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Nineteenth-Century Maps of Palestine: Dual-Purpose Historical EvidenceAuthor(s): I. W. J. HopkinsReviewed work(s):Source: Imago Mundi, Vol. 22 (1968), pp. 30-36Published by: Imago Mundi, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1150433 .Accessed: 20/03/2012 15:24

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Nineteenth-century maps of Palestine:

dual-purpose historical evidence

By I. W. J. Hopkins, University of Durham

SUMMARY

The accurate mapping of Palestine did not take place until the 19th century, but is of particular interest to historians as the maps were largely compiled in order to facilitate the understanding of the land in ancient times. The major surveys of

Jacotin, Wilson and Conder and Kitchener were all concerned not only with depicting the contemporary topography, but also conditions in the Biblical and Classical eras. Much detail of ancient ruins, roads and tells were marked, and the 1-inch map of the Palestine Exploration Fund, surveyed in the 1870s, is still superior to modern mapping as a source for the location of these remains. The high accuracy of this map, as those of Schumacher and Wilson in particular, render the abstraction of data

relatively easy. In addition to ancient remains, much contemporary information on land use and settlement was plotted, although the accuracy of this was not great on the maps of the earlier part of the century. With the economic developments in Palestine in the last century and the Zionist settlement in the present century, these maps are invaluable documentary evidence. Thus we have a collection of maps of all scales from town plans to small-scale thematic maps, which give dual-

purpose historical evidence, i.e. for both the times in which they were produced and for the Biblical and Classical eras.

The location of the much fought-over area we know as Palestine has been such a crucial one in the Middle East that it is full of historical interest. In addition, its importance is greatly enhanced by the part it has played in the formation and thinking of three of the world's great religions. It was this antiquarian interest which

inspired much of the exploration and mapping of Palestine and surrounding countries. Consequently, although the accurate cartographic delineation of the countries of the Middle East came rather later than was the case in Western Europe, when it did arrive it was largely inspired by historians, Bible students and exponents of the

young science of archaeology. As a result, we find that the maps of Palestine, especially those of the 19th

century, not only reproduce contemporary conditions, but also portray considerable detail of relevance to earlier and particularly Biblical periods.

The cartographic history of Palestine has been so little written of in English that a brief review of 19th

century developments is necessary before preceeding to discuss the evidence these maps give.1 In 1818, Jacotin's map, which was produced during Napoleon's campaign in the area, was made public (it had been

published earlier but not released), and although it contained many inaccuracies it sparked off a lively interest in the area. It was also the first attempt at an instrumental survey of Palestine. Many maps were compiled in the early 19th century aimed at the religious market (as can be seen by some of the titles), including those of Reichard (1816), Assheton (1820), Walker (1821), Berghaus (1835) and Tobler (1836). There was also a spate of Bible atlases such as those of Lapie (1812), Palmer (1831), Zimmerman (1948), and Menke (1868). Edward Robinson and other explorers of Palestine provided additional first hand information about the middle of the

century, and Kiepert was able to compile maps from their data. Mansell produced some important coastal

surveys and Victor Guerin published useful maps, but in 1858 Van de Velde marked a real transition towards

survey rather than compilation in his map at a scale of 1 : 315,000, which was the standard map of this part of the world until the Palestine Exploration Fund map was published. It was based in part on other maps but included much material from his own observations.

In 1865, Charles Wilson produced his survey of Jerusalem, which, although covering only a small area, showed what historians and Biblical scholars, as well as geographers, could gain from an accurate topographical map. With a greater detail and accuracy than previous plans of the city, it formed the foundation stone for the

explorations of Wilson, Warren and other scholars in the second half of the century. As an attempt to achieve similar results over the whole country, the Palestine Exploration Fund sent out a survey party under Claude

1 The only full account of the cartographic history of Palestine is I. Shattner, Mappath Eretz- Yisrael ve toledothehah (In Hebrew). (Bialik Institute, 1951). Other useful works are: F. J. Bliss, The Development of Palestine Exploration. (London, 1906); H. V. Hilprecht, Explorations in Bible Lands during the 19th Century (Edinburgh, 1903); Eretz Israel, Vol. 2, 1953. (A number of articles in Hebrew); and Rohricht, Bibliotheca Geographica Palaestinae. (Berlin, 1890).

30

AC RE, ZN AZ RETtl I E JOI Tt)A IN

Fig. 1. Jacotin's map of Palestine, 1818.

Conder (later joined by H. H. Kitchener), from 1872 to 1877, which produced the best maps by far of Palestine

prior to the Mandate period. At a scale of 1 inch to a mile, the map of Western Palestine depicted accurately the country as it then was and also showed as many ruins, mounds and ancient sites as possible, all of which were carefully examined by the surveyors.2 An attempt to continue the survey east of the Jordan failed

although a small area was mapped. Within the framework of these maps, minor surveys filled in the details. Wilson's Ordnance Survey of Sinai and the mapping of Palmer and Tyrwhitt Drake in the Negev and Arabah

produced topographical and historical information about the little known regions to the south. Dr. Gottlieb Schumacher produced some good maps east of the Jordan;and Conder, Schick and other workers drew up plans of towns and sites of historical interest. At the beginning of the First World War, Capt. S. F. Newcombe

surveyed the Negev, and the Ottoman General Staff made a reconnaissance survey into the area. The main maps dealt with here, however, will be the Palestine Exploration Fund Map (abbreviated to P.E.F. map) and those of Wilson, Van de Velde, Kiepert and Jacotin, as these are the most important and the most accurate.

An analysis of these maps will indicate how useful they are as historical evidence for the 19th century

2 The 1: 63,360 map in 26 sheets was published in 1878 and accompanied by several volumes of memoirs. The most useful references to the P.E.F. survey are: C. R. Conder, Palestine (1889); C. R. Conder, Tentwork in Palestine (1879); T. Saunders, Introduction to the Survey of Western Palestine (1881); Sir C. F. Arden-Close, Claude Regnier Conder and the Survey of Palestine, Empire Survey Rev. (1944), and I. D. Hart, Surveys of Palestine, World of the Bible (P.E.F., 1965).

31

Fig. 2. Palestine Exploration Fund Map, 1879.

-3 P.E.F,, Tenty-one Years Work in the Holy Land, p. 127.

32

covered by the French army was properly surveyed.4 Many areas are left blank on his map and the Hill

Country lacks detail. His Dead Sea coast is very inaccurate, and Jerusalem was fixed by using Niebuhr's astronomical observations. The Mediterranean coastline, especially south of Joppa, was very poorly known until Mansell mapped it correctly in 1860-62, and the Sea of Galilee was wrongly shown on many quite late

maps. The Ezziyeh Basin south of Tyre, to take another example, was shown only generally on Kiepert's map and wrongly on Van de Velde's. This unreliability makes the extraction of historical evidence difficult. The P.E.F. map was by far the most accurate in fixing positions on the earth grid, and it is a pity that nothing comparable is available of earlier date, apart from the coastal and Galilee sections of Jacotin's map. The P.E.F.

survey was founded on a triangulation which covered the country quite thickly from the latitude of the southern end of the Dead Sea to just north of Tyre, and the smaller survey east of the Jordan was linked with that to the west. This gives this series of maps a consistency lacking in the older maps, where accuracy varies from area to area. A cartotest on the P.E.F. map revealed a block shift of 19 seconds to the west and an

average discrepancy of 1.1 secs. to the north in latitude, when compared with the 1 : 100,000 maps of the

Survey of Palestine. This should be kept in mind when extracting information. Although not as accurate as the

contemporary Ordnance Survey maps, Conder's work can be taken with confidence for use as a source in map compilation. It is certainly far more accurate than Jacotin's map which had a 20 minute discrepancy in

longitude, and even the Irbid map of Schumacher is as much as 10 seconds out in latitude and 30 seconds in

longitude. For relief information it is best to avoid 19th century maps, as only Wilson's work was contoured

accurately. Jacotin depicts relief by the familiar 'caterpillars', and Van de Velde's hill shading is sketchy. The P.E.F. map has a delicate hill shading which compares very well with the hachures on some 19th century Ordnance Survey maps, but apart from a few spot-heights there was no attempt to depict accurate relief. A check on the heights shown on the Samaria sheet revealed an average difference of 35 feet compared with the

corresponding Survey of Palkstine map. Evidence of land use and vegetation is available for the 19th century in these maps although not, of course, for ancient times. In fact most maps are rather vague with this

type of information. Wilson's map of Jerusalem and Environs (1 : 10,000) is the best example of evidence for

vegetation. Small pictorial symbols are shown on the P.E.F. map, but except for the gardens around towns the areas are undefined and there is no key. A good picture of the extent of gardens around Lydda and Ramleh is, however, available. Jacotin's map shows cultivated areas which are very useful as the period around 1800 is

usually regarded as a time of economic depression and gross underemployment of land and resources in the Ottoman Empire. Among the best maps showing land use are those published by the German Deutsche Palastina Verein which are in vivid colour and very useful.

For the historian, settlement and communications are probably the most important items on a map, and it is here that the dual-purpose nature of these maps is brought out. Valuable evidence is obtained both for the

important 19th century developments and for the Biblical and classical periods. Apart from the holy places, settlement and roads are not depicted strongly on maps of Palestine in the early part of the 19th century, but later on they become important, especially as it was realized that modern villages were often the direct descendants of Biblical places and in many cases retained the same or a similar name. Eventually every ruin, tell, and squalid village was put on the map as scholars searched for the evidence of ancient sites. The British Ordnance Survey has a good record for placing historical information on maps, but many of these maps of Palestine had this as their main aim, and this does not refer to the Bible atlases and other specifically historical

compilations. For both the 19th century and for ancient evidence, the P.E.F. map is again by far the best, partly

because of its larger scale and in part because of the thoroughness and accuracy of the surveyors, Conder and Kitchener. It distinguished between major and minor roads then existing (they were in fact tracks rather than

permanent highways), and Conder also marked Roman routes as far as they were known. As evidence for 19th century settlement, this map is unique. It was produced just before the large Jewish emigrations which culmi-

On Jacotin see: D. H. Kallner (Amiran), Jacotin 's Map of Palestine. PEQ (1944); Y. Karmon, An Analysis of Jacotin's

Map of Palestine, Israel Exploration Jnl. (1960).

33

nated in the vast expansion of settlement after 1948 and is thus very valuable for comparison with Mandate

maps and Israeli maps to trace the course of settlement growth in Palestine. The P.E.F. map showed over 10,000 place-names in all, compared with the 1,712 of Robinson's Index, and even Van de Velde's map showed

only 1,800 places. Many villages previously unknown to European scholars were revealed and put on the map for the first time through the work of Conder and Kitchener, west of the Jordan, and Conder, Schumacher, Warren, and Palmer east of the river. Comparisons with Survey of Israel maps are interesting here. The P.E.F. reduced map, at 3/8 inch to a mile, shows 94% of the amount of detail on the Survey of Israel 1: 250,000 map, so good comparisons between the 1870s and the 1960s are possible. What is more interesting, however, is that the P.E.F. map (in this case the 1-inch version) includes about 20 % more information on historical sites -

tells, ruins, caves, etc. - than the Survey of Israel 1 : 100,000 maps. Such was Conder's attention to detail that he can mark 19th-century oil mills and ancient stone coffins on the same map. So we see that Conder and Kitchener depicted the evidence which they saw on the ground for the ancient geography of Palestine as well as giving the information one would normally expect in a topographical map of the late 19th century. Consequently not only is the P.E.F. series of maps a uniquely accurate set of documents for the study of 19th

century Palestine, but it is still the best topographic source we have for ancient times. With the Survey of Palestine maps no longer current, until the Survey of Israel release the 1 : 10,000 and 1 : 20,000 maps they are

preparing,5 the P.E.F. 1-inch and 3/8-inch maps will continue to provide the best source available for historical evidence of ancient times in cartographic form. Its information on caves, ruins, and for the location of churches and mosques, is still the best we have.

To go back to Jacotin, we find that while useful comparisons can be made between his map and that of

Conder, in order to examine 19th century development, it is possible only in detail in Galilee and along the coastal plain. The most important routes and villages are shown on the French maps, and the large number of khans (inns) shows up well in the Galilee section. This is very useful for comparison with later maps, as we know that the number of khans declined markedly in the 19th century. Evidence for earlier periods is not, however, thick on this map, although the most important ruins and tells are shown, e.g. Caesarea. Neither

Kiepert nor Van de Velde drew maps at a scale large enough to show much detail, although towns and the

larger villages are shown as are the most important ruins and tells. Schumacher's maps east of the Jordan are

largely concerned with historical remains, and ruins of ancient sites are frequently marked, but 19th century settlement is shown as well. By the time we get to Newcombe's map of the Negev, surveyed 1913-14, the interest in Biblical data can be seen to be giving place to a more intense concern for the contemporary cultural

geography. Of course, when dealing with ancient sites, care has to be taken with identifications. These maps show, as

the century progresses, not only more sites but also a more correct identification of them. Current place-names were generally collected accurately, especially by Conder, but ancient ruins and tells were often given Biblical names with little careful study of topographical evidence or the Biblical text. Kiepert, for example, whose names are usually good, places Kadesh Bamea about 35 miles south of the Dead Sea (Map of Lower Egypt and Sinai 1856), whereas scholars now locate it at 'Ain Kadeis', near the Israel/Egypt border. Jacotin's map is good for names in so far as he gives alternatives to the larger places where the name has often changed, and so he

gives not only conventional European names in many cases, but also the classical and Arab names, the latter in Arabic script. Thus Acre has four names attached to it. However, Jacotin's Arabic names have been criticised for inaccuracy, and many places are just named 'village'. Van de Velde identified many new places of Biblical interest in his travels, e.g. Aenon or Bir Salim. Any Biblical names on the earlier maps should, however, be taken with caution. Conder collected the current Arabic names for the places on his maps, which on the face of it makes them appear to be less useful, compared with Jacotin's. In fact, this makes the P.E.F. map even more useful as evidence of the current Arab place-name, and the sheets are not cluttered up with doubtful identifi- cations. The Arabic name is often a corruption of the ancient name and this fact has helped enormously in

locating Biblical, Classical and Byzantine sites. Conder himself reckoned that through place-names he was able

5 Survey of Israel catalogue 1964.

34

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to add 180 ancient sites to the map of Palestine in the area of his survey,6 including such important ones as

Debir, Megiddo and Gilgal (still disputed). Its influence can be seen on the Bible Society's map of 1887, and it enabled the boundaries of the twelve tribes of Israel to be laid down with greater accuracy.

As the century progressed, more accurate identifications of ancient sites were made, and the virtue of the P.E.F. map was that, instead of giving his opinion on the map, Conder reproduced the actual topography of the 1870s in cartographic form and left his opinions to the voluminous memoirs. So the map can still be used as evidence for ancient sites as well as for 19th-century development, without the fear of being given false evidence.

When we look at town plans, the interest in ancient times again becomes very apparent, for a large number of quite insignificant places were mapped simply because of the existence of local ruins. Yet these plans also

provide extremely valuable evidence for urban development in the Ottoman period. The German Society, in

particular, published some very fine coloured plans. The 'Karte der Umgebung von Jafa' (with a plan of the

town) by Theodor Sandel is one of the best, showing not only settlement and roads but also land use.

However, evidence from maps for urban development in the 19th century is only really available in detail for Jerusalem. Many maps were drawn of the city, with particular emphasis on the ancient remains in order to

attempt a solution to the heated problems of the topography of the city in Biblical and Classical times. The

maps were, however, of uneven quality. Niebuhr's plan looks poor compared with his maps of other places in the Middle East. However, in the 19th century, maps become increasingly accurate and useful comparisons can be made. Thus by comparing the early 19th-century maps of Tobler, Kiepert of the Ordnance Survey of Aldrich and Symonds (1841), which show the city largely confined within the walls - and with open spaces even there - with those of Pierrotti (1864), Wilson (1865), and Schick (1895), the growth of housing to the west and north, and then later to the south-west around the railway station, can be clearly seen. Any identific- ations of ancient Zion and Ophel, or of the ancient springs, should be treated with caution, however. Here Wilson scored, rather as Conder did later, by recording accurately the contemporary topography with the ruins and remains correctly located, enabling later research to sort out an identification of the ancient sites on a firm

cartographic base. Many plans were drawn by Schumacher - for example his plan of Madaba - by Conrad Schick and by Conder, but it was in the main the ancient sites that they were interested in, so these plans provide evidence for old mounds, walls and ruins and only incidentally for the habitations of the last century. Other

gaps were filled in towards the end of the century too numerous to mention, although the work of Hull the

geologist, of Canon Tristram the naturalist and of de Vogue deserve mention. These maps filled in some of the

gaps with evidence for the contemporary topography and for ancient sites. In this brief analysis of the maps of Palestine in the last century, the emphasis has been on the value of

these documents as historical evidence, and many important cartographers and explorers have not even been mentioned. Yet, even using just the most vital maps of the period, it can be seen that there is important evidence here in cartographic form, both for the 19th century and for more ancient times. By careful use of the larger-scale and better produced maps information is available for the geography of Palestine towards the end of the Ottoman period, and there is a wealth of material of great use to the scholars of ancient times. Many of them could in fact be called topographical maps with a historical theme. Students of the 19th-century might be regretful that these mappers were perhaps more concerned with illustrating the book of Joshua than in helping future historians of the Ottoman Empire, in the same way as many of the sponsors of the larger surveys were disgruntled at their slow, scientific and unspectacular nature. The result, however, is that although the mapping of Palestine followed a long time behind that of Western Europe, the maps that were produced do

help historians of both ancient and modern times, and this gives them a character that is, perhaps, unique.

6 C. R. Condor, Palestine, p. 28.

36