The overall theme of this issue is a maritime one. As the papers show, investigations into infrastructure, defences and trade patterns can all shed light upon the long maritime history of the eastern Mediterranean. Maritime archaeology has, in recent years, been invigorated by two developments that impact upon the region. The UNITWIN network, established under the auspices of UNESCO, was established in 1992, but is becoming ever more active as more research bodies are brought into its orbit. The network brings together universities and other observers in order to promote shared and integrated research projects and to establish regional and international conferences, conservation programmes and training opportunities. Furthermore, UNITWIN acts as a bridge between the academic community, civil society, local communities and policy-makers, and promotes awareness of underwater cultural heritage to all. The many countries that surround the Mediterranean, and share a common history, can only benefit from endeavours such as this.
An interested supporter of UNITWIN (among other ventures) is the Honor Frost Foundation. Honor Frost was among the pioneers of underwater archaeology (although she also honed her drafting skills working with Kathleen Kenyon in Jericho in 1957), and founded the Council for Nautical Archaeology; she also played a part in establishing the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology. Of particular interest to readers of the PEQ is Honor Frost's work in the ports of Byblos, Sidon and Tyre, and her participation in the Bronze Age Phoenician wreck at Cape Gelidonya. Honor Frost bequeathed part of the proceeds of the sale of her extensive collection of 20th-century British art to a trust charged with supporting maritime archaeology in the eastern Mediterranean, an act of generosity which has had an almost immediate impact: supported projects are located in Cyprus, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, and elsewhere.
Maritime archaeology, by its very nature, focuses upon the connections between peoples and places. In Notes & News you will read of another project, HEIR, which seeks to connect us now with past travels though the documentation of early photographs. In the context of this issue, readers should be aware of the presence of numerous images in the PEF collections with maritime subjects, one of which is shown on the cover of this volume. The images held in the PEF's extensive collection, like those in the HEIR database, link us to a world that seems, as a result of present political problems, to be vanishing. Nineteenth and early twentieth century photographs of sites serve as a record against which we can measure destruction.
Yet in the urgency to document a vanishing, or endangered material record (and for more on this see Notes & news in 148.2), we are watching the slow and inevitable loss of an equally valuable resource. In 2015 the Palestine Exploration Fund celebrated its 150th anniversary, and so was present at the birth of archaeology in the region. Yet the there is a gap between the beginning of the discipline and recent events that is ever-widening and we are in danger of losing memories that were once commonplace. Members of the society recently enjoyed a lecture by John Starkey on the life and career of his father, James L. Starkey, whose influence and impact upon his colleagues was very clear. The lives of archaeologists and their work are an enduringly popular read (Agatha Christie's Come Tell me How You Live, Dilys Powell's The Villa Ariadne, Mary Chubb's Nefertiti Lived Here, Margaret Drower's Flinders Petrie: a Life in Archaeology, spring to mind), but very few works deal with the intellectual history of the recent past, by which I mean the last 70 years or so. For our region, the most obvious exception is Thomas Davis' Shifting Sands: the rise and fall of Biblical archaeology. There, the author's argument is worked out through the delineation of human connections, particularly the influence of W.F. Albright and W.G. Dever on their colleagues and students. We need more historiographies, and of recent times. Not the scurrilous kind, which highlight division and dissent, but the positive sort, which show how minds met and connections were made. The joy of conferences is not just the sharing of knowledge, but the many small ‘light bulb’ moments that occur, when presenters realise that although they may work in different fields, or different time periods, problems may be the same, and solutions may be borrowed. It is through friendships and networks that field projects are devised and new ways of seeing old subjects are aired, tested and spread: this is how the paradigm shifts from one generation to another.
Archaeology loses influential scholars almost every month, or so it would seem. August saw another sad event, the passing of Edgar (‘Eddie’) Peltenburg. His fields of activity were early Cyprus and Syria, through which he changed thinking about early states in Mesopotamia and Cypriot prehistory, both of which impacted upon Levantine archaeology. However, Eddie's influence was much wider, for he sat on the Council of the British Institute for Archaeology and History at Amman, the Council of the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem and served as a Trustee of the Council for the British Research in the Levant, to name but a few. His students have carried his interests, as well as their own, across the region, profoundly influencing the discourse.
Thus in order to understand the ebbs and flows of archaeological fieldwork, and the changes in archaeological thinking, we should also take into account the friendships and connections that scholars make. The PEF archives include evidence of this is, for example, correspondence between Vincent, Mackenzie and Watson, who sent seasonal greetings, congratulations on publications, and suggestions for collaborations. The Schaeffer Library at CAARI, Cyprus included correspondence between Claude Schaeffer (whose excavations included Enkomi in Cyprus and Ugarit in Syria) and his colleagues—with Max Mallowan, for example, and W.F. Albright—an intellectual connectivity that spans the eastern Mediterranean.
Research requires three basic conditions in order to flourish: funding; connectivity and peace. Bodies like the Honor Frost Foundation are doing sterling work providing funds for scholars from across the region for projects in what is widely recognised as the expensive end of an already expensive endeavour, and also provides a means of disseminating initial results in the form of short reports or lectures; UNITWIN is one of the many forces which foster connectivity; peace—which much of our region has lost—is a fundamental precondition for intellectual and social connectivity. Historiography is much needed, to place these endeavours in their proper intellectual and human context.