The Photographs of the American Palestine Exploration Society

Illustrated in b/w with 15 figures and 180 plates. This volume includes over 150 never previously published photographs of archaeological sites in the Middle East (Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Israel) taken in 1875 by photographer Tancrede Dumas for the American Palestine Exploration Society. The volume additionally tells the complete history of the American Palestine Exploration Society, which functioned in the 1870s and worked together with the British Palestine Exploration Fund to survey and map archaeological sites in Ottoman Palestine. The interaction of the two societies is examined, and Dumas's photographs are put into a comparative context alongside those of contemporaries such as Bonfils. These photographs preserve the appearance of many of these sites when they were first seen by westerners, before urban development and tourism changed the nature of the regions. Photographs include the ruins of Baalbek, Jerash, parts of Jerusalem, and numerous other sites.