time. It concluded that Salomon (several mentions in 1 Kings and 2 Chron-
icles) had used routes from Aqaba to the Mediterranean for his trading
enterprises, and not those from Suez to Pelusium (Silberman 1982: ch. 18).
From the 1880s, and especially after 1900, the sponsorship of excavations
provided by the British PEF was complemented by that of other societies such
as the German Oriental Society, the German Society for the Study of Palestine
(the Deutsche Pala ̈stina-Verein) and the American School for Oriental Study
and Research. Between 1902 and 1914, the German Oriental Society funded
the work of the Lutheran Ernst Sellin (1867–1946), Professor of the Old
Testament at the University of Vienna. His aim was to undertake archaeo-
logical research in order to conWrm the primary historical value of the Bible.
He excavated Canaanite and early Israelite cultures in Shechem (mentioned in
Jud. 9:46–9), and Taanach (in Jos. [Joshua] passim, 1 Ch. [Chronicles]; Jud.
passim, 1 Kings). His work has been criticized for employingWeld methods
which were primitive by the standards of the time (Moorey 1991: 33; Silber-
man 1999a: 4–5). His later work between 1907 and 1909, and in 1911 at Tell
es-Sultan, ancient Jericho, was properly staVed and produced good results
although some errors were introduced (Moorey 1991: 33–4).
For its part, the German Society for the Study of Palestine (Deutsche
Pala ̈stina-Verein), which had already subsidized some unsuccessful excav-
ations on the south-east hill in Jerusalem in 1881 by the Leipzig Professor of
the Old Testament, Hermann Guthe (1849–1936), decided to fund excavations
at a site considered to be as prestigious as others that were then being dug in
Egypt and Mesopotamia. With this in mind, the site of Tell el-Mutesellim,
ancient Megiddo, was chosen. In the years 1903–5, Gottlieb Schumacher and
Immanuel Benzinger (the author of a book onHebra ̈ische Archa ̈ologie, 1894)
were selected to work on the excavations. Gottlieb Schumacher (1857–1925),
whose family background has already been mentioned above, had worked as
an engineer surveying for a planned railway between Haifa and Damascus. In
the 1880s he had mapped Transjordan and published his archaeological
Wndings both in the journal (Zeitschrift) of the German Society for the
Study of Palestine and in the Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement.
During his excavations with Benzinger from 1903 to 1905 at Megiddo a seal
was found bearing the name of King Jeroboam, a monarch mentioned in 2
Kings 14:23–5. Again, no stratigraphic control was undertaken and errors of
interpretation were made (Moorey 1991: 34).
The American School for Oriental Study and Research had been founded in
1900 and was backed by a coalition of twenty-one universities, colleges and
seminaries. Thanks to the sponsorship of an American Jewish banker, Jacob
SchiV, the school was able to send a team in 1908–10 to excavate Samaria. This
team included Reisner, Fisher and Lyon. George Andrew Reisner (1867–1942) was,
154 Archaeology of Informal Imperialism