Aims and objectives
The main goal of EAP1544 was to digitise the historical rare books and archival material from the Council for British Research in the Levant’s (CBRL) two research institutes: the Kenyon Institute in Sheikh Jarrah, Jerusalem, and CBRL Amman Institute in Jordan. These collections relate to CBRL’s founding institute: the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem (BSAJ).
The collection at the Kenyon Institute (KI) Library and CBRL Amman Institute (AI) library selected for digitisation included 99 rare books, dating back to the 16th century, and other archival material. These unique items are of extreme historical importance, documenting the history, geography, archaeology and cultural heritage of Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Trans-Jordan, Sudan and Egypt. Digitisation will help preserve this historical material for current and future generations.
Outcomes
The project produced high-quality digital copies of 99 rare books (dating from 1619 to 1950) and 33,000 pages of archival material (dating back from 1919 -1950) from Kenyon Institute Library in Jerusalem and the CBRL Amman Institute Library. The rare books span many subjects, but the discipline of archaeology is particularly well represented. This is unsurprising as the material is associated with the British School of Archaeology (BSAJ), an institution established when Britain was a world-leader in the nascent field of archeology. The BSAJ documents are particularly interesting because the school was embedded within the British Mandate government in Palestine (1922-48). They shared personnel, including the High Commissioner and Head of the Department of Antiquities for Palestine. Moreover, the collection documents the Levant before modern nation-states were formed and includes publications from Mandatory Palestine.
Key items in the digitised book collection are:
- A guide-book to northern Palestine and southern Syria: Gilead (Belka), Bashan (Hauran) and northern Galilee
- The excavations at Dura-Europos Final Report IV: Part I Fascicle 1 The Green Glazed Pottery
- Palestine Museum, Jerusalem Bulletin No. 1-4 (1924-1927)
- Palestine and Trans-Jordan
- The structural history of the Aqsa Mosque: a record of archaeological gleanings from the repairs of 1938-1942
- BSAJ Catalogue: First List of Books in the Library, December 1922
- Petra: its history and monuments
- Jericho Reports by John Garstang
- Treatise on the Holy Land
- The Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities of Palestine 1934-1935
- Palestine Museum, Jerusalem Bulletin No. 1-4 (1924-1927)
- The mosaics of the Dome of the Rock at Jerusalem and of the Great Mosque at Damascus
- The Excavation of Gezer 1902-1905 and 1907-1901 (v2)
- Histoire et Voyage de la Terre-Sainte
- Palestine: Description Geographique, Historique et Archeologique
- Jericho: die Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen
- Ägypten und der Sûdân, Handbuch für Reisende
- Claudi Ptolemaei Geographiam
- Itinerary of the Jerusalemites and Syrians: in which the manners and institutions of the various nations
- Tarikh al-Hurub al-Muqadasa fi al-Mashriq al-Maduwa Harb al-Salib
-
The Christian Ceramics in the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem
Archival collection:
- Civil administration in Palestine
- Report by His Majesty's Government to the Council of the League of Nations on the Administration of Palestine and Trans-Jordan For the Year 1927
- J.W. Crowfoot excavations photographic of Gerash in the 1920s.The Album contains 114 black and white print
-
Excavations photography in Sabastia (Sameria)
Digital archival copies in TIFF format of the rare books and archival materials from the holdings held at CBRL’s institutes in Al-Quds-Jerusalem and Amman were created as a result of this project. The digital files are held on CBRL’s central cloud server, backed up locally. These copies are available in-house to students, researchers and the general public during regular library hours. Valuable for historians and decolonial scholars, the digital material is also highly significant for the many Palestinians unable to access their own heritage due to restrictions on movement. The original collections remain in the holdings of the library at CBRL’s Kenyon Institute Library in Al-Quds Jerusalem and at the CBRL Amman Institute Library. The Kenyon Library and Amman Institute Library intends to keep the rare books in its collections.
The project lead and consultant Qasem Abu Harb trained intensively staff in Amman and Jerusalem. The project members were provided with an opportunity to expand their knowledge in digitisation procedures; they became familiar with digitisation guidelines, workflow, metadata, digitisation standards, the converting process for calibration of the digitisation equipment and the incorporation of colour and measurement targets.
The project outcomes will be further disseminated to academics, librarians and archivists through several conference presentations. They will be publicised on the CBRL website and in archivists and librarian’s associations locally, regionally and internationally. On 28 July 2024, the CBRL Amman team presented the project at the Heritage & Archaeology Diwan no. 8, an annual joint event to increase awareness on heritage and archaeology research, co-organised between the international institutes in Amman, Jordan and the Hashemite University.
While the Levant faces many challenges, the team members are particularly proud to have completed the project under the difficult political circumstances since October 2023.
