in this vein, moving from Fabri, the fifteenth-century traveler who approached the Church of the Holy Sepulchre with a scientific eye, all the way to the early nineteenth century. In its printed form, Bliss’s fifth lecture is entirely devoted to Robinson’s work. It is interesting that Bliss chose to give so much weight to Robinson, who was very nearly his most direct predecessor in American Bible exploration. Most significantly, Robinson’s American nationality was important to Bliss’s version of the narrative, just as Bliss’s American nationality is important to consider today. The forty-page chapter includes a long digression about Eusebius’s account of Constantine’s fourth-century expedition to locate the tomb of Jesus, and Robinson’s opinion of this account. In this context, Bliss criticizes Robinson for his negativity regarding the Eastern Orthodox rituals per4 Bliss found Herodotus somewhat unclear about place names, but Strabo often clearer, even though the latter’s account was secondhand.

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formed in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, suggesting that his conscience as an American Puritan (Robinson, like Bliss, was a Congregationalist) led him to dismiss too many elements of Eusebius’s original account. Bliss then explains his own opinion on the matter. He takes the middle road, as he was willing to accept some of Eusebius’s details but reject others. Bliss’s opinion was clearly informed by his years excavating the walls of Jerusalem—the very topic on which he clashed with Wilson. In his next lecture, Bliss backtracks and covers non-American travelers contemporary to Robinson, revisiting the Holy Sepulchre issue once more by discussing Fergusson’s alternate sites. In this lecture, he also briefly mentions the failed Lynch expedition, thereby being the first to create a narrative of American involvement in Palestine exploration. He does not include himself in this narrative, as his excavations were sponsored by the PEF. Thus Bliss was the first to write himself out of the American narrative of Palestine exploration. Bliss’s seventh lecture is devoted entirely to the PEF and its history. Here he continues to shape the story of American involvement or lack thereof, once more forming the gap in the narrative history that the present work is attempting to close. When Bliss recounts the story of the PEF’s survey of western Palestine and its later survey of eastern Palestine, he never once mentions the APES or any American involvement with the PEF (see Bliss 1906, 269–71). It is only after he brings the story of the Fund up to the present moment that in a short digression he backtracks to the APES, but he then dwells on Selah Merrill’s work alone (ibid. 283). By minimizing his personal contribution to the PEF’s work, by downplaying the APES, Bliss all but erased the American contribution to the field. The eighth and last lecture looks toward the future, as Bliss emphasizes ceramic chronology as an essential tool, and then presents a discourse on stratigraphy, his own personal legacy to the field. At this point Bliss defines stratigraphy clearly for the first time. Considering that he did not use a system of balks, or even locus numbering, as neither had been invented yet (the former not till Reisner and Fisher and the latter not till Kenyon), his ability to date soil levels in reference to each other is astounding. A mound thus consists of a series of strata, each stratum representing an historical period. Sometimes the stratification remains clear and distinct; in other cases it has been disturbed. The most perfectly stratified mounds are those where the building materials demands the minimum of disturbance of the underlying occupation, or in other words, of the parts of the mound already formed when the foundations of the new occupa-

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tion are laid. Such a material is sun-dried brick. Let us briefly follow through the ages the fortunes of a town built of this material. (ibid. 300)

He then describes in great detail how a mound forms (ibid. 300–304). Finally, at the very end of the lecture series Bliss shares his insights about what was really needed to be an archaeologist in Palestine. First he discusses the nuances of obtaining a permit for excavation from the Turkish government (ibid. 311). Then he describes his vision of the ideal archaeological explorer of the future. The description is particularly significant, as Bliss discounts the future of Westerners in Palestine exploration, suggesting that the ideal biblical archaeologist could possibly be a “native graduate of the Syrian Protestant College of Beyrout.” He further argues that more archaeologists would be needed in the immediate future, as times were changing fast and populations were changing too, and that even the physical features of Syria and Palestine were changing, as railroads and windmills become prominent on the landscape. In light of all this, he recognizes that cultural information that had been taken for granted until now would be lost if archaeologists did not work quickly to record it all. His acceptance of the possibility of natives working to record the history of their own land and culture was revolutionary for his time. In this context, Bliss openly praised the type of education that Syrian Protestant College offered, advocating Western education as a means of improving the lives of the local Arabs (ibid. 313–15).5

THE BROSS LECTURES AND DANIEL BLISS’S MEMOIRS The Ely Lectures were the last major archaeological lecturing that Bliss was asked to undertake, although he was offered one more prestigious lectureship. This was the Bross Lectures, which he presented at Lake Forest College, Illinois, in 1908. These lectures were published several years later as The Religions of Modern Syria and Palestine (Bliss 1912). Bliss was at this point teaching at Rochester and Cornell, and he was able to research at their libraries. The first two lectures of this series were concerned with the internal permutations of the Eastern Church, and Bliss included a detailed discussion of the Maronites, whom he had written about years earlier. The last three lectures concerned Islam and included several digressions regarding Der5

In this extended section on change in the Near East, Bliss never specifically mentions the most significant change to the cultural and physical landscape of Palestine going on in those years, although the comments cited above might well be an allusion to it. This was the mass immigration of East European Jews to Palestine. See discussion of Selah Merrill and the new Jewish immigrants below.

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vishes. In his preface to the published version, Bliss states that at a later date he hoped to expand the work with additional chapters on Jews and Druze (ibid. xii). Although he never did this, few volumes, even recent ones, are as replete with first-hand knowledge of the beliefs and rituals of Near Eastern religions. Bliss dedicated the published version of the Bross lectures to his father, an appropriate choice considering the topic. His devotion to his father continued long after the latter’s death, as some years later, Bliss edited and published his father’s autobiography (D. Bliss 1920). Most sections of that publication, particularly the early ones, were simply transcriptions of his father’s own manuscript, but other portions of the text were written by Bliss himself, both filling in narrative gaps and adding background information. Bliss mentions himself and his personal relationship with his father only a handful of times in the text but makes extensive references to his brother Howard, who had taken over the presidency when their father retired in 1902.6 Although his archaeological career was largely over, Bliss attempted minor forays into scholarship and reviewed several books (Bliss 1911, 1914). The first of these is of Ellsworth Huntington’s Palestine and Its Transformation. In this review, Bliss attempts to stay away from controversy and all but refuses to express a negative opinion, even though his dislike of the volume is apparent. The second review is of William Miller’s The Ottoman Empire 1801–1913. This too was a subject of Bliss’s expertise. In the same year, he published a piece in the Century Magazine called “In the Land of Sinai.” Bliss wrote two final book reviews in 1921 and 1922. The first was of a book by an Armenian, Iskander Abkarius, who had briefly acted as a an American vice-consul in Beirut (Bliss 1921). Abkarius had written about the political situation in Lebanon in the late 1850s and early 1860s, a situation that had impinged on the fortunes of SPC at the time. Bliss’s very last archaeological piece appeared in 1922, in the American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures. This was a review of Raymond Weill’s report on his Jerusalem excavations, La Cité de David. Weill had excavated at the Tombs of the Kings and the Fortress of Zion in Jerusalem (Bliss 1922, 221–24). Bliss was invited to write the review because he was an earlier 6

The earliest parts of this biography are filled with Frederick Bliss’s characteristic meticulousness. In his introduction, he traces the origins of the Bliss family in the United States to the seventeenth century (Bliss 1920, 15) and reveals the genesis of the autobiography—the reminiscences had originally been written only for the family (ibid. 13).

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excavator of Jerusalem. In the text, he mentions his work with Dickie. In addition to reading the book, Bliss had spoken to Weill and had also visited his excavations. He therefore recounted the question of whether Hezekiah’s tunnel curves in order to avoid the tombs, or in an attempt to go under the tombs. While Weill believed that the curve was unintentional, Bliss never stated his own opinion on the matter. He had clearly made the decision, after years of antagonizing Wilson, not to take any more stands on the thorny problems of Jerusalem archaeology.

13 THE LEGACIES OF FREDERICK JONES BLISS: THE AMERICAN ENTRY INTO THE NEAR EAST, THE FOUNDING OF ASOR, AND THE RELATIONSHIP OF ARCHAEOLOGY TO POLITICS IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY Years after his archaeological career had ended, Frederick Bliss had one more moment in the sun. This moment was not an archaeological one, but verged on the political. In 1920, Bliss was granted an interview with Faisal during the brief moment when he ruled as king of the Hejaz. It was the only time in Bliss’s life when he became publicly involved in a political issue. The interview addressed American concerns regarding the evolving situation in the Near East, and Bliss’s presentation of the issues subtly established a role for archaeologists in the political arena. Since the turn of the twentieth century, there had been a tenuous link between politics and biblical archaeology in America. This connection was nowhere near as strong as similar connections in Britain, Germany, or even France, but it was present nonetheless. American biblical archaeologists, once they established themselves as a category in the first place, found themselves affected by the political situation during and after World War I. Sometimes they chose to comment on it rather than merely sit back and watch their fortunes change.

THE CAREER OF SELAH MERRILL, AND MERRILL’S INTERACTIONS WITH BLISS In the last years of the nineteenth century, Americans were still largely uninvolved in Near Eastern politics; and except for Bliss himself, there were no American archaeologists working in Palestine at all. In this context, there was a single man who served as a bridge between archaeology and politics. This was Selah Merrill, who in the 1870s worked as the chief archaeologist 159

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of the short-lived APES. After his years with the APES, Merrill went on to have a political career, serving as American consul in Jerusalem for the better part of three decades. Merrill stands as a caution that there can be both good and bad in the linkage of archaeology and politics. For reasons explored below, Selah Merrill hated Frederick Bliss. Merrill’s hatred originated in a professional jealousy of the younger man and was specifically based in the fact that Merrill still clung to the older, nonscientific approach to archaeological exploration that the APES had been known for. Additionally, Merrill’s political ideas clashed with Bliss’s own. In his twentieth-century writings, Bliss was clearly reconciled to the changing nature of the Near East (see discussion of the Ely Lectures above). Merrill, on the other hand, was vehemently opposed to such changes. Merrill is probably better known for his career as American consul than for his earlier career as archaeologist. He served as consul for three nonconsecutive terms, 1882–85, 1891–93, and 1898–1907 (Kark 1994, 323). The second and third terms coincided with Bliss’s fieldwork at Hesy and the Shephelah sites.1 In fact, it has been said that Merrill had three distinct careers (Goldman 1997, 151). The first, his service as a Congregationalist minister, essentially shaped his perspective for both his archaeological and his political work. After ordination, Merrill served as a chaplain in the Civil War, then studied in Germany, and subsequently traveled throughout the East, which qualified him as an archaeologist in the eyes of the APES. In turn, the extensive knowledge of Palestine Merrill acquired during the APES years qualified him to serve as consul (Kark 1994, 323). Ironically, it was Merrill’s position as consul and his proximity to the archaeological sites of Jerusalem in those years that allowed him to continue publishing about archaeology throughout his life. He even served as Lecturer in Numismatics and Pottery for the fledgling ASOR in 1904–5 and gave archaeological tours of Jerusalem to the American students and scholars in residence in Jerusalem (Moore and Barton 1903, 34, 37). Merrill’s Attitudes toward the American Colony and toward the Jews During his years as consul, Merrill manifested two distinct, long-term prejudices. The first was directed against the Spafford family that had founded the American Colony in Jerusalem and extended to the Colony as a whole. Most Americans, including those at home in the United states as well as 1 In between Merrill’s terms, Edwin Sherman Wallace, Nageeb Arbeely, and Henry Gillman served as consuls (Kark 1994, 326–29).

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those abroad, viewed the Spaffords as extraordinarily generous in charity work. The presence of the family in Jerusalem was commonly praised, and even the locals whom they served in Jerusalem expressed gratitude toward them. Nonetheless, Merrill fought hard against the Spaffords as a lone voice, hoping to force them to leave (Goldman 1997, 155–60). He classified them as religious apostates and fanatics who believed that the land itself would somehow redeem them (Kark 1986, 148), an attitude similar to that of some of the other colonists discussed earlier. Merrill objected to this attitude, perhaps because of his intimate knowledge of the land as an archaeologist, knowledge which negated the possibility that the land itself could have any redemptive qualities. It was Merrill’s dispute with the American Colonists that eventually led to his dismissal as consul (ibid.).2 The other prejudice Merrill carried was against the Jews. While antisemitism was certainly not uncommon in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in the United States German-Jewish population groups were already well integrated into the economic and social life of the country. Moreover, in the context of religious discussions of the time, blatant expressions of antisemitism were unusual. The Blackstone Petition of 1891 had publicly suggested that the Jews be allowed to settle in Palestine and claim it as their own land (see above, and see Goldman 1997, 151). Yet Merrill, a representative of the American government in Palestine, chose to dispute the Blackstone Petition. He did so in several published contexts and also in his regular consular reports. For instance, in contradiction to all the evidence on the ground, Merrill wrote that the Jews were unfit for, as well as uninterested in, building the land of Palestine (Greenberg 1994, 141). That he could have thought them uninterested is a direct commentary on his general attitude, as everyone living in Jerusalem in the 1880s and 1890s saw how interested they were. Whether or not he viewed the Jews as fit, he could hardly deny that large waves of idealistic immigrants from Eastern Europe were engaged in building not only new neighborhoods in west Jerusalem, but countless other cities and settlements throughout Palestine. Nonetheless, Merrill cited statistics regarding Jewish emigration out of Palestine, Jewish land use and ownership, and Jewish relations with the Ottoman government as ways to convince his superiors that the Jews were 2

It is interesting and perhaps more than a coincidence that the only other Westerner whose hatred of the American Colony is recorded is R. A. S. Macalister, Bliss’s successor and rival at the PEF (Gibson 2003, 171). Merrill and Macalister are united in their dislike of both the American Colony and Frederick Bliss.

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harmful to American interests in the country (see Kark 1986, 148). As early as 1891, Merrill stated that Jewish agricultural efforts were doomed to failure and that the influx of Jews was not good for the country, as they were poor and supported largely by funding from the Rothschild family. He went on to state that they were only interested in personal economic gain, as they hoped the railroad would lead to good turnover in land purchases. Finally, Merrill was unable to keep a somewhat slanderous tone out of his writing when he stated that Jews only came to Palestine to be buried there (Merrill 1891a; Greenberg 1994, 153–54). Merrill’s Attitude toward Bliss Since his involvement with the APES, Merrill had maintained the distinction of being the only American to have worked as a field archaeologist in Palestine. But in the 1890s Bliss usurped that role. This explains some of Merrill’s antagonism to Bliss, as it is likely that he was jealous of the younger man. Merrill’s meager achievements had been all but forgotten since the dissolution of the APES, and now Bliss was getting significant attention. The antagonism Merrill felt for Bliss is another reason for the lack of continuity of tradition within American biblical archaeology. Rather than acting as a mentor to Bliss, Merrill disassociated himself from him and his new methodologies. It was particularly easy to separate his own work from Bliss’s as Bliss worked for the British, and the American connection was therefore less than obvious to outsiders. Merrill’s antagonism to Bliss had deep roots. When Merrill along with the other members of the APES expedition set out for Palestine, they stopped in Lebanon and stayed at SPC in Beirut. In 1875 they were stuck there due to a quarantine (see chap. 6 above). Bliss was in his teens when the APES expeditions passed through his home. While there is no direct evidence of contact between Merrill and the young Bliss, it is clear from later correspondence that they had known each other then. The failure of the APES was at least in part due to Merrill’s own unscientific approach to the survey. Unlike his predecessor Edgar Steever, Merrill never once asked for equipment for triangulation and was apparently satisfied with outdated methodologies. Additionally, when Merrill later published his volume East of the Jordan (1881), the result was more of a descriptive travelogue than an archaeological report on a survey. East of the Jordan was published years after the dissolution of the APES, and although Merrill had gathered most of the information in the employ of the APES, while engaged in their project, he took pains not to mention the APES more than a single time in his text. Later, he attempted to ingratiate himself with the PEF in

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spite of their opinion of his survey (see, e.g., Merrill 1891b), and eventually with ASOR as well. In the 1890s, Bliss, who had been a mere boy when Merrill was working for the APES, had encroached on Merrill’s own archaeological territory more than once. Bliss had explored eastern Palestine in 1894, looking for sites to excavate (Bliss 1895d), and also did important archaeological work in Jerusalem. Merrill, as consul in Jerusalem as well as a failed archaeologist, felt that he was the only American qualified to discuss the archaeology of Jerusalem and resented Bliss’s activities. Merrill expressed as much to the PEF at the outset of Bliss’s Jerusalem excavations, saying that, “[Mr. Bliss] … is a mere infant in regard … to the antiquities and topography of Jerusalem” (PEF/DA/Schick/33/1–3, cited in Lipman 1986, 37). But the moment when Merrill’s jealousy of Bliss reached its height was some years later, at the beginning of Bliss’s time in the Shephelah. Merrill visited the PEF team at Tell Zakariyah, immediately before Bliss opened the first trenches there, in September 1898. Macalister and Bliss together gave Merrill a tour of the general region. Bliss describes what happened in a letter home: Well, we rode home on donkeys … he began to point out rocks and natural features to Macalister and in a good natured way satirize all I had said, pretending to see much where there was nothing and making a parody of all I had said! A dangerous game of joking at best. (PEF/DA/ Bliss/151/141A–B)

It is clear that Merrill did not even attempt to disguise his dislike of Bliss. Merrill, as the only (albeit self-proclaimed) American elder statesman of biblical archaeology, tacitly contributed to the erasure of Bliss’s contribution to American biblical archaeology by continuing to elevate his own work and status in the field while disassociating himself from Bliss. He was assisted in this by the decisions of the leaders of ASOR. During ASOR’s formative years, when the new American archaeological organization was slowly carving a place for itself within the discipline, its leaders chose to throw their fortunes in with Merrill, not with Bliss.

THE EARLY HISTORY OF ASOR AND ITS CONNECTIONS TO SYRIAN PROTESTANT COLLEGE At first glance, the history of the American Schools of Oriental Research seems unconnected to the limited American archaeological work that preceded it in Palestine. As Warren Moulton once pointed out, even though some of the scholars who founded ASOR had also been members of the

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long-defunct APES, they often refused to acknowledge their involvement with the earlier American archaeological institution (Moulton 1928, 55).3 In other words, the first members of ASOR very much wanted to distance the new organization from its failed predecessor. Similarly, ASOR distanced itself from the career of Bliss, who was fired from the PEF the very year that ASOR was founded. ASOR initially viewed Bliss in the same light as the APES, as yet another American archaeological failure. However, on closer examination of the early years of ASOR, it becomes clear that in spite of the deliberate distancing, the organization was very deeply in debt to Bliss in terms of both his archaeological career and his family connections. ASOR was not a fresh start for Americans after all, only a clever repackaging of what had come before. It has sometimes been stated that ASOR was born of three existing organizations—the Society of Biblical Literature, the American Oriental Society, and the Archaeological Institute of America, thus giving the impression that ASOR was warmly welcomed and filled a great need in scholarship (see, e.g., King 1983a, 25). However, this was not exactly the case. The idea of creating a new archaeological organization was first put forward in 1895 by J. Henry Thayer, the president of the Society of Biblical Literature, at a talk at the annual meeting of that organization. Soon thereafter, a committee was formed consisting of Thayer, Theodore Wright, and H. G. Mitchell. Initially, eleven institutions each pledged $500 of support a year, for five years, although the pledges were not all fulfilled (White 1897, 14– 15). Also at this time, the AOS expressed theoretical support of the new endeavor—but contributed neither funding nor resources, nor did it offer to publish any committee reports. The fledgling committee then approached the Archaeological Institute of America, in the hope that a Jerusalem school could be founded on the model of their already extant and successful Athens school (ibid. 15). The AIA ultimately accepted the proposition, but the new society could not officially open until it had raised sufficient funds. It took several years for this fundraising to be completed, but in 1900 the committee had collected moneys from nineteen separate institutions (Seymour 1900, 2). In 1900, the first director of ASOR, Charles C. Torrey of Yale University, initiated ASOR’s first year as an overseas institution.4 He arrived in 3

Moulton’s writings are a valuable firsthand source, as he was a student at the School in 1903 and served as director in 1912–13. 4 Until 1911, the name of the organization was actually the American School of Oriental Study and Research in Palestine; however, for purposes of continuity, the acronym ASOR is used here throughout.

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Jerusalem in November 1900 and immediately took rooms in the Grand New Hotel at the Jaffa Gate, for two reasons—first, because the PEF had previously used this hotel as a home base, and second, because Selah Merrill, then in his third term of service as American consul, also had rooms there. Torrey was specifically interested in being in proximity to Merrill and cites him as “well known as an explorer and an author of books relating to the geography and antiquities of Palestine and Syria” (Torrey 1901, 47). While stating Merrill’s qualifications as explorer, Torrey chose not to mention his affiliation—the APES. Nonetheless, this is the first explicit connection between ASOR and the previous organization. Merrill assisted the Jerusalem School for many of its early years, including by serving as an instructor in numismatics, as mentioned above. One of the main features of the new Jerusalem School was its library (Torrey 1901; Moore and Mitchell 1902). The library was particularly impressive because it was put together from small sums of money and from donations of books; it was housed in rooms at the hotel. Torrey requested that the PEF donate a set of their publications, and the PEF agreed (Torrey 1901, 46). This was actually the second request made to the PEF, as a first had been made by Theodore Wright in the spring of 1900. At that point the PEF had been unwilling to help (PEF/DA/Executive Committee Minutes/ 19 June 1900). By the second year of its existence, ASOR had begun to establish certain ties that were related to Frederick Bliss, albeit indirectly. That year, the residents of the school began to take regular trips to visit archaeological sites; in fact, for many years these trips were the main activity of the School. One of the very first sites that ASOR representatives visited was the archaeological museum at Syrian Protestant College. During the excursion, they also visited several nearby sites where the artifacts for that small museum came from, namely Dog River, Baalbek, and Damascus (Moore and Barton 1903, 35). Dog River is especially interesting, as the APES was involved in the Dog River project thirty years previously. How SPC came to house these artifacts can easily be conjectured, as SPC had always had an interest in archaeology, from the days of the APES expedition, and this connection was simply strengthened by the archaeological career of Bliss, the College’s first son. More to the point, it was in precisely this year (1902) that Syrian Protestant College came under the presidency of Howard Bliss, Frederick’s younger brother, as their father, Daniel Bliss, had retired. Because of the closeness between the Bliss family members, particularly between Frederick and Howard, ties between ASOR and the College would now intensify.

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By 1903, under the directorship of Lewis Paton of Hartford, the directors of ASOR, who were already pleased with the success of the library, expressed interest in starting their own museum as well, even though doing so was clearly not viable financially (Moore and Paton 1904, 41, 52). In a rare moment of direct interaction, Frederick Bliss himself had acted as a consultant for Paton during his year as director (ibid. 43). Bliss, who had established the local museum in Jerusalem against PEF wishes just a few years earlier, most likely discussed the issue with Paton and influenced Paton’s desire to establish a museum himself. From this early point forward, the desire for both a permanent building and a permanent director of the school is reiterated by every director of ASOR, but it was not until Albright’s first term as director that both these long-term goals were finally met. In the intervening decades, the only stable persons associated with the school were the few local Westerners who were part of the faculty. This included Selah Merrill, whose years as numismatics teacher began in 1903. Bliss, already a nemesis for Merrill, was never asked to teach, although he did serve as a consultant for Paton. It is also possible to see that by 1903 the fledgling American School had made inroads in forging a connection with the well-established PEF—the residents of ASOR visited Macalister’s excavations at Gezer, where Macalister himself gave them a tour (ibid. 37). By the following year, the Americans were actively seeking ties with other archaeological organizations besides the PEF. Director Nathaniel Schmidt of Cornell constantly compared ASOR’s unstable rental situation in the Grand New Hotel with the much better situations of both the French and German schools, each of which had permanent buildings (Prince and Schmidt 1905, 27). Schmidt also actively advocated for a closer relationship with Syrian Protestant College, now over a year into Howard Bliss’s presidency (Prince and Schmidt 1905, 38–39). Schmidt’s work in this direction paid off in the next year (1905) under his successor, Benjamin Bacon of Yale. Bacon and other members of the School made much more regular visits to SPC, and to the retired Daniel Bliss in particular. Schmidt also pushed to regularize relations with members of the American mission in Lebanon as well. For instance, the Reverend W. K. Eddy and Dr. Samuel Jessup of the American Presbyterian Mission took the residents of the Jerusalem School on a tour to Sidon, while the Reverends William Jessup and Doolittle took them to Zahleh (Prince and Bacon 1906, 31). The importance of developing a close relationship with SPC was specifically enumerated in the “goals” section of Bacon’s report that year (ibid. 38). This relationship was seen as a way of establishing ASOR as part of the

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preexisting American infrastructure in the Near East. Being part of that infrastructure was the only way the American archaeologists would be able to gain access to the sites they wanted to visit. Such a relationship clearly helped when dealing with the local Arab tribes in the larger region. Selah Merrill’s last year teaching at ASOR was 1905, as he was removed from his consular post at the end of that year and left Jerusalem. During this final year, Merrill tried to convince Bacon not to rent a house opposite the British School but to stay in the Hotel, saying that ASOR would not be able to keep up with housekeeping issues. But since it was clear that ASOR had outgrown the Grand New Hotel, Bacon ignored Merrill’s advice and took the house, where ASOR remained until 1908 (ibid. 33). During the course of the 1906–7 academic year, ASOR residents did more than just visit excavations; they began to show some nascent institutional involvement as well. The director that year was David Lyon of Harvard. We have seen previously (see chap. 7 above) that Lyon in these years was actively working to maintain his relationship with Jacob Schiff and was therefore hoping to begin the excavations at Samaria after a long delay. Lyon was finally able to get Samaria into the field because of his presence in Jerusalem as ASOR director. This helped him to secure the permit from the Turkish authorities—the first such firman issued to Americans (King 1983a, 39). In the same spirit of direct American involvement in excavation projects, it was also under Lyon’s supervision that ASOR participated in a semi-archaeological endeavor on its own. The ASOR contingent in Jerusalem heard a rumor that an inscribed column had been found at the site of Samieh and decided to visit. When the arrived, they saw a group of fellahin looting objects from tombs. The fellahin hid while the Americans looked around the site, and before leaving, the Americans removed the inscribed column itself and brought it to the “little museum in the Turkish school for boys in Jerusalem” (Torrey and Lyon 1907, 46–47). Thus the ASOR contingent can be credited with discovering the now well–known Bronze Age cemetery of Ain es-Samiyah. In light of this slow movement toward direct involvement in excavation, it is telling that Lyon referred to the sites of Tell es-Safi and Sandaannah as “Bliss’s sites” rather than as PEF sites (ibid. 46). This seems to reflect a new claim by Americans on excavation. Even though no invitations to excavate were forthcoming to Bliss in these years, his American identity was becoming solidified in the eyes of some archaeologists. On a less positive front, Lyon’s directorship also signals the beginning of a pattern of poor financial management, as ASOR had decided to buy the

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house it was renting. The board had raised half the money needed ($6000), including $1000 from the Semitic Museum (due to Lyon’s relationship with Schiff) and $1000 from the AIA. But in the end, the deal was lost, as the owner of the house refused to wait for the rest of the money, and the house was sold out from under ASOR (ibid. 40, 44). This was why the School changed location again a the beginning of the 1907–8 academic year. The School’s director that year, Francis Brown of Union Theological Seminary, made the need for permanent quarters and a permanent director a top priority once again. Brown’s tenure is also important because Brown was determined to raise the ties with Syrian Protestant College to a new level. He outlined the goal very specifically: Increased cooperation with the Syrian Protestant College in Beirut.— Our School owes much to the Syrian Protestant College. Its President and its whole teaching force have shown marked kindness to all our Directors and students. President [Howard] Bliss desires it to be understood that the College is the home of our men when they visit Beirut, that they may freely receive their letters there, and avail themselves of all the advantages and conveniences offered by the College. Some lectures have been exchanged. More might easily be done in this direction by a little careful planning in advance, and a small expenditure for traveling expenses. … No educational institution without our reach equals the Syrian Protestant College in the breadth and depth of its influence. Its faculty includes scholars of great distinction, some of them specialists in archaeological subjects. An alliance with it, though it may be best kept free and informal, cannot fail to be of much advantage to us; if by lectures from our Directors, or by any form of influence, our school can render the College some small service, so much the better. (Torrey and F. Brown 1908, 48)

Brown was lavish with praise for SPC, as he clearly felt that strengthening the relationship between the institutions would benefit ASOR. On the other hand, it is more difficult to understand what benefits SPC might have received from increased cooperation. It is possible that by accepting ASOR’s courtship, Howard Bliss was not acting in the best interests of the College per se, but rather was hoping that stronger ties to ASOR would give his brother Frederick an opportunity to return to archaeology, this time working for Americans. This hypothesis is strengthened by the fact that Brown and Howard Bliss became good friends that year, as Brown visited Bliss at his summer home near Beirut and the two men took a ten-day tour together, riding down to Mt. Hermon and back (ibid. 1908, 36–37). In 1908–9, ASOR finally purchased land that had previously been used

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as a municipal playground. This was under the directorship of Robert Francis Harper of the University of Chicago. The land was north of the old city and is still the location of ASOR in Jerusalem today (the Albright Institute); however, ASOR did not have the funds to build for over a decade. In the meantime, they erected eight pillars to mark the boundaries of the land (Torrey and Harper 1910, 161–62, 168) and in 1911 went on to construct a wall on three sides of the land and planted a crop of barley on it, so that they could hold their claim to it in accordance with Turkish laws regarding land ownership (Torrey and McMurdy 1912, 249). The application to build on the land was not made until 1912, by director Warren Moulton, and even then building did not begin, as funds were still insufficient (Torrey and Moulton 1913, 28). This situation did not change until 1916, when Mrs. James B. Nies of New York gave $50,000 specifically to build the building, but at that point work could not be begun because of World War I. Harper was one of several Assyriologists (including Lyon) to direct the American archaeological school, a fact that demonstrates the continued dependence of biblical archaeology on Assyriology, even into the beginning of the twentieth century. Harper was followed by Richard Gottheil of Columbia University (on Gottheil, see chap. 7 above). Gottheil’s involvement in issues within the nascent field of Jewish Studies, combined with his stated interest in “Mohammedan archaeology,” led the research interests of the school the year he was director, especially since that year’s Thayer Fellow, Nicholas Koenig, was researching both literary and colloquial Arabic (Torrey and Gottheil 1910, 289–90). The strong cooperation between ASOR and SPC begun by Brown continued under Gottheil’s directorship, as he gave three talks at SPC that year and explicitly stated how pleased he was that relations between the two institutions were so strong. In the next several years, lecturers from each institution visited the other (ibid. 290; Torrey and Moulton 1913, 35, 36). Throughout the war years, activity at the American School was curtailed, and the school was actually closed for a while. But even in these years, the stage was set for ASOR’s next phase of activity. As early as 1915, W. F. Albright had been chosen as the next Thayer Fellow, although he could not take up residency until 1918 (Torrey 1916, 31; Montgomery 1919, 31). From the moment Albright arrived in Jerusalem, ASOR’s direct involvement in excavation began in earnest. Albright was appointed acting director in 1919, upon the resignation of William Worrell (Montgomery 1920, 32) and soon thereafter became the official director of the school, his being the first directorship to last more than a single year. Albright’s tenure as director lasted for ten years, until 1929. With Albright, both of the long-

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term goals of the School that had been revisited since its founding were fulfilled. Now ASOR had a building of its own (construction was underway) and a permanent director. Albright’s very first action on being appointed director was to have Frederick Bliss appointed as ASOR’s official Advisor on Excavations (ibid. 33). Albright was determined to involve the American school in fieldwork and believed that having a seasoned American field man serving in an official capacity was the best way to accomplish this.5 Indeed, Albright immediately began to look for sites for ASOR to excavate under his directorship and secured for ASOR a one-year option on the sites of Taanach and Megiddo (as the mandatory British government reserved Jerusalem for British expeditions alone). Albright visited both sites in 1920 (Worrell 1920, 35–36). In fact, by 1921, several American-sponsored excavations were in the field. Clarence Fisher of the University of Pennsylvania was excavating at Beisan, and the University of Chicago was set to begin work at Megiddo (Albright 1921, 59). Albright himself made a formal application to the French mandatory government in Syria to excavate Tell el-Qadi, but he was also was looking at several small mounds in Palestine in case he did not receive permission for Qadi.6 It was at this point that Bliss exercised his role as ASOR’s Advisor to Excavations for the first and only time. Among the various small mounds that Albright considered was “the little mound of Tell Duweir, S. E. of Beith Jibrin, suggested by Dr. Bliss, though certainly not the site of ancient Debir (the name means ‘little monastery’).” Albright considered the suggestion of Tell ed-Duweir very interesting (ibid. 59–60). Hindsight shows that Bliss’s suggestion was more than just interesting. Bliss had excavated at Hesy, and, unlike his contemporaries, never believed it was Lachish (see chap. 9 above). Since he knew the entirety of southwest Palestine intimately, Bliss likely had an inkling that Tell ed-Duweir was Lachish. However, ultimately Albright did not listen to Bliss, nor did he excavate at Tell el-Qadi. The first ASOR-sponsored excavation he led was to Tell elFul in 1922 and 1923 (Montgomery 1923, 89). Tell el-Ful was identified as Saul’s Gibeah, which shows the continued American emphasis on Old Testament sites. Albright, who became close to Bliss in Bliss’s later years, attended the inauguration of SPC’s new president, Bayard Dodge, in 1923. Frederick 5 6

See also Running and Freedman 1975, 85. Tell el-Qadi, better known today as Tell Dan, was then within the jurisdiction of the French; however, today it is within the border of modern Israel, not Syria.

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Bliss’s brother Howard had died in 1920, and an acting president had been in office in the interim. Albright made this visit as an official representative of ASOR and used the occasion as an opportunity to resolidify the relationship between the two institutions in the wake of the quiet war years. He held meetings with two professors at SPC and hoped to embark on a “productive scientific collaboration in the near future” (Albright 1923, 99). Not only was Albright determined to continue the relationship with SPC, but he also understood the value of having Frederick Bliss involved with ASOR. As a son and brother of the College’s first two presidents, Bliss could help solidify relations between ASOR and the College. Furthermore, Bliss’s role as an American who had excavated in Palestine could be invaluable for the legitimacy of ASOR, were he to be associated with it himself. Lastly, Albright recognized Bliss’s deep understanding of archaeological issues, thus assuring that Bliss would at least be a footnote to the story of the American archaeological narrative.

MAKING THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL POLITICAL: JAMES HENRY BREASTED AND AMERICAN INVOLVEMENTS IN PALESTINE AND THE NEAR EAST The end of World War I signaled not only a new phase for the work of ASOR, but a new beginning for American archaeology throughout the Near East. The figure who was most important to the American conceptualization of their role in Near Eastern archaeology was James Henry Breasted. Breasted understood the significance of the change from Ottoman to British rule in Palestine and understood how Americans could use archaeology to make themselves relevant on the postwar international front. Breasted was an Egyptologist and is best remembered for founding the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. The Oriental Institute always had strong ties to Assyriology, but Breasted worked tirelessly to ensure that its program would include archaeological work as well and excavations in Palestine in particular. He specifically cited the need to excavate in Palestine in his earliest plans for the Institute and followed through by sending teams to initiate excavations there as soon as the political situation permitted. Because Breasted’s own career was in Egypt, the fact that Palestine was so firmly part of his vision is even more remarkable, as within the Oriental Institute, Palestine had to compete for attention with the larger venues of both Egypt and Mesopotamia, as well as with linguistic scholarship. Breasted was serving as president of the Assyriologically oriented AOS in 1919 when he announced his plans for an Oriental Institute, after receiv-

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ing funding from the Rockefeller family to do so (J. Breasted 1919b, 181). This was not the only archaeological venture of the Rockefellers, as they were instrumental in funding the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem, which was an expansion of the museum that Frederick Bliss had first established against PEF wishes. Because plans for the Jerusalem museum were underway from 1919 onward, it is possible that Breasted might also have been attempting to please the Rockefellers with his insistence on Palestine exploration as a chief goal of the new Oriental Institute. When Breasted first outlined the details of the potential Institute, he also outlined how the ancient Orient was approached in the United States, stating that there was often too great an emphasis on languages and that archaeology and physical anthropology were too often discounted (ibid. 159–79). He further stated his hope, as head of the Orientalist organization, that Assyriology and archaeology could have greater cooperation in the future (J. Breasted 1919a, 1919b, 204). Breasted even suggested two new home bases in the Near East for Americans, one in Egypt and one in Mesopotamia, and cited the presence of ASOR in Jerusalem as a fulfillment of the American responsibility for research in Palestine (J. Breasted 1919b, 182). Breasted’s interest in Palestine was more than just passing. Not only did the Rockefeller tie need cultivation, but Breasted already had a longstanding connection to General Allenby, the British general who had liberated Palestine from the Ottomans at the end of World War I. Allenby himself had an interest in archaeology, as Breasted had taught him much about ancient military strategy. Breasted had been particularly interested in the Eighteenth Dynasty campaign of Thutmose III of Egypt to Palestine, and his battle of Megiddo. This is thought to have influenced Allenby’s own analysis of the 1918 battle that he had waged at Megiddo (C. Breasted 1943, 311–12; Cline 2000). In fact, it was the friendship between Allenby and Breasted that helped establish the Oriental Institute as serious player in American biblical archaeology, a player that could compete with ASOR in those years. When Breasted passed through Palestine on the first Oriental Institute expedition to the Near East in hopes of finding a site for excavation, it was Allenby who arranged for his flight (J. Breasted 1920, 282, 1922, 235–36). Breasted remained in Allenby’s debt for the assistance. It was Allenby’s influence that helped Breasted determine where within Palestine the Oriental Institute should excavate. Even during that first expedition, when Palestine was still very unsettled following the war, Allenby convinced Breasted to visit both Tell el-Mutesellim and Jericho (J. Breasted 1920, 285, 1922, 272). Ultimately

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Breasted chose to excavate Tell el-Mutesellim as much because the site was related to Allenby as it was to either biblical or Egyptian history.

HOWARD BLISS, ARAB NATIONALISM, AND THE KING-CRANE COMMISSION In spite of Breasted’s strong connection with Allenby and, through Allenby, with the British mandatory administration in general, Breasted did not agree with the British on the issue of Jewish settlement. With the British in charge of issuing excavation permits, it is not surprising that Breasted kept his political views largely to himself. Breasted had the opportunity to meet with Prince Faisal in May 1920. Immediately following this meeting, Breasted recorded his opinions in his private journal, stating that since the Jews comprised only 10 percent of the population of Palestine, they should not be allowed to govern the other 90 percent, even if much of the money in the country came from the international Jewish community (C. Breasted 1943, 308). This was a great topic of debate at the time. In those years, the British mandatory government under the leadership of High Commissioner Herbert Samuel looked favorably on Jewish self-determination. In fact, from the moment that Britain was granted its mandate, all Westerners involved in Palestine exploration and archaeology had to examine the political situation of the Near East very closely and often decide which side to support. The American archaeologists were no exception, as 1920 marked the first time that the United States government took a political stand in the Near East. At the same time that Breasted was meeting with Faisal, ASOR under the leadership of Albright took the opposite political stand. Albright’s own politics were somewhat pro-Zionist and became even more so in later years (Long 2003, 159).7 Albright was following in the footsteps of some of his predecessors, as ASOR had expressed sympathy toward the Jewish cause in the years before he became director. The School’s director in 1914, George Robinson, had shown great interest in the growing Jewish settlements throughout Palestine and had even personally visited twenty of them (G. Robinson 1914, 40).8 7 Some years later, Albright participated in an anti-Nazi conference spearheaded by Louis Finkelstein, a professor of theology at the Jewish Theological Seminary, expressing both pro-Jewish and pro-Zionist sympathies (Long 2003, 146–47, 159; 1997). 8 However, ASOR subtly shifted its political allegiances in the latter half of the twentieth century, as the archaeologies of Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Cyprus, and

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Furthermore, since 1908, ASOR had recognized its potential political role in the region. That year marked the School’s purchase of land for its building. Now that it was an indisputable permanent presence, director Charles Brown (the same director who had such a strong friendship with Howard Bliss) stated his vision for the School’s political role—to represent the United States in the internationally held city of Jerusalem:9 If we can lead the way toward making distinctively American an important section of the city, we shall aid in placing the United States beside Russia, Germany and France in the thought of the people of Jerusalem, without presenting any sectarian or political barrier to their confidence. (Torrey and C. Brown 1911, 34)

As recently as 2000, ASOR has reembraced this same political role. In that year, ASOR invited Thomas Pickering of the United States State Department to its centennial celebratory conference. Pickering spoke to the scholars present about the importance of archaeology in the context of modern diplomacy, stating that ASOR had always been a leader in bridging international borders in the Near East and thus has a real role in American diplomacy—“ASOR was present at the creation of an era that has profoundly transformed our understanding of the ancient worlds of the Middle East and Mediterranean” (Pickering 2003, 420). Pickering went on to say that political leaders have noted that ASOR has centers in Amman and Jerusalem and Nicosia, and how the organization is inclusive in spite of political strife, and that ASOR’s work in places like Jordan have led directly to greater economic development through tourism. With the increased political role of ASOR in those years, and with the politics of Jewish nationalism that was such an important topic in the 1920s, we return to the figure of Frederick Jones Bliss one last time. In 1920, any political statement made by a prominent member of ASOR could affect its fortunes, as the British, who were still supportive of Jewish nationalism, had officially established their mandatory government in Palestine and were therefore in charge of granting excavation permits. Arabia, and lately of the Palestinian territories as separate from Israel, have eclipsed the archaeology of Israel in ASOR’s publications and conferences. The political nature of this subtle shift has always been couched in archaeological terms, namely the desire not to be bogged down in the archaeology of a small, “provincial” subregion when the entire Near East should be understood as a whole (see, e.g., Silberman 1998, 177). This debate is intertwined with the terminological debate regarding “biblical” vs. “Syro-Palestinian” archaeology. See, e.g., Dever 1993, 1995. 9 The Status Quo agreement of 1852 that began the precedent of Jerusalem as international territory was still considered binding and would be renewed in 1929.

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Albright had been acting director of ASOR for a year, and Bliss was newly appointed as Advisor on Excavations. Albright badly wanted to begin excavating a site in Palestine, as we have seen, and this was contingent on British agreement. Britain was running Palestine, but in 1920 the United States government had finally claimed a stake in the Near Eastern situation as well, hoping to carve out a position next to France and England. As it happened, one of the United States government’s most important consultants on Near Eastern matters was Howard Bliss, president of SPC and brother of Frederick Bliss. Since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire (in fact, since the Sikes-Picot agreement of 1916), Syria and Lebanon were held by the French, just as Palestine was held by the British. In the years following the war, the movements toward Arab self-determination and pan-Arab nationalism were gaining momentum throughout the Near East.10 Howard Bliss was particularly concerned about French rule in Syria, as he believed a French Mandate would be damaging to the Arab Christian population, which was the bulk of the College’s constituency. Because of his concerns, Bliss repeatedly suggested to the United States government that a commission be established on the subject and that this commission send representatives into Syria to talk to all the local groups and find out what they really wanted. Howard Bliss spoke publicly about this several times during the course of 1919 and directly influenced President Wilson’s point of view on the matter (Manuel 1949, 230). Howard Bliss was therefore in no small part responsible for Wilson’s establishment of the King-Crane Commission. Henry King of Oberlin College and Charles Crane, a Chicago businessman, were sent to Syria and Lebanon to discuss the possibility of self-determination. They, along with a larger team, had conversations with Arab leaders in Palestine, Syria, and Turkey about the desires of the local populations for selfdetermination. Ultimately, King and Crane concluded that the Arabs should in fact be allowed to govern themselves, certainly in Syria, and perhaps everywhere else as well (Howard 1963, 326–28). The King-Crane Commission made its report in August 1919, following three months of investigation.11 10

The literature on Arab nationalism is of course vast. Some recent works include Khalidi et al. 1993 and Gershoni and Jankowski 1997; see also Lewis 2002, 1997. 11 For a contemporary perspective of a Near Eastern scholar and previous director of ASOR on the events of the early 1920s, see Montgomery 1927.

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But on the surface, the idea of Arab self-determination throughout the Near East contradicted the objective of having a Jewish homeland in Palestine, which the British had already put on the table via the Balfour Declaration. While the Balfour Declaration also made clear British support of existing Arab populations in Palestine, the American advocacy of Arab selfdetermination surprised and disappointed some in the United States, especially Jewish Zionists (Manuel 1949, 240). Perhaps because of this, the KingCrane report was not released until many years later. Wilson, seeing that there was not sufficient support in the United States for Arab self-determination, backed away from his position. He did so under pressure from Louis Brandeis. Brandeis, a prominent American Zionist (and later the first Jewish Supreme Court justice), had visited Palestine soon after the King-Crane Commission made its report and expressed his concerns about the Commission’s recommendations (ibid. 244). Another, related reason for Wilson’s shift of opinion was the fact that there had been dissention within the King-Crane team itself. Some members, notably Captain William Yale, disagreed with the recommendations of the report, saying that the wording of the Balfour Declaration—which designated Palestine a Jewish national homeland as long as Arab populations could continue to live there—was in fact more politically productive than the recommendations of the King-Crane Commission. (Howard 1963, 209; Manuel 1949, 244–51). Howard Bliss’s recommendations, while taken seriously for a while, were ultimately ignored.12 All this left Albright and the American School in a difficult position. On the one side was the cooperation with SPC and President Howard Bliss that Albright had carefully cultivated. On the other side was the official American sympathy to the Jews of Palestine and their cause. Albright did not write or speak publicly about the issue, but Frederick Bliss did. At just this difficult moment in history, he accepted the tricky task of interviewing Prince Faisal for the Western press. Prince Faisal of Saudi Arabia, Britain’s best choice to rule the Arab world, was waiting in the wings for the Western powers to come to a decision regarding the fate of the Near East. Faisal was of course pushing for Arab self-determination. He had been happy with the initial findings of the King-Crane report and disappointed with Wilson’s change of mind. Prior to the issuing of the King-Crane report, Faisal had heartened the 12

It should be noted that there was no antisemitic sentiment involved in Howard Bliss’s views. In fact, in the days before the founding of Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Palestinian Jews often would attend SPC for their college educations.

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international Jewish community by expressing a positive attitude toward Zionist leadership and toward Chaim Weizmann in particular. In fact, Faisal and Weizmann had made an agreement of cooperation in January of 1919 (Manuel 1949, 220–21). Furthermore, soon thereafter, it was reported in the New York Times that Faisal had sent a letter to Felix Frankfurter, a lawyer and prominent American Zionist (also later appointed to the Supreme Court). The letter was said to have stated Faisal’s opinion that the Arabs and Jews were cousins in race, and that Weizmann has been a great help to our cause, and I hope the Arabs may soon be in a position to make the Jews some return for their kindness. We are working together for a reformed and revived Near East and our two movements complete one another. The Jewish movement is national and not imperialist. Our movement is national and not imperialist, and there is room in Syria for us both. Indeed I think that neither can be a real success without the other.13

Faisal’s short-lived support of Zionism was a method of demonstrating to the West that he would be able to find a place for the Jews of Palestine in his domain, should he become ruler of the pan-Arab world. Faisal understood that the British were supportive of Zionism, as the Balfour Declaration had been issued just two years earlier, and he further understood that he needed British support to rule the Arabs in the face of French dissent. Thus, his statements were diplomatic in nature. As long as it guaranteed him British support, Faisal was willing to allow the Jews to peacefully remain in the larger pan-Arab setting. (On Faisal’s relationship with the British, see Gelvin 1994, 25). Not much later, in March 1920, Faisal was crowned King of Hejaz (including greater Syria), with the support of the British. As soon as he was made king, Faisal changed his mind on Zionism, claimed that the letter quoted by the Times was not authentic, and completely disassociated himself from that point of view (Manuel 1949, 235). Faisal’s change of heart was politically motivated. Upon his return to Syria, he encountered many pan-Arab demonstrations, which specifically focused on the issue of dividing the Near East into smaller regions (ultimately countries) as suggested by the Western powers. The popular sentiment was fiercely against such division (Gelvin 1994, 35). Faisal recognized that in order to keep power among his people, not all of whom accepted him

13

Prince Faisal as quoted by Charles Seldon, “Prince of Hejaz Welcomes Zionists,” New York Times, 5 March 1919.

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as their legitimate leader (since he was from an Arabian, not a Damascine, family), he had to support their causes over and above Western causes. Zionism was the main Western cause that he had to abandon. In spite of his attempt to win over his people, Faisal did not last long as King of the Hejaz. Almost as soon as he was crowned by the British, Faisal was deposed by French forces. Instead of the Hejaz, the British gave Faisal the Kingdom of Iraq in 1921, following the Cairo Conference.

FREDERICK BLISS AND KING FAISAL In the brief period when Faisal ruled as King of Hejaz, Frederick Bliss interviewed him in person. Bliss was chosen by Faisal’s government as the appropriate person to conduct the interview, which was published in the New York Times on 28 March 1920. Bliss was chosen for several reasons, first and foremost because he was an American citizen who had lived in the Near East and had in fact attained some small degree of fame for his work in the region. But Bliss was also chosen because of his sibling connection to Howard. Howard had recently supported the King-Crane Commission and was very much a supporter of Faisal. Howard was very sick in those months and died shortly thereafter. It is possible that had his health been better, he might have been given the interview himself. But Howard was also in the United States at the time, and Frederick was in London, where Faisal was briefly staying. Additionally, Frederick, as the least politically active member of the Bliss family, might have been seen as a more neutral voice. In his interview with Faisal, Bliss emphasized Faisal’s loyalty to Britain. Beyond this, he explained (without using any direct quotations) that Faisal wanted an undivided Arab empire that included Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia. He further stated that Faisal was concerned about the French desire to divide Syria, as such a division would antagonize all groups, including Muslims, Christians, and Druze. As an interviewer, Bliss managed to maintain a veneer of neutrality but ultimately expressed a deep respect for the Arab leader and demonstrated his implicit support for Arab nationalism. Bliss further professed to take Faisal’s views at face value, refusing to cast them in any political light. Bliss concluded that “according to the best of my knowledge and belief, Faisal’s personal character is beyond reproach. My opinion is shared by those closest to him. The surest hopes of the Arab nationalists lie in the simple fact that their leader is a good man.” Bliss’s interview made a small splash in the United States, as it was featured prominently in the Times. But a particular problem with the interview

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was that Bliss had carefully skirted the contentious topic of Palestine as a Jewish national homeland. Faisal’s recent pro-Zionist proclamations had caused a stir within the American Jewish community, and while his political about-face was suspected, it was not yet well known. The interview was publicly challenged, and the challenger himself made Bliss uncomfortable, as it was none other than Richard Gottheil of Columbia University, the Jewish scholar who had been director of ASOR ten years earlier. Gottheil came from a prominent New York Jewish family. His father was a well-known Reform rabbi, one of the few early Reform rabbis to embrace Zionism in an age when the American Reform movement was staunchly anti-Zionist. Gottheil himself was a supporter of Zionism, which made him extraordinarily unusual in the context of Near Eastern Studies at the turn of the twentieth century (see chap. 7 above). Thus two scholars of the ancient Near East, Bliss and Gottheil, were debating issues of import to the modern Near East in a public forum. In his letter to the Times,14 Gottheil questioned the fact that Bliss did not directly address Faisal’s view of Jewish nationalism in Palestine and pointed out that the borders of Syria were not mentioned in any of Faisal’s statements. Gottheil further cited the Balfour Declaration and the fact that Faisal had made friendly overtures to Weizmann only months before. Specifically, he asked Bliss to clarify “how the implicit promise of a Jewish National Home in Palestine (i.e. a Jewish State) be reconciled with the idea of a great Arab empire reaching from the Desert of Sinai to the Persian Gulf.” Bliss now had to reconcile the Jewish concerns that Gottheil had expressed with the new anti-Zionist opinion that Faisal was beginning to espouse. Bliss was trapped, as he did not want to offend his professional colleague but simultaneously needed to stay true to Faisal’s new politics. This needed careful diplomatic wording, something at which Bliss now excelled. Bliss responded to Gottheil by repeating a quote from a separate interview that Faisal had given to a Palestinian Jewish newspaper, the Jewish Chronicle, in October 1919.15 This interview had taken place before Faisal’s shift of opinion and was in line with Faisal’s earlier letter to Frankfurter, quoted above. In using this earlier interview, Bliss ignored the fact that Faisal had clearly shifted his political allegiance, since Bliss cited the relevant part of the older interview where Faisal had stated that he was working toward regulated Jewish immigration into Palestine, and that Jews would have equal 14 New 15

York Times, 3 April 1920. New York Times, 11 April 1920.

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rights with Arabs there. Bliss’s decision to cite the older interview demonstrates that he was trying to smooth over the situation with Gottheil. But in the interest of presenting the truth of Faisal’s new opinions, Bliss also stated quite clearly that Faisal “will not recognize a Zion State dissociated from the Arab Empire.” Bliss could not deny Faisal’s new anti-Balfour leanings, which were becoming more apparent with each passing day. And yet, Bliss was put in the position of diplomat, up against a scholar whom he knew and respected, a member of ASOR, who was deeply embroiled in the growing political controversy and who furthermore took the opposite view on Arab nationalism from Bliss’s own brother Howard and the College he represented. Bliss was not asked to give his own views of the controversy. However, it is quite likely that he agreed with Howard. Letters were exchanged between the brothers during 1919 and 1920, but they largely dealt with family matters and issues relating to hiring teachers for the College, not with the world politics in which they were both involved.16 Howard died shortly thereafter, in May 1920. It is particularly interesting that the interview and the response to Gottheil were published just as Bliss was becoming involved with ASOR under Albright’s leadership. The archaeology of Palestine and Syria was intertwined with the politics of the region. Albright never did excavate at Tell elQadi (under French control) as he had hoped to. His still vague pro-Zionist stance may or may not have contributed to the trajectory of the rest of his long archaeological career, which was almost entirely based in Palestine. As unofficial representatives of the United States in the Near East, the members of the archaeological community were divided on the political situation. Only Frederick Bliss acted successfully as a diplomat, trying to reconcile dissenting political opinions in the scholarly community for the sake of the profession. And yet Bliss himself became increasingly marginalized by the profession.

INTO THE FUTURE Since the time of Bliss, Americans have continued to work as archaeologists in Palestine, becoming more prominent each decade. Today Americans are at the forefront of the discipline, and the significance of Bliss’s legacy is 16

There is one letter in which Frederick mentions Faisal and the peace conference to Howard, but the reference is obscured by the main focus of the letter, which is the poor health of their younger brother Will (Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Bliss Family Papers [series 7, box 2, folder 191], 10 October 1919).

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indisputable. Despite his missionary and ministerial family, Bliss recognized, early on, the importance of good scientific methodology in archaeology and recognized its potential for biblical studies. His meticulousness in fieldwork influenced Albright, who later solidified the concept of pottery sequences and stratigraphy, both of which were first implemented by Bliss (although inspired by Petrie). Today, Bliss’s stratigraphic legacy lives on, as American archaeological teams are still known for meticulous excavation in smaller, controlled trenches, sometimes even sacrificing broad horizontal exposure for more detailed understanding of the stratigraphic picture. Stratigraphy is arguably the most essential tool for archaeological fieldwork, as the now standard “Gezer” method of excavation necessitates the marking and drawing of the sections of each excavation square. Bliss was also a pioneer in removing religious discussions from biblical archaeology. In spite of his personal religious background and training, biblical references seldom entered into his descriptions of archaeological data. Even during the Jerusalem years, he did not allow preconceived religious notions to interfere with his archaeological conclusions and in fact was at odds with Wilson, his superior at the PEF, over just this issue. In recent years, archaeology has removed religion from biblical studies much more than even Bliss would have advocated. When William G. Dever moved the field away from its original terminology by abandoning the term “biblical archaeology,” the scientific trend begun by Bliss reached a culminating point. The archaeology of Palestine was no longer predicated on the Bible, and the new terminology reflected this. More recently, some in the field (including Dever himself) have reevaluated that terminological shift (cf. Dever 1993). However, the trend could not be entirely reversed. There is now a clear split within the American archaeological community, a tension between those who dig with biblical research as their primary concern and those who dig with scientific discovery as their main interest.17 Today a looming issue is minimalism. A premise of the minimalist school of thought is that if one can write a history of ancient Israel at all, one can no longer do so using biblical texts as a basis.18 Ironically, some of the scholars who are often identified as minimalists are as certain of their own approaches as members of the PEF were in Bliss’s day. 17

It should be pointed out that many of the archaeologists who are motivated by religion are still scientific in their methodology. The religious concern is often only visible in the affiliations of the excavation team, as many religious seminaries participate in fieldwork today. 18 Dever 2003, 137; see also, e.g., Davies 1992, Lemche 1998, Thompson 1992.

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In this way, the conflict between the biblically based approach to archaeology and the scientific approach that originated during Bliss’s years with the PEF is still reflected in today’s scholarship. Minimalist controversies still rage even as current methodologies have elevated science to the forefront of the field. And yet, even though almost all of Bliss’s excavation sites have been reexcavated, his methodologies as well as his conclusions have maintained most of their integrity throughout the modern attempts to make sense of the data. Compared with those of other early excavators, Bliss’s site reports are still rather useful, as he categorized and represented his data well and firmly grasped ceramic chronology and stratigraphy. Bliss’s legacy is actively being fulfilled today when the field of “biblical archaeology” has begun to look toward its future. One of the most commonly cited directions for future approaches to the discipline is the need to present archaeological materials and sites to the public in an engaging manner.19 Bliss, when he argued for his Jerusalem museum, was already thinking about engaging the public and was even intrinsically aware of issues that are perceived to be very recent: that Near Eastern countries should be allowed to excavate their own sites without interference from Westerners, and the related issue of artifacts remaining in their country of origin rather than being removed to Western museums. When he fought for the Jerusalem museum, Bliss several times stated that the artifacts should remain in the country where they were excavated, not travel to London. And he similarly saw a future for local people, specifically native Syrians, engaging in biblical archaeology. Bliss lived in New Haven from 1920 onward, settling there after the death of his brother Howard. He outlived the rest of his siblings as well; his youngest brother Will, a journalist in New York, died in 1927, and his sister Mary (who had remained in Lebanon with her family) died in 1930. Frederick Bliss died of pneumonia in 1937, at age 78, in White Plains, New York. Bliss’s contribution to America’s involvement in biblical archaeology was all but forgotten due to the field’s desire to reinvent itself and disassociate from perceived earlier failures like the APES. Bliss’s formative works on archaeology and religious history became curiosities rather than widely read texts. Perhaps it gave him satisfaction to see that his methods and systems were already considered standard by the time of his death. Bliss may have recognized his own particular contributions to American biblical archaeology implicitly. Not only was he extraordinarily close to 19

2004.

These two directions are cited by several authors in Hoffmeier and Millard

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his brother Howard, but he was equally close to his father, even dedicating the Ely Lectures to him as a way of acknowledging Daniel Bliss’s role in his own career as an archaeologist. Daniel Bliss and Howard Bliss both represented Syrian Protestant College, the American institution that had helped usher American archaeologists into the Near East twice, first by assisting the APES expeditions, and then by helping ASOR find its footing in the Near East in the first years of the twentieth century. Frederick Jones Bliss not only left a legacy of great methodological breakthroughs in field archaeology, but also contributed the connections that American archaeologists needed to succeed in Palestine. Without him, Americans might not have been able to attain the powerful position they hold in the field today.

APPENDIX A: LETTER FROM FREDERICK BLISS TO HIS FAMILY, INCLUDING TRANSCRIPTION OF LETTER FROM PEF (PEF/DA/Bliss/152/154) The Tell— May 9th, 1900 Dearest Family— Your dear letters of Saturday came yesterday with the very depressing news of quarantine. I send this but know not when it will reach you. Mamma told of the ravishing flower-garden, Mary (as well as Mamma) of the changes in the Mission arrangements. … No fear that there is not plenty today in this letter. First I am well and happy but “I have a little trouble” which makes me think a good deal a la Howard. Under date of April 25, Armstrong writes: I am to thank you for forwarding your observation regarding the next site to be excavated. The Committee have been considering this subject for some months and have obtained various opinions thereon; but they have serious misgivings as to whether they are justified in asking you to undertake another season’s work. The Committee observe that during the period of the Firman from October 1st 1899 to March 19, 1900—some 259 days (222 working days) have been devoted to the excavations, whereas on 276 days (237 working days) they were closed. They are of course aware that some portion of this time was occupied with indispensable preliminaries and other portions in writing reports etc., but the proportion of “off time” is too large. It is apparent from your letters that the strain of work has been for some time telling on your physical strength and health and for your own sake it may be advizable for you to take a rest. You know how warmly attached the members of the Committee are to you personally and how highly [they] appreciate your zeal and effort in the past on behalf of the Fund; but they cannot conceal from themselves that the time appears to have come when they ought to consider the whole question of continuing the work at the end of the present Firman.

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BIBLE, MAP, AND SPADE Our subscriptions are falling off, many of the old subscribers are discontinuing and few new ones are joining. Thus great economy in conducting our operations is absolutely forced upon us. In the interest of continuing the work, the Committee think that the remuneration should be in proportion to the time actually engaged in work; an allowance being made for holidays.

As I supposed that the letter was to tell of the new site, I began to read it aloud to Mac—stopping short at the end of the first sentence. However I had gone too far and after a moment read it to him to the end. I am glad I did, for he was full of sympathy he does not know how to express perhaps. His attitude has been lovely. Had the Committee said that they felt together that, owing to straightened circumstances, they could not afford to pay a yearly salary of £200 and expenses while at work, especially as owning to the condition of climate etc., the actual days of excavation were less than half of the year—why I should have accepted it as all right. But to hint that I have not made the best use of the time and to ignore the main reason for suspension of excavation in Palestine (as in Greece, Egypt, Crete, Cyprus etc) is the climate, seems to be unjust. It is clear to me what … I was obliged when in England to stop the PEF clerk from letting out Committee secrets, but about when I knew what he was driving at, he told me that Mr. Morrison, the treasurer, had made out a list of working days and holidays (including I suppose—tho’ I may be doing him an injustice—the 7 months waiting for renewal of the permit—18 days of waiting for this permit are included in off days) and said “He is too expensive, we had better get rid of him.” The letter has what Howard would call an air of incompetence and seems to show a divided committee who haven’t made up their minds as a whole. It is not clear whether they mean to excavate without me, or to stop excavations for the present, or to offer me the position at a reduced salary. At any rate, this is probably the end of my connection with them—and it is quite possible that end may come in July or August, as I gather that they may think we shall have excavated the area of our permit by that time. There is no meeting til the first Tues. in June—that is no letter can reach them til that meeting, so I shall delay my reply til I hear from the meeting of last week, May 1. I have prepared a table of dates with account of time employed as Oct 1–19, ’98, Waiting in Jerusalem for permit. Days 19 Oct. 20–22 Registering permit and obtaining letter from Wilson. Days 3 Oct 23–25 Negotiation with land owner and laborers at Zak. Days 3 Oct 26–Dec 21 First season work at Zak. etc., etc., etc. to March 19, 1900.

I have made out a letter of the percentage of work days at Tell el-Hesy,

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conditions of work at Jerusalem, etc. But I do not think I shall ever see my way to accepting a lower figure than I am now receiving or to appear to acknowledge (by so doing) that they are right. They evidently found it hard to write the letter, and I certainly found it hard reading. I felt pretty much stunned for the rest of the day. I’m afraid that it is false economy—a £100 man a year, with no Arabic and no diplomacy would probably hand over to a dragoman and to and-owner etc, a good deal more than the difference between his salary and mine. But that is their affair. Dear Family I am upborne by your love and sympathy. My heart is not heavy, it has been very light at times; my head is heavy of course, as the matter has produced a revolution of plans. I have so enjoyed the work this time that I had quite decided to work out another firman and I do love the work. I daresay all will come out beautifully—there is lots to do in this world—and it will be a relief not to have to count the Fund’s eggs! Please do not send this letter to America or refer to it in writing to them, or to any one, not even Dr. Post. Thursday. I had a very good night. It is hot but I am going to ride in and post this at the station—it will be cool coming back. … In haste but with much love— Fred The Lebanon article is all copied except the last section which is about finished as to composition. Thank you for forwarding a letter from Hamilton—relative to our Class Reunion. The Outlooks have not arrived.

APPENDIX B: LETTER FROM FREDERICK BLISS TO HOWARD BLISS (Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Bliss Family Papers [series 7, box 2, folder 176]) Esoteric for family. Tell el-Judeideh May 13, 1900 Dear Howard, This week will probably see me resigning from the P.E.F. A singularly incompetent letter came last week from the Committee expressing their warm personal regard, concern for my health which appears to them to demand a rest, regret at the low financial state of the Fund, a hazy doubt as to whether they will go on excavating at all and wrapped in these integuments the statement that out of 535 days since the permit was dated only 259 have been devoted to excavation while 276 have been “off days”—a proportion (they say) altogether too large. While admitting that some of this time was devoted to necessary preliminaries, and writing reports, they ignore the main reason for interrupting excavation in Syria, Greece, Egypt, etc. i.e. the climate. They take no acct. of the 18 days delay in receiving the permit without wh. no digging could be done and tack on to a year and a third of work the long winter breaks of two years. They state that in case of continuing the work salary shall be in proportion to actual work done, an especial allowance (deduction) being made for “holidays.” Whether the elaborate tables of statistics wh. I am preparing will open their eyes or not I do not much care. I shall issue them no longer after the present work—which may close in Jul. or Aug. tho’ it may go on till Oct. 1st. My plans for the future are hazy, but all include Syria for the next few years—unless I should be asked to lecture at Union + feel like accepting. I have offers for writing which will keep me in money. I can be studying Arabic seriously. I long to see your dear family and have shared all your anxieties about them this year. Love to them all. 189

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Yours affectionately Fred I have not been as well as I am now since the present work began, tho’ certainly my letters to the Committee last Autumn showed the strain of work.

APPENDIX C: LETTER FROM PEF TO FREDERICK BLISS (PEF/DA/Executive Committee Minutes/25 June 1900; letter folded into the minute book) June 25, 1900 Dear Sir, I am instructed to inform you that the letter dated 17th May last, in which you tendered your resignation from the Palestine Exploration Fund, was considered by the Committee at their meeting on the 19th inst. The Committee much regret that it has been found necessary to exercise great economy in conducting the operations of the Fund, and, in accepting your resignation, they desire to place on record their high sense of the value of the services which you have rendered to Biblical Archaeology, whilst you have been conducting the excavations in Palestine. They also desire to express their great regret that your long connection with the field operations of the Fund will shortly come to an end. It is suggested that, if it meet your convenience, your resignation might take effect when, after the expiring of the present Firman, you have completed your final report on the excavations upon which you have been recently and are still engaged. The committee instruct me to assure you that they highly appreciate your zeal and efforts on behalf of the Fund; and they earnestly trust that a long rest from the anxiety and toil entailed of active prosecution of the work of the Fund may permanently benefit your health which, on several occasions, has suffered severely from unfavourable climate and other conditions. Remaining dear sir, yours faithfully, G. Armstrong, Acting Secretary.

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APPENDIX D: TIMELINE 1810—American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions founded 1820—Pliny Fisk and Levy Parsons travel to Palestine 1838—British consulate established in Jerusalem 1838—Edward Robinson travels to Palestine 1842—American Oriental Society founded 1847—Lynch Expedition to the Jordan River 1852—First American colony established in Palestine 1856—American consul installed in Jerusalem 1864—Wilson surveys Jerusalem 1865—Palestine Exploration Fund founded 1866—Syrian Protestant College founded 1870–75—American Palestine Exploration Society active 1880—Society of Biblical Literature founded 1882—American Colony in Jerusalem established 1890–1900—Frederick Jones Bliss works for Palestine Exploration Fund 1900—American Schools of Oriental Research founded 1907—Samaria excavations begin 1920—W. F. Albright becomes director of ASOR

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BIBLIOGRAPHY ARCHIVAL SOURCES Bliss Family Papers, Archives and Special Collections, Amherst College Library, Amherst, Massachusetts. Letters quoted within the text are from Frederick Jones Bliss to Family, from Frederick Jones Bliss to Howard Sweetser Bliss, and from Howard Sweetser Bliss to Family. Specific box numbers, series numbers, and folder numbers and dates of letters are listed in individual citations. Palestine Exploration Fund, London. Documentary Archives (DA). Collections used include Bliss letters and Minutes of Executive Committee meetings. Specific archival numberings are listed in individual citations.

BOOKS AND JOURNAL ARTICLES Albright, W. F. 1921. “Report of the Director of the School in Jerusalem, 1920–1921.” Bulletin of the Archaeological Institute of America 12:48–61. ———. 1923. “Report of the Director of the School in Jerusalem, 1922– 1923.” Bulletin of the Archaeological Institute of America 14:92–105. ———. 1965.“ Bliss, Frederick Jones.” Dictionary of American Biography 22, supp. 2:44–45. American Oriental Society. 1889a. “Proceedings of the American Oriental Society, at its Meeting in Boston, Mass., May 22nd, 1889.” JAOS 14:cxvii–cxliv. ———. 1889b. “Proceedings of the American Oriental Society, at its Meeting in New York, N.Y., October 30th and 31st, 1889.” JAOS 14:cxlv– cciii. ———. 1893. “Proceedings of the American Oriental Society, at its Meeting in Washington, D.C., April 21st, 22nd, and 23rd, 1892.” JAOS 15: cxli– ccxxx. ———. 1900. “Proceedings of the American Oriental Society, at its Meeting in Philadelphia, Penna., 1900.” JAOS 21:193–204. ———. 1921. “Notes of Other Societies, Etc.” JAOS 41:238–39. American Palestine Exploration Society. 1871. Palestine Exploration Society, 195

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First Statement. New York. ———. 1873. Palestine Exploration Society, Second Statement. Hackensack, N.J. ———. 1875. Palestine Exploration Society, Third Statement. New York. ———. 1877. Palestine Exploration Society, Fourth Statement. New York. Anonymous. 1894. Review of A Mound of Many Cities, by Frederick Jones Bliss. American Journal of Archaeology and the History of the Fine Arts 9, no. 2:227–28. Ariel, Yaakov. 1997. “American Dispensationalists and Jerusalem, 1870– 1918.” In Ben-Ariyeh and Davis 1997, 123–34. Bar-Am, Micha, and Orna Bar-Am. 1997. “Painting with Light: Photographic Aspects of the Work of Ephraim Mose Lilien.” In Ben-Ariyeh and Davis 1997, 217–33. Barclay, James Turner. 1858. The City of the Great King; or, Jerusalem as it Was, as It Is, and as It Is to Be. Philadelphia: Challen. Ben-Ariyeh, Yehoshua. 1997. Painting the Holy Land in the Nineteenth Century. Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi; New York: Hemed Books. Ben-Ariyeh, Yehoshua, and Moshe Davis, eds. 1997. With Eyes towards Zion V: Jerusalem in the Mind of the Western World, 1800–1948. Westport, Conn.: Praeger. Benvenisti, Meron. 2001. Sacred Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy Land Since 1948. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Berlinerblau, Jacques. 1999. Heresy in the University: The Black Athena Controversy and the Responsibilities of American Intellectuals. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press. Bernal, Martin. 1987. Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization. London: Free Association; New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press. Bianchi, Martha Dickinson. 1924. The Life and Letters of Emily Dickinson. Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin. Bingham, Millicent Todd. 1955. Emily Dickinson’s Home: The Early Years as Revealed in Family Correspondence and Reminiscences, with Documentation and Comment by Millicent Todd Bingham. New York: Harper, 1955. Reprint, New York: Dover, 1967. Blakely, Jeffrey. 1993. “BA Portrait: Frederick Jones Bliss: Father of Palestinian Archaeology.” Biblical Archaeologist 56, no. 3:110–15. Bliss, Daniel. 1920. The Reminiscences of Daniel Bliss, Edited and Supplemented by His Eldest Son. New York: Fleming H. Revell. ———. 1993. Letters from a New Campus: Written to his Wife Abby and their Four Children during Their Visit to Amherst, Massachusetts, 1873–1874. Collected and annotated by Douglas and Belle Dorman Rugh and Alfred H.

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Howell. Beirut: American University of Beirut. Bliss, Frederick Jones. 1890a. “Ma’lula and its Dialect.” PEFQS (April): 74– 98. ———. 1890b. “Tadmor in the Wilderness.” Scribner’s Magazine 7, no. 4 (April): 400–17. ———. 1891a. “Excavating from its Picturesque Side,” PEFQS (October): 291–98. ———. 1891b. “Report of Excavations at Tell el-Hesy during the Spring of 1891,” PEFQS (October): 282–90. ———. 1891c. “Reports from Mr. F. J. Bliss.” PEFQS (April): 97–98. ———. 1892a. “Essays on the Sects and Nationalities of Syria and Palestine: The Maronites.” PEFQS, 71–84, 129–53, 207–18, 308–22. ———. 1892b. “Notes from Tell el Hesy.” PEFQS (January): 36–38. ———. 1892c. “Report of the Excavations at Tell el Hesy, for the Autumn Season of the Year 1891.” PEFQS (April): 95–113. ———. 1893a. “Report of the Excavations at Tell el Hesy during the Autumn of 1892.” PEFQS (April): 103–19. ———. 1893b. “Report of the Excavations at Tell el Hesy, during the Spring Season of the Year 1892.” PEFQS (January): 9–20. ———. 1894a. “[1st Report on the] Excavations at Jerusalem.” PEFQS (July): 169–75. ———. 1894b. “2nd Report on the Excavations at Jerusalem.” PEFQS (October): 243–61. ———. 1894c. A Mound of Many Cities. London: Macmillan. ———. 1894d. “Notes of the Plain of Jericho.” PEFQS (July): 175–83. ———. 1894e. “The Recent Pilgrimage to Jerusalem.” PEFQS (April): 101– 8. ———. 1895a. “3rd Report on the Excavations at Jerusalem.” PEFQS (January): 9–25. ———. 1895b. “4th Report on the Excavations at Jerusalem.” PEFQS (April): 97–108. ———. 1895c. “6th Report on the Excavations at Jerusalem.” PEFQS (October): 305–20. ———. 1895d. “Narrative of an Expedition to Moab and Gilead in March, 1895.” PEFQS (July): 203–35. ———. 1896a. “7th Report on the Excavations at Jerusalem.” PEFQS (January): 9–22. ———. 1896b. “8th Report on the Excavations at Jerusalem.” PEFQS (April): 109–22. ———. 1896c. “9th Report on the Excavations at Jerusalem.” PEFQS

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(July): 208–13. Bliss, Frederick Jones. 1896d. “10th Report on the Excavations at Jerusalem.” PEFQS (October): 298–305. ———. 1897a. “11th Report on the Excavations at Jerusalem.” PEFQS (January): 11–26. ———. 1897b. “12th Report on the Excavations at Jerusalem.” PEFQS (April): 91–102. ———. 1897c. “13th Report on the Excavations at Jerusalem.” PEFQS (July): 173–81. ———. 1897d. “14th Report on the Excavations at Jerusalem.” PEFQS (October): 260–68. ———. 1897e. “The Mounds of Palestine.” In Hilprecht 1897, 31–41. ———. 1898a. Excavations at Jerusalem, 1894–1897. Plans and illustrations by Archibald Dickie. London: Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund. ———. 1898b. “Report by F. J. Bliss, Ph.D.” PEFQS (October): 223–24. ———. 1899a.“1st Report on the Excavations at Tell es-Sâfi.” PEFQS (July): 188–99. ———. 1899b. “1st Report on the Excavations at Tell Zakarîya.” PEFQS (January): 10–36. ———. 1899c. “2nd Report on the Excavations at Tell es-Sâfi.” PEFQS (October): 317–33. ———. 1899d. “2nd Report on the Excavations at Tell Zakarîya.” PEFQS (April): 89–111. ———. 1899e. “3rd Report on the Excavations at Tell Zakarîya.” PEFQS (July): 170–87. ———. 1900a. “1st Report on the Excavations at Tell Judeideh.” PEFQS (April): 87–101. ———. 1900b. “2nd Report on the Excavations at Tell Judeideh.” PEFQS (July): 199–222 ———. 1900c. “3rd Report on the Excavations at Tell es-Sâfi.” PEFQS (January): 16–39. ———. 1900d. “4th Report on the Excavations at Tell Zakarîya.” PEFQS (January): 7–16. ———. 1900e. “Report on the Excavations at Tell Sandahannah.” PEFQS (October): 319–41. ———. 1902. “The German Excavations at Ba‘albek.” PEFQS (April): 168–75. ———. 1906. The Development of Palestine Exploration. Ely Lectures for 1903. New York: Scribner’s.

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INDEX Amherst College 46, 55–56, 86, 91 Amman 131, 174 Anderson, Henry J. 16 Anderson, Lisa 175 Andover Theological Seminary 10–11 anthropology 72–73 antisemitism 70, 76, 82, 161 AOS 5, 71–72, 75–77, 164, 171–172 APES 3–5, 13, 16, 38–39, 41, 51–69, 77, 81, 83, 85, 93, 96, 99, 104, 154, 160, 162–165, 182–183 Aqaba 12 Arbeely, Nageeb 160 Archaeological Institute of America see AIA Arculf 153 Ariel, Yaakov 24–25 Armstrong, George xiii, 132, 137, 146, 185, 191 Ashkelon 121, 136 ASOR 4, 14, 41, 52, 66, 72, 81, 115, 118, 147, 150–151, 160, 165–174, 180, 183 Assyriology 5, 13, 52, 69–73, 76–81, 83, 85, 101, 103, 114, 152, 169, 171– 172 Attini, Antonio 34 Aulick, R. 35 B Baalbek 32, 149, 165 Babylonian Exploration Fund 77–78, 81 Bacon, Benjamin W. 166–167 Baghdad 72 Balfour Declaration 176–177 Ballantine, William 59

A Abboud, Usef 59 ABCFM 9, 44, 46 Abdullah Pasha 20 Abkarius, Iskander 156 Abou Shafateer, Bishrar 59 Abu Kina’an, Yusif 109–111, 115, 131 Abu Selim, Yusif 106, 108, 131 Adams, George Jones 26 Adler, Cyrus 82 Adler, Felix 79 AIA 72, 118, 164, 168 Ain es-Samiyah 167 Ajjul, Tell el- 102 ‘Ajlan 100 Ajlun 122 Albright Inztitute 169 Albright, W. F. xiii, 1, 6, 72, 91, 93, 114–115, 147, 150, 166, 169–171, 173, 175–176, 180–181 Allenby, Gen. 172 Allon, Henry 52 Amarna tablets 113, 116 American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions see ABCFM American Colony 26, 39, 160–161 American Geographic Society 13, 53, 65 American Oriental Society see AOS American Palestine Exploration Society see APES American School of Oriental Study and Research in Palestine 164 American Schools of Oriental Research see ASOR American University of Beirut 5, 47

213

214

BIBLE, MAP, AND SPADE

Bar-Am, Micha 38 Bar-Am, Orna 38 Barclay, James Turner 34–35 Barton, George A. 160, 165 Beardsley, Richard 27, 59 Beato, Felice 39 Beirut 13, 44–46, 67 Beisan 170 Beit Guvrin 138 caves 137 Beit Jibrin 138 Beit Khalil 135–136 Beit Nettif 110 Ben-Ariyeh, Yehoshua 35–37 Benjamin of Tudela 153 Benor-Kalter, Jacob 39 Benvenisti, Meron 141 Benzinger, J. 78–79 Berlinerblau, Jacques 76 Bernal, Martin 76 Besant, Walter 64, 100 Bethel 12 Bethlehem 12, 25–26 Bianchi, Martha Dickinson 87–88, 94 biblical archaeology, defined xiv Bingham, Millicent Todd 86 Bird, Frank 46 Blackstone Petition 23, 25, 161 Blackstone, William 25, 43 Blakely, Jeffrey xiii Bliss, Abby Wood 6, 85–87, 90 Bliss, Amy Blachford 93 Bliss, Daniel 4, 46–47, 55–56, 59, 67, 85–88, 90, 92–93, 95–96, 104, 126, 156, 165–166, 183 Bliss, Frederick Jones xiii, 2, 38, 41, 78 and ASOR 165–166, 170 and father 94–95, 104 and locals 47, 107 and Petrie 105 APES overlooked by 67 as American 1, 89, 125–126 as crossover figure 2 as scientist 5 birth 85

Bross Lectures 155–156 Ely Lectures 78, 126, 133, 151–155, 183 health 90, 92–93, 113, 116, 118–119, 132, 143, 147, 150 PEF recruitment 66, 104 political activity 159, 176, 178–180 religious faith 150 retirement and death 182 sexuality 94 sources concerning xiii youth with Dickinson family 88 Bliss, Howard Sweetser 46, 87, 90–94, 119, 137, 147, 150–151, 156, 165– 166, 168, 171, 174–176, 178, 180, 185–186, 189 Bliss, Mary Wood (Dale) 91, 118–119, 182 Bliss, William Tyler 91, 119, 151, 180, 182 Bohrer, Frederick 33–34 Bonfil, Felix 39 Booth, William A. 56, 93 Botta, Paul Émile 74 Bourbon, Fabio 34 Brandeis, Louis 176 Breasted, Charles 172–173 Breasted, James Henry 71, 76, 80, 171– 173 British Empire 21, 27 Brodwin, Stanley 30 Brown, Charles Rufus 174 Brown, Francis 70, 168–169 Brown, Jerry Wayne 10 Buckingham, James Silk 20–22 Burbick, Joan 87 Burckhardt, John Lewis 20–21 Bureir 101, 107, 109–111 Burton, Lady Isabel 117 Bute, Lord 146 C Capernaum 103 Carigal, Isaac 8 Carmel, Alex 26 Ceram, C. W. 74–75

INDEX ceramic sequencing 116, 154, 181 discovery of 101 Chateaubriand, François-René de 20 Childs, Virginia 20 Church, Frederick 35, 37 Clark, Douglas R. 3 Clarke, Edward D. 19–20 Clay, Albert T. 80 Clermont-Ganneau, Charles 1, 111, 149 Cline, Eric 76, 172 Cobbing, Felicity 3, 59–60, 62–64 Cohen, Naomi 82 Columbia University 179 Conder, Claude 58–59, 62, 65, 99, 101, 111, 127 Congregationalism 8–11, 44, 87, 154 Constantine 153 Cook’s Tours 29–30, 40 Coon, Carleton S. 47 Cornell University 150, 166 D Dale, John B. 16, 35 Damascus 165 Dan, Tell 170 Daniel, Abbot 153 Daniel, Robert L. 44, 47 Darby, John Nelson 24 Davies, Philip R. 181 Davis, John 30, 34, 36–38, 40 Davis, Moshe 8, 45 Day, Alfred E. 117 Dead Sea 12–13, 15–16, 36 Delacroix, Eugène 34 Delitzsch, Friedrich 70–71, 76–77 Dennis, James 59 Deutsche Palästina-Verein 122 Dever, William xiv, 174, 181 Diakonoff, I. M. 73 Dickie, Archibald C. 130, 132, 135–136, 143, 157 Dickinson, Austin 88 Dickinson, Emily 6, 86–87, 94 Dickinson, Martha see Bianchi, Martha Dickinson Dickinson, Ned 87

215

Dickinson, Susan Gilbert 88 Dickson, Mr. 145 disguise, travelers in 20 Dispensationalism 24 Dixon, W. Hepworth 63–64 Dodge, Bayard 170 Dodge, D. Stuart 4, 56 Dog River 58, 67, 96, 165 Doolittle, Rev. 166 Dropsie College 79 Drower, Margaret 99, 102 Druze 45–47 Dudra 136 Dumas, T. R. 61 Dûr Sharrukîn 74 Duweir, Tell ed- 101, 114, 170 E Eastern Orthodoxy 10, 23, 39, 47, 153 Eastern Question 23 Ebor, W. 53 Eddy, W. K. 166 Edom 54 Edwards, Amelia 99 Efimenco, N. Marbury 48 Eglon 100–101 Egypt Exploration Fund 99 Elliot, Charles 81 Ellison, James 18 Epperson, Steven 31 Eran, Mordechai 70 Erskine, John 87, 94 Ethical Culture 79 Eusebius 153–154 F Fabri 153 Fairchild, David 81 Fairman, James 35 Faisal, King 159, 177–178 as Prince 173, 176–177 Far‘ah, Tell el- 102 Fergusson 154 Finestein, Israel 24 Finkelstein, Haim 38 Finkelstein, Louis 173 Fisher, Clarence 154, 170

216

BIBLE, MAP, AND SPADE

Fisk, Pliny 4, 10, 45–46 Frankfurter, Felix 177 Franklin, R. W. 87 Freedman, David Noel 170 Friedman, I. 23 Ful, Tell el- 12, 115, 170 G Galilee 15–16, 19, 36 Geldbach, Erich 24 Gelvin, James L. 177 geography, biblical 9 Gershoni, Israel 175 Gezer 139–140, 166 Gibeah 170 Gibson, Shimon xiii, 39, 161 Gillman, Henry 160 Gladstone, J. H. 115, 117 Glueck, Nelson 79–80 Golan 122 Goldman, Shalom 83, 160–161 Gonen, Rivka 38 Goodell, William 46 Gordon, Charles 126 Gottheil, Richard 79, 169, 179–180 Greenberg, Gershon 30, 161–162 Greenspoon, Leonard 80 Griessman, B. Eugene 24 Grotefend, Georg 73 Grove, George 49–50, 62 H Haifa 26, 122 Haines, Alanson 59 Hall, Isaac H. 10 Hallote, Rachel 6 Handy, Robert 45 Harper, Robert Francis 169 Harper, William Rainey 41 Harrison, Benjamin 25 Harvard Semitic Museum 82–83, 168 Harvard University 1, 3, 10, 77, 79, 81– 83, 167 Hauran 122 Hebron 12, 135 Herodotus 153 Hesy, Tel el- 12, 38, 41, 67, 71–72, 89,

95–119, 135–136, 143, 149, 186 Hilprecht, Hermann V. 77–81 Hirsh, Emil 79 Hitchcock, Roswell D. 13, 51, 53, 56– 57, 62–64 Hoffmeier, James K. 3, 182 Hommel, Fritz 78 Hope Colony 25 Howard, Harry N. 175–176 Howe, Irving 8 Hum, Tell (Capernaum) 103 Huntington, Ellsworth 156 Hurlbut, Lyman 41 Husn Sulayman 57 Hyamson, A. M. 23 Hyde, Orson 31 I Ismaine Bey 144–145 J Jaffa 25, 45 Jankowski, James 175 Jastrow, Morris 79–80, 82 Jazzar Pasha 18–20 Jemmeh, Tell 102 Jensen, P. 78 Jericho 122, 172 Jerome 153 Jerusalem 12, 19, 21, 23–27, 31–32, 35– 37, 39, 44–46, 48–50, 52, 54, 67, 89, 95, 100, 102–103, 106, 108, 111, 117, 121–134, 136, 154, 156– 157, 163, 174 aqueduct 128 Church of the Holy Sepulchre 19, 32, 50, 126, 152–154 Haram esh-Sharif 127 museum 143–146, 166, 182 tunneling 127 Jessup, H. H. 56, 59, 61 Jessup, Samuel 57, 59, 166 Jessup, William 166 Jewish Agricultural Society 81 Jewish Theological Seminary 173 Johns, C. N. 127 Johnson, Thomas H. 86

INDEX Jordan 174 Jordan River 8, 13–16, 36 Judeideh, Tell el- 136, 138–139 K Kalat Shergat (Nimrud) 74 Kark, Ruth 22, 27, 44, 160–162 Kellogg, Minor 35–36 Kent, Charles Foster 41, 89–90, 150 Kenyon, Kathleen 127, 130, 154 Kerak 131 Khalaf, Samir 47 Khaldi, Ibrahim Effendi 106, 108, 111, 125, 131 Khalidi, Rashid 175 Khirbet Askalen (Ashkelon) 136 Khirbet Dhikern 136 Khirbet Judeideh 136 Khirbet Nuwetin 136 Khirbet Okbur 136 Khorsabad (Dûr Sharrukîn) 74 Khoury, Ghada Y. 46 King, Henry 175 King, Jonas 46 King, Philip xiii, 3, 164, 167 King-Crane Commission 175–176 Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara 40, 82 Kitchener, H. H. 62–63, 99 Kobler, Franz 22 Kochan, Lionel 24 Koenig, Nicholas 169 Kuklick, Bruce 3, 5, 75–78, 80, 82–83 Kuyunjik (Nineveh) 74 L Lachish 100–101, 103, 114, 170 Lake Forest College 155 Lane, Col. James C. 60–61, 64 Larsen, Mogens Trolle 73–74 Lawrence, T. E. 65 Layard, Austen Henry 36, 74, 101 Lees, G. Robinson 125 Lehmann, Reinhard G. 70 Lemche, N. P. 181 Lewis, Bernard 44, 48, 175 Lewis, Edwin 92 Libo, Kenneth 8

217

Lilien, Ephraim Mose 38 Limor, Ora 17 Lipman, Vivian D. 26, 45, 50, 163 Lloyd, Seton 73 LMLK jar handles 109, 140 London Jews’ Society 48–49 Long, Burke O. 40, 90, 173 Lowell, Abbott Lawrence 82 Lynch, W. F. 3, 7, 13–16, 21, 24, 27, 35, 53–54, 58, 154 Lyon, David G. 81–83, 167–169 M Macalister, R. A. S. 110, 132, 136–140, 143, 146, 161, 163, 166, 186 Madeba 131 Maitland, Mrs. 147 Makdisi, Ussama 10, 43, 45–47 Ma‘lula, Aramaic dialect of 96 Manuel, Frank E. 175–177 Ma’oz, Moshe 25 Margolis, Max 79 Maronite Christians 45–47, 96 Martin, John 34 Mashetta 131 Maskhuta, Tell el- 99 Mather, Cotton 8 Matthews, Victor H. 3 Maudslay, Henry 127 McMurdy, J. F. 169 Megiddo 26, 39, 122–124, 170, 172 Meidum (Wasta) 105 Melville, Herman 30 Merrill, Selah 6, 26, 53, 57, 60–64, 83, 96, 126, 154–155, 159–163, 165– 167 Mesopotamian archaeology 73–75 Meyer, Mr. 63 Michelson, Bruce 31 Millard, Alan 3, 182 millenarianism see Millennialism Millennialism 14, 21–25, 43–44, 49, 76 defined 22 Miller, William 24, 156 minimalism, defined 181 Minor, Clorinda 25

218

BIBLE, MAP, AND SPADE

Mitchell, H. G. 164–165 Moab 54 Mohammed Ali 20, 22 Monis, Judah 79 Montgomery, James A. 169–170, 175 Moore, George F. 160, 165–166 Moorey, P. R. S. 3, 14 Mormons 31 Moscrop, John James 3, 49–50, 103, 125, 130, 153 Moulton, Warren J. 3, 52–53, 56–57, 59–61, 65–67, 93, 163–164, 169 Moushreck, Usef 59 Mullens, James 52 Musgrave, Michael 50 Muslih, Muhammad 175 Musselman, Lytton 104 Mutesellim, Tell el- (Megiddo) 122–123, 172–173 N Napoleon 18–19, 73 Naville, Edward 99 Nazareth 13 Negev 12 Negilah, Tell 135 Nicosia 174 Niebuhr, Carsten 73 Nies, Mrs. James B. 169 Nimrud 74 Nineveh 74, 101 Nippur 78 Nir, Yeshayahu 39 Noah, Mordechai Manuel 25 O Obenzinger, Hilton 30 Oberlin College 175 Oppenheim, A. Leo 72–73 Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago 39, 124, 170–172 P Paine, John A. 58–60, 67 Palestine defined xiv survey of 53, 59–64, 99, 154 Palestine Exploration Fund see PEF

Palestine Park, Chautauqua, N.Y. 40 Palmerston, Lord Henry 23, 49 Palmyra 32, 96 Parsons, Francis 8 Parsons, Levy 4, 10, 45–46 Paton, Lewis Bayles 166 PEF 1, 3–6, 16, 19, 29, 38, 40–41, 50– 53, 55–58, 62–66, 69, 71–72, 75, 78–79, 81, 85, 88–91, 95–97, 99– 100, 102–107, 110, 113, 115–119, 121–129, 131, 134–145, 147, 149– 152, 154, 161–167, 172, 181–182, 186, 191 Penrose, Stephen 46–47 Perez, Nissan 38 Petra 20, 32, 54 Petrie, W. M. Flinders xiii, 1–2, 5, 66, 71–72, 99–112, 114–116, 121, 124, 135–136, 149, 152, 181 Photochrom Company 39 Pickering, Thomas R. 174 pilgrimage 8, 17, 21, 126 Pinkerton, John 19 Pisgah 60 Post, George 57, 59, 96, 103–104, 119, 187 Premillennialism 24 Prince, J. Dyneley 166 Puritanism 7–9, 43, 75, 154 Q Qadi, Tell el- 170 R Rajak, Tessa xiii Ramah 135 Rawlinson, Henry Creswicke 73 Reeva, Simon 175 regional survey 136 Reisner, George 3, 83, 154 Restoration of the Jews 23–24 Ritterband, Paul 80, 82 Roberts College 4, 47, 58 Roberts, David 34 Robertson, James 39 Robinson, Edward 1, 3, 7, 9–15, 17, 27, 35–36, 51, 53, 75, 140–141, 152–

INDEX 154 Robinson, George 173 Robinson’s Arch 12 Rockefeller Museum 146, 172 Rodkey, Frederick S. 23 Root, Abiah 86 Rothschild, Lord 146 Royal Corps of Engineers 48–50 Rubin, Milka 17 Running, Leona Glidden 170 S Safed 45 Safi, Tell es- 103, 110, 117, 121, 135– 137, 139, 167 Salt, es- 59 Samaria 81, 83, 167 Samieh 167 Samuel, Herbert 173 San el-Hasar 99 Sandaannah 135, 139–140, 167 Sandeen, Ernest Robert 24 Sardanapalus 33–34 Sargent, John Singer 35 Sarna, Jonathan 25 Sayce, A. H. 77–78, 100–101, 103, 111, 113, 117 Schettler, Paul A. 31–32 Schiff, Jacob 81–83, 167–168 Schiller, Ely 38 Schliemann, Heinrich 74, 99 Schmidt, Nathaniel 150, 166 Scholch, Alexander 22 Schumacher, Gottlieb 1, 26, 107, 122– 124, 131 Sebaste 12–13 Sedouy, Jacques-Alain de 20 Seetzen, Ulrich 19–20 Seldon, Charles 177 Sellin, Ernst 1 Seymour, Thomas D. 164 Shaftsbury, Lord Ashley Cooper, seventh Earl of 22–23, 49–50, 55 Sharif, Regina 23 Shavit, Yaacov 70 Shephelah 109–110, 135–136, 140

219

Shepherd, Naomi 3, 8, 14, 18, 20, 23, 45, 49 Shiloh, Yigael 127 Silberman, Neil Asher 3, 19–20, 48, 107, 126, 174 Siloam 149 Sim, Katharine 20 Sinai 12, 36, 156 Sinuhe 153 Smith, C. Gordon 19 Smith, Eli 9–12 Smith, Geoffrey Sutton 14 Smith, George (Assyriologist) 74 Smith, George A. (Mormon traveler) 31–32 Snow, Eliza R. 31–32 Snow, Lorenzo 31–32 Society of Biblical Literature 66, 76 Sodom and Gomorrah 12 Sokolow, Nahum 23 Spafford, Anna 26 Spafford, Horatio 26, 160–161 Spurrell, F. C. J. 117 Stanhope, Lady Hester 20 Starkey, J. L. 102 Steever, Lt. Edgar, Jr. 57–60, 162 Steindorff, G. 78 Stephens, John Lloyd 29–30 Stiles, Ezra 8 Strabo 153 Stransky, Thomas 45 stratigraphy 108, 116, 154, 181 Stuart, Moses 10–11 Subbet, George 59 Suleiman of Acre 20 Sultan, Tell es- (Jericho) 122 survey, archaeological 5 Swedenborgianism 36 Sweetser, Catherine Dickinson 86 Sweetser, Joseph 86 Sweetser, Luke 86, 88 Synnott, Marcia Graham 82 Syrian Protestant College 4–6, 46–48, 55–57, 59, 61, 66–67, 85, 87, 90– 93, 96, 103–104, 106–107, 119,

220

BIBLE, MAP, AND SPADE

125, 149–151, 155–156, 162, 166, 168–171, 175–176, 183 museum 165 T Taanach 170 Tadmor see Palmyra Tanis (San el-Hasar) 99 Templars 26, 122 Thayer, J. H. 56, 66, 164 Thompson, Josiah 4, 57, 61 Thompson, Thomas L. 181 Thomson, William McClure 35, 59 Thutmose III 153, 172 Tibawi, A. L. 46 Torrey, Charles C. 164–165, 167–169, 174 triangulation 60, 162 Triggs, Tony D. 17 Troy 74, 99 Troye, Edward 35–36 Tufnell, Olga xiii–xiv, 41, 90, 105, 110, 112–113, 117, 124, 126 Twain, Mark 30–32, 34–35 Tyler, W. S. 55–56 U Umm Muarif 135 Union Theological Seminary 11, 13, 46, 51, 86, 91–93, 96, 151, 168, 189 University of Chicago 41, 77, 79 see also Oriental Institute University of Pennsylvania 77, 80, 170 University of Rochester 151 V Van Dyck, C. V. A. 59 Vereté, Mayir 22–23 Vester, Bertha Spafford 26 Vincent, John 40 Vogel, Lester I. 3, 45–46 Volney, François C., Comte de 18 W Wallace, Edwin Sherman 160

Ward, Melville 59 Ward, William 66, 78 Warren, Charles 37, 50, 100, 121, 126– 128 Wasta 105 Water Relief Fund 49 Water Relief Society 48 Watson, Charles Moore 50 Wechsler, Harold S. 79–80, 82 Weill, Raymond 156 Weinstein, James 102 Weizmann, Chaim 177 Wellhausen, Julius 76–77 Wheeler, Dr. 145 White, John Williams 164 Williams, Jay G. 3, 12–13, 36 Wilson, Charles 49, 52, 57, 62, 103, 121, 125, 128–131, 139–141, 144–145, 152–154, 157, 181, 186 Wilson, R. D. 71 Wilson, Woodrow 175–176 Windeatt, Barry 17 Woolley, C. Leonard 65 World’s Fairs 82 Chicago, 1893 40 Parliament of Religions 82 St. Louis, 1904 40 Worrell, W. H. 169–170 Wright, Theodore 164–165 Y Yale University 8, 41, 90, 150, 164, 166 Yale, William 176 Young, Brigham 31 Z Zahleh 166 Zakariyah 110, 136, 139 Zakariyah, Tell 137 Zeita, Tell ez- 100 Zevit, Ziony 77 Zionism 23, 25, 76, 79–80, 176–177, 179