Palestine Exploration Fund

The Palestine Exploration Fund is a scientific organization dedicated to research of the Levant.

The Palestine Exploration Fund ( PEF) was founded in 1865 by British archaeologist Bible (including George Grove ). The purpose of the PEF, it is the study of the archeology, history, culture, topography and geology to support Palestine and the entire Levant. On behalf of the PEF cartographic and archaeological expedition were carried out to Palestine in 1867. On behalf of the Funds, therefore, Horatio Herbert Kitchener, Charles Warren, Leonard Woolley, William Flinders Petrie, Edward Henry Palmer, Claude Reignier Conder and Lawrence of Arabia traveled to the Middle East. The Palestine Exploration Fund was so instrumental in the exploration of this area. Those collected by the later Minister of War Kitchener surface topography as well as the local flora and fauna of the country, were published in the eight-volume work, The Survey of Western Palestine Including a Survey of Eastern Palestine.

Expeditions:

• Jerusalem (1867 - 1870) by Charles Warren and Henry Birtles
• Western Palestine (1871 - 1878) by Claude R. Conder and Horatio H. Kitchener
• Tell el- Hesi (1890 - 1893) by Sir William Flinders Petrie and Frederick J. Bliss
• Zin Archaeological Survey (1913 -1914) by Sir Leonard Woolley and Lawrence of Arabia

In the early years, first of all officers of the British Army have been responsible for the implementation of the expeditions. The expedition of 1913, in the northern Sinai, also served to obtain information from British intelligence before the First World War. In January 1914, Lawrence of Arabia joined in this expedition.

Today, the Palestine Exploration Fund is an organization that publishes publications about the cartographic and archaeological exploration of the area regularly. As a magazine of the Fund three times the Palestine Exploration Quarterly appears in the year.