committed suicide in 1884) and for the scroll fragments, which had most
probably been burnt in a houseWre while in the possession of theirWnal
private owner (Silberman 1982: ch. 13).
Schools, journals, and controlled excavations (1890–1914)In 1890, the French Dominican E ́cole Pratique d’E ́tudes Bibliques (The
Practical School of Biblical Studies, shortened to E ́cole Biblique) in Jerusalem
was founded by Father Marie Joseph Lagrange (1855–1938) based at the
Dominican Monastery of St Stephen, Jerusalem. Its aim was to assist the
reading of the Bible within the physical and cultural context, and the land-
scape in which it had been written. It did not become involved in any major
excavations at this time, but helped research through its learned journal the
Revue Bibliqueof 1892; the monograph seriesE ́tudes Bibliques, launched in
1900; and the syntheses produced by its members, theWrst of which was
published in 1909 by Louis-Hugues Vincent (1872–1960) with the title
Canaan. Other members were the Semitic epigraphist Antoine-Raphae ̈l
Savignac (1874–1951) and the geographer and historian Felix-Marie Abel
(1878–1953), as well as the Assyriologist Edouard-Paul Dhorme (1881–1966)
who was theWrst to decipher Ugaritic (Gran-Aymerich 1998: 348).
Many consider Flinders Petrie’s excavations at Tell el-Hesi in 1890 as a
turning point in Palestinian archaeology. Petrie had no formal training in
archaeology, but he had become interested in it through the inXuence of his
family (his mother collected coins, fossils and minerals and his maternal
grandfather had been an explorer in Australia). He went to Egypt in 1880
and was appointed an explorer for the British-funded Egypt Exploration
Society from 1883 to 1886 (Chapter 5). In Egypt he excavated several sites
at the Delta. InXuenced by the eugenics theories of Galton (Chapter 13),
Petrie interpreted the presence of imported Greek pottery as proof of Euro-
pean and Middle Eastern racial contact and conquest in antiquity and pub-
lished his ideas in his bookRacial Types from Egypt(1887) (Silberman 1999b:
72–3). In 1890 he was brieXy employed by the Palestine Exploration Fund. He
decided to excavate in Tell el-Hesi in the belief that it was Lachish (Tell el-Hesi
was later identiWed as ancient Eglon). His excavations were of key importance
for archaeology in Palestine. Petrie’s mastering of stratigraphy and typology,
techniques which he had learned from Pitt Rivers, allowed him to establish a
reliable sequence. This was based on the chronology provided by pottery of
Egyptian origin, which he knew well. His recognition of tells as sites formed
by the accumulation of several archaeological layers was also fundamental for
later research in the area (Moorey 1991: 26–8; Silberman 1982: ch. 14).
152 Archaeology of Informal Imperialism