The Missions would be one of the breeding places for biblical archaeolo-
gists in the nineteenth century. In contrast to other countries, therefore,
religion was one of the main reasons why so many archaeologists lived locally.
Unique to this part of the world were the members of religious colonies and
missions who engaged in archaeology. A selection of these included Eli Smith
(1801–57), Frederic Klein, Conrad Schick (1822–1901), and Gottlieb Schu-
macher (1857–1925). TheWrst of them, Smith, lived in Beirut. He was an
American-born Presbyterian minister, a student of Andover Theological
Seminary who pioneered the translation of the Bible into Arabic and helped
Edward Robinson in his eVorts to chart the geography of the Bible (see
below). Frederic Klein, who discovered the Moabite Stone, was in a similar
situation, but cannot be said to have been an archaeologist: he had been
preaching in Palestine for about seventeen years before he found it. The
German Conrad Schick (1822–1901) arrived in Jerusalem as a member of
the German religious brotherhood, the Bruderhaus. In hisWfty years living in
Jerusalem he made many contributions to archaeology supporting the work
of the British Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF). Gottlieb Schumacher, who
had been born in America, had moved to Palestine as a child with his family as
a member of the Tempelgesellschaft (‘Temple Association’), a Swabian Prot-
estant pietest sect which aimed to colonize Palestine with Christians. During
the nineteenth century not many Jews lived in Palestine, or in any of the other
countries under consideration in this chapter (although their numbers grew
steadily throughout this period). Archaeology undertaken by Jews living in
the area increased after the First World War, and especially after the founding
of the Hebrew University from 1925 (Silberman, pers. comm. 19.12.2004).
INFORMAL IMPERIALISM AND RACISM
IN THE BIBLICAL LANDSInformal imperialism in the biblical landsThe major inXuence of religion in the archaeology of the biblical lands does
not mean that politics did not have an inXuence. Indeed, in this area of the
world it would be diYcult to separate the two. Imperialism was clearly a
powerful force. Most of the territory was oYcially still under the rule of
the Ottoman Empire, but during the nineteenth century Palestine, Mesopo-
tamia, and Egypt came under the axis of the British colonial world in some
capacity—Egypt only from 1881 and theWrst two not oYcially until the First
World War. With the control of the area, Britain sought to secure its trade and
134 Archaeology of Informal Imperialism