Add MS 69848

SURVEY OF WESTERN PALESTINE: working papers relating to the Conder and Kitchener survey of Palestine; 1872-1877. The main part of the papers consists of sheets of calculations for bearings, co-ordinates, distances and heights. There is also a working map of the survey area at a scale of 4 miles to the inch drawn on tracing linen, with place names and heights marked, and other data marked in red, with two preliminary drawings, and two diagrams showing the system of map sheets for the area. The survey was carried out by officers of the Royal Engineers under the auspices of the Palestine Exploration Fund, beginning in 1871. In 1872 the commander of the expedition was invalided back to England and his place as leader taken by Lieut. Claude Regnier Conder. Lieut. H. H. Kitchener, later Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, joined the expedition in 1874. Like Conder, he was a replacement for a member of the survey party who fell ill and died. None of the present papers are by Conder or Kitchener themselves, although a later hand has attributed some of the documents to Kitchener. The survey was completed in 1877 and the finished map photo-lithographed by the Ordnance Survey in 1880, while the Survey of Western Palestine was published by the Palestine Exploration Society (1881-1884) in seven volumes. For a full account of the survey, see the British Museum exhibition catalogue by J. N. Tubb and R. L. Chapman, Archaeology and the Bible (1990). Presented by the Mapping and Charting Establishment (Map Research and Library Group) of the Royal Engineers, Oct. 1989.

Ink and pencil on paper and linen; ff. i+128. Papers of various sizes, max. 390 x 280mm. (folded), 1010 x 720mm. (unfolded)