Harry Pirie-Gordon and the Palestine Guide-Books

Gill, D. W. J. 2013. "Harry Pirie-Gordon and the Palestine Guide Books." Public Archaeology 11: 169-78.

Abstract
Harry Pirie-Gordon (1883–1969) was responsible for the preparation of a series of guidebooks published by the Palestine News immediately after the First World War. The information had been prepared for the British attack on Palestine. Pirie-Gordon first went to Syria in 1908 ostensibly to study Crusader castles. He took part in the survey of the Syrian coast around Alexandretta and worked as a foreign correspondent for The Times. Pirie-Gordon was commissioned in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) and initially worked through the Arab Bureau in Cairo. After a spell in Salonica, he was commissioned in the Army, returned to Cairo, and took responsibility for the publication of the Palestine News for the Egyptian Expeditionary Force. Allenby’s campaign in Palestine drew on the developing technology of aerial photography to prepare accurate maps of troop dispositions.

[DOI]

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Archaeology in the Ottoman Empire

Debbie Challis has published her study of British archaeology in the Ottoman Empire. This covers three main areas:

• Asia Minor: Lycia and Caria
• North Africa: Carthage and Cyrene
• Ionian Greece: Ephesus and Smaller Excavations

This book discusses the period before the establishment of the Asia Minor Exploration Fund (see also Funding) and the later work by students of the British School at Athens (see Gill 2004).

References
Challis, D. 2008. From the Harpy Tomb to the Wonders of Ephesus: British archaeologists in the Ottoman Empire 1840-1880. London: Duckworth. [WorldCat]
Gill, D. W. J. 2004. "The British School at Athens and archaeological research in the late Ottoman Empire." In Archaeology, anthropology and heritage in the Balkans and Anatolia: the life and times of F.W. Hasluck, 1878-1920, edited by D. Shankland, pp. 223-55, vol. 1. Istanbul: The Isis Press. [WorldCat]

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Asia Minor Exploration Fund: Funding

One of the constant refrains of the BSA Managing Committee in the early years concerned finance. Yet this is hardly surprising given the demands from other archaeological projects in the eastern Mediterranean. George Macmillan was Honorary Treasurer of the Asia Minor Exploration Fund (AMEF) and made constant appeals:

• 1882: £520 raised
• 1883: £300 spent on travels in Anatolia; further appeal for £500.
  
• 1890: appeal for £500 to cover the 1890 season
  
• 1891: appeal for £400 to cover the 1891 season
  
• 1893: £150 raised (of which £100 from the Royal Geographical Society)
  
• 1893: appeal for £2000 to excavate at Derbe or Lystra

The BSA students were often involved with the work of AMEF from its earliest years, notably David Hogarth, John A.R. Munro, and Vincent W. Yorke.

The appeal for funds took a nationalistic tone:

It would be little to the credit of England if want of funds should oblige Professor Ramsay to leave the completion of his task to foreign hands. (1890)

One might wish that a foreign nation had not stepped in to a field which, with more liberality on the part of Englishmen, could have been covered completely by our own explorers, but the work is so vast that in the interests of knowledge the application of foreign zeal and money is not altogether to be regretted. (1891)

Very much yet remains to be done, and if the work so well begun by a small band of Englishmen is not to be left unfinished or transferred to foreign hands, English liberality must supply the funds necessary for its continuance. (1893)

It is little wonder that the BSA was only raising some £500 a year when there were such competing demands on the same subscribers.

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Asia Minor Exploration Fund

The Asia Minor Exploration Fund was an initiative of the Hellenic Society. It was established during 1882, and by 1883 the Fund had raised £500.

The committee consisted of:

• James Fergusson (1808-86), architectural historian
  
• David Binning Monro (1836-1905), Provost of Oriel College. [Later on the Managing Committee of the BSA]
• Henry Francis Pelham (1846-1907). [Later on the Managing Committee of the BSA]
• George Augustin Macmillan (1855-1936). Honorary Treasurer and Secretary. [Later on the Managing Committee of the BSA]

Fergusson had links with Heinrich Schliemann, and published on Halicarnassus and Ephesus.

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