 Well, welcome back to another talk in our Unsilencing the Archive series. I'd like to welcome you all via YouTube. My name is Aaron Brody. I'm the director of the Bade Museum and professor at Pacific School of Religion. And before we get to our introductions to our distinguished speaker, I'd like to yield the floor to Jess Johnson, who has a word to say from the Bade Museum. Hello, everyone. We would like to begin by acknowledging that Berkeley, California is on the territory of the Huchun, the ancestral and unceded land of the Choteno-Aloni. We respect the land and the people who have stewarded it throughout many generations and we honor their elders, both past and present. We are living in a moment that warrants deep reflection on our past, wearing even our most venerated figures deserve reasonable scrutiny. During his time directing the archeological excavations at Tel El-Nazba, WF Bade participated in harmful stereotyping of Palestinian Arabs that was common among white Americans and Europeans conducting fieldwork in British Mandate Palestine. Some of these attitudes appear in print in his popular 1934 book, Manual of Excavation in the Near East. Collections are also scrutinizing their collections, including evaluating the legal status and the ethics with which they were acquired. As stewards of the legacy of the Bade Museum and its holdings, it is our responsibility to faithfully evaluate the process by which the collections were acquired within the context of our contemporary moment. One approach is to ask due questions of the archival materials in order to examine critically the manner and the impact of archeological work on indigenous communities and to investigate the colonial conditions in which it played a part. The Bade Museum recognizes that its location and collection are part of ongoing and painful colonial legacies that contributed to historical inequalities. These legacies have directly and indirectly impacted populations locally and abroad in Palestine, where the excavations were conducted under the authority of the British Mandate Government of Palestine. In an effort to bring light to these issues, to serve a broader public audience online and to connect to the local community that it serves, the museum is taking action to becoming more inclusive, welcoming, and equitable institution that practices the philosophy of radical inclusion adopted by its parent institution, Pacific School of Religion. One of these steps is the creation of open access web exhibitions and public programming like this lecture series, which highlight decolonizing themes. We invite you to participate in these programs so that together we can listen, learn, and work toward creating a more inclusive museum community. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you so much, Jess. And I'm happy also to yield the floor to Felicity Cobing. She can be back on the call. She was going to do a brief introduction on behalf of the PEF and then introduce our speaker today. Thank you very much, Aaron. So I'm going to start with a similar statement from the PEF. The PEF fully endorses the Bardet Museum statement on decolonization and supports their efforts in this regard. As a funding organization, we were very pleased to support the Bardet Museum's project to create an online exhibition to highlight the lives and work of the Arab workforce at the Tel Anasbe excavations. And these online lectures exploring the contribution of the local population to the archaeology of Palestine. As another Western colonial era organization, our own history shares many of the same characteristics which have just been described. And we are keen to play our part in this process, both as co-hosts of these lectures and with our own initiatives. So now I would very much like to introduce our speaker for tonight to talk about colonial archaeology in Mandatory Palestine, Dr. Hamdan Taha. And now Hamdan Taha gained his PhD from the Free University of Berlin. He is the former Deputy Minister and Assistant Deputy Minister for Heritage in Palestine. That's between 2004 and 2014. And he served between 1994 and 2004 as the director general of the newly established Department of Antiquities in Palestine. He has directed a series of excavations and restoration projects and was the national coordinator of the World Heritage Programme in Palestine from 2002 to 2014. He is now an independent researcher and is currently coordinator of the Palestine History and Heritage Project, for which he has recently co-authored an introductory volume, New Critical Approach to the History of Palestine. He is the author of many other books, field reports and scholarly articles. And he is also unfailingly generous with his expertise, which we will benefit from tonight. So thank you. Over to you, Hamdan. Thank you very much. Good morning, California time and good evening, Grammala time. I'm especially pleased to be part of this lecture series on archaeological labor in the mandate period revealing museum archives. Thank you, Eran, Felicity and Jess, for the kind invitation to talk on Palestinian narratives in archaeology under this impressive motto and silencing the archive. My presentation is titled Colonial Archaeology in the Mandatory Period in Palestine. And I would like to say that I'm very moved with the statement of Ms. Jess Johnson and Felicity Copping about decolonization. Our part of the world is still far from this recognition. Unfortunately, I would like first to mention that history is not just a better past for Palestinian people, but rather a living tragedy. Palestinians are still suffering the injustices that these colonial policies have brought on them in many aspects. Archaeology and politics have always been deeply interwind in this place. Palestine as the Holy Land had been the site of Western imaginary and fantasy. In these fantasies, Palestine is the land without people. It is the mysterious orient. However, all these assumptions have influenced and shaped universal historical record of Palestine. Through them, the history of this place had been distorted and depleted. The history of archaeological excavation in Palestine is all is also a history of colonial erasers, theft and silencing. Historically, so many narratives about this place had been disregarded and silenced, the rich and complex history of all the people and the groups who had lived in this land. Palestinian narrative attempt to dismantle the Puritan record of this land, it aims to offer rich and inclusive narrative based on material evidence, which include all culture, ethnicities, voices, religious creeds. Moreover, it strives to honor all of the people and nation that had across history contributed to this place. Palestinian archaeologists do not only work under extreme measures, but they have to fight and challenge the kids and censures of false assumptions about the history of this rich and particular place. In recent years, some studies of decolonization appeared. I would like to acknowledge the work of Irina Korpet, Sadeem Tameri, Piotr Slaurens, Sarah Erving and many others on some aspects of the colonial period and the role of the Department of Antiquities in the Mandate period. Some basic ideas in my article were discussed in depth. In my article, Palestinian historical narrative published in the book, which has been mentioned by Felicity, a new critical approach to the history of Palestine, edited by Thomas Thompson in Great Helm, Elan Pappi and myself. I would like to share. Yeah, this is the prayer which has been prepared by the organizer. It shows the name of the Department of Antiquities as part of the government of Palestine. However, Palestine began to attract Western explorers and archaeologists almost since 19th century, which witnessed the birth of archaeology as a scholarly discipline. This was demonstrated by the exploration work of citizen Robinson, Smith, Fander, Felde and others. Those explorers were motivated by the idea of the study of the Bible, as you know. The comprehensive survey of Western Palestine, conducted by Condor and Ketchner, 1871, 1877, gave the scientific or sort of historical articulation to deter Bully land by mapping it. These early explorations were followed were followed by the first excavation carried out at Tel-El-Hissi, Tel-Sultan, Geyser, Jerusalem, Telt-Annak and other sites. This period witnessed a great competition between traditional colonial powers, especially Britain and France, over the acquisition of antiquities of the dying out empire, Ottoman Empire. As part of the Ottoman modernization process started in the late 19th century, the first excavulating antiquities in Ottoman period was issued. The first archaeological museum was established in Jerusalem in the late Ottoman period. It was a joint venture of the Ottoman authorities, local archaeologists working in the Palestine, exploration fund. The museum called the Imperial Museum, or Misi-Humya-Yon, in Turkish or Imperial Museum, was the first enterprise in this direction. The preparation of the museum was carried out under the osepias of Ismail al-Hussein, Mufti, and director of education, Ma'arif in Jerusalem, with a museum director and a committee. The British archaeologists' place was involved, the activity in preparing and inventorying the collection and creating the archaeological display. He used biblical terminology used in the description of objects as Israelite, the Israelite, etc. This collection was the core of the Palestine Museum of Antiquities. Between 1919 and 1930, established by the Department of Antiquities of the British Mandate Civil Administration, followed the British occupation of Palestine after the Second World War. The Palestine Museum of Antiquities was housed in a building called Weihau, and organized by the Department of Antiquities. It was inaugurated in 1921. I will move to talk a little bit about the Mandate Department of Antiquities, which was the core of my presentation. Palestine, as you know, fell under the British occupation after the end of the World War I. In accordance with the secret deal between the Sikhs and the people between England and France, the two main colonial powers between the two World Wars. Britain and France divided the Arabs into states under their rule, and Palestine had been promised as a Jewish national home. Antiquities were one of the main spoils of the war. Sir Frederick Kenyon, president of the British Academy, proposed to put it under the custody of the Allies, as it was described by Irina Corbett. In the Mandatory period, the archaeology was part of a much larger colonial policy that British sought to own antiquities and their narrative and to incorporate it into their colonial policy genre. Following the British occupation in 1918, a proclamation, here, just to go, that was the first excavation carried out at Tel-Al-Hisi. This is Flendersby 3, Sir Flendersby 3. And here is the headquarter of the Palestine, the first museum in Jerusalem in Al-Ma'muniya School, established during the late Ottoman period. Yeah, a proclamation for the protection of antiquities was issued by the British military government. In 1920, the Department of Antiquities was established by the civil administration and the higher commissioners have a summary. Antiquities audience defining, that comes here, defining the function and authority of the new department was issued in the same year. The audience was replaced in 1929 and was amended in 1934 and 1946. The audience aimed to organize archaeological research in Palestine and to ensure British control over archaeological strategy in Palestine. However, the law legalized division of finds, export and sale of antiquities as well. That is the building of the first department of antiquities in the warehouse. Only the gate is still preserved. The department was headed by a director and organized into four subunits, inspector, a record office and a library, conservation, laboratory, photographic studio and the Palestine Museum as well. The director of the department of antiquities of the advisory board were appointed by the high commissioner from the British, French, American and Italian schools of archaeology in Jerusalem. Two Palestinian Muslim and two Jews were also appointed to represent the interests of Muslims and Jewish cultural heritage. The policymaking body was dominated by non-indigenous archaeologists as it is evidence in the structure of the advisory board. The structure showed as if the Palestinian are not able to care of their own archaeology. To ensure the role of the British government on archaeology in post Ottoman era, Dr. Friedrich Kenyon, the director of the British Museum, established the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem. Dr. Gersteng of the University of Liverpool was appointed as a director of this school. Gersteng also served as an advisor to the mandate authorities at the base of high commissioner for formulation of the Palestine antiquities audience, which provide the institutional framework of the department of antiquities. Three British director here we see them are Jean Gersteng, 1926, Ernst Richmond, 27, 1937, and Robert Hamilton, 1938, 40, 84. Ernst Richmond served as a consulting architect to the restoration work in the middle here we see him. The Haram-i-Sharif in Jerusalem between 1918, 1920 and afterward as assistant of civil security of the government of Palestine, 1920, 1926. A post from which he resigned in protest against the pro-Zionist policy of the British government. Richmond was succeeded by Robert Hamilton in 1936 who served till 1948 as a director of the department of antiquities. Here we see him in the left of the slide. Richmond was Hamilton served as a chief inspector and director of the department and director of the department for almost 12 years. Among his important work are his studies of the history of the Church of Nativity and the Aqsa Mosque. He joined the Baranqui, the excavation at Kherbet el-Mafjir and wrote his monumental publication about the site in 1959. The publication led to some friction between the two, Baranqui and Hamilton. The department was located, as said in the wayhouse north of the Damascus Gate. The Palestine Archaeological Museum, which was managed by the department of antiquities, was also accommodated in the same building until 1935, when the department moved to the new building donated by Rockefeller, which was open to the public in 1938. The wayhouse building was occupied also by the British School of Archaeology, established in 1919 and continued until 1930. Lena Courage short in her review of the complex history of the relation between Palestine and Transjordan in the mandate period. In 1936, the British archaeologist Lancaster Harding was appointed as a chief inspector of antiquities in Transjordan to succeed Hotsfeld between 1936 and 1946. And later as director of antiquities, he was the acting curator of the Palestine Archaeological Museum in Jerusalem. His involvement in the Dead Sea Scroll continued till 19 in the mid of fifties, when he was dismissed by the Jordanian government. The main objective of the department was in line with the British mandate policy to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine as an implementation of Balfour Declaration. The main focus of the British policy and research was to recognize the history, the historicity of the Jewish presence in Palestine. It was, of course, supplemented the Jewish migration from the West under the British mandate to realize this promise. The new department in Palestine was staffed by Britain's Palestinian Muslim Jewish Christians. The department has a multi-ethnic and multi-conferential character where people were working together. However, it was demonstrated by several researchers that the British policy was unbalanced and balance between Arabs and Jews as demonstrated by Igloch and Sarah Irving. This was reflected more clearly in the role and responsibilities of the department staff as have been demonstrated in the analysis of the employee chart of mandate management structure devoted to archaeology of Palestine. A few Palestinians had higher positions and the majority are low status positions. Furthermore, the department, the mandate authorities treated Palestinian archaeological heritage as if it has nothing to do with the living native population in Palestine. Nadia Abul-Hajj, in her book, Facts on the Ground, pointed out that the British mandate treated the Palestinian heritage not as a national heritage, but rather as universal. This was reflected in the management structure of the heritage management bodies created by the mandatory government. Edward Said argued that universalism of modern disciplines such as archaeology and heritage management was Eurocentric in this extreme. The department of antiquities, however, undertook a large number of excavation focusing on mainly on biblical sites. The department sponsored scholarly journals dedicated to revisions sponsored by the department whose lifespan corresponds to the life of the British rule, 1940. The quarterly of the department of antiquities, Palestine abbreviated as Qidab. It was dominated by British scholars, though both Palestinian locals, Christian Jews, were publishing in this journal. And it was a forum for scientific publication. The main Palestinian contributor were Dimitri, Jalil Baranqui, Salim Hussaini, Makhuli, Massar, and Hanna Stephen, Hanna Stephen, and others. Related to the department, of course, is the Palestine Archaeological Museum. It was the new building of the new building of the Palestine Archaeological Museum that opened in 1938. It was enabled by a grant of two million dollars given to the Department of Antiquities in 1928 by John Rockefeller. The land was barshiz from Al-Khalili family in Karmish Sheikh. And the museum was designed by the British architect, Austin Harrison, the mandatory government chief architect. The construction of the Palestine Archaeological Museum began in 1930 and was completed in 1935 and opened to its doors to the public in 1938. The new museum collection was intended to include material that shed light on the history of humankind in Palestine. The British John Elief was the keeper of the museum from its beginning to 1948. This is the building of the museum known as this. That is John Elief, the keeper of the museum. I may move to some indigenous voices. The first generation of Palestinian archaeologists and ethnographers emerged in the early 20th century. Among them, Yusra, Dimitri Baranki, Naim Makhuli, Salim Al-Hussaini, Jaleel Baranki, and Najib Nassar. Najib Makhuli studied at the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem and was appointed inspector in the Department of Antiquities from 1920 to 1940. He excavated several sites, including Asfia and Khurrat and Al-Jash, and conducted the restoration of Qalait al-Qarn, Montefal. He published his reports in Qidab and authored a guide to Acre, 1941. His visiting his sons in Beirut in 1948, he was unable to return to his village, Kaffir Asfia, and died in Beirut in 1976. Al-Hussaini, inspector of antiquities in Jerusalem area left behind a series of published archaeological reports, as well as un-published reports, including an article on the excavation of the rocket burial at Beetnet Teef. Nassar published a widely quoted catalogue of the Arabic mints in Palestine and the transjordan. Two archaeologists, those are some of the local archaeologists that is on the top, Khalil Tota and Omar al-Sahr el-Barouk, you authored a book about the history of Palestine and the building down is Yusra, but two archaeologists of particular north are Baranqui, brothers, Khalil Baranqui, served as a keeper of the archaeological museum. He drew up the discipline, his younger brother Dimitri, who is frequently called the first Palestinian archaeologist. Dimitri Baranqui started his career as a field archaeologist and was promoted inspector of antiquities in 1929. In 1934 he earned his BS degree in archaeology from the University of London and his PhD there in 1953. He excavated numerous sites across Palestine, including Talil Hassan, Tirol Abu-Alaik, and Umayyad Palace of Khirbet al-Mafjar in Jericho, which was the subject of his pioneering doctoral dissertation. After the Nekba, Baranqui worked as acting curator of the Palestinian archaeological museum before returning to Jericho with the American School of Oriental Research until 1951. When he joined the American University of Israel, the involvement of the Palestinian women in archaeological field work began with some of the first excavations in Palestine, although their names did not appear in reports. Photos show women in the excavation of archaeological sites at Tel Tan, Tel Le Sultan, Tel Balata, Tel El Hisi, Gezer, and many other sites. Between 1928 and 1935 the cave of Shukba and Mount Caramel were excavated by the British archaeologist Dorothy Gerrard, who worked with a team composed primarily of local Palestinian women. The very first Palestinian female archaeologist we know was Yusra from either Idzim or Jab'a in the Haifa region. Most villages were demolished and depopulated 1948. Yusra became the most expert of the women employed by Gerrard and was appointed for women. She worked alongside Jaquita Halx and Kitson Clark. In 1932, while working at Tabun cave, she found a tooth which turned out to be part of a human skull known as Tabun-1, belonging to a female adult of Neanderthal. Her finding was one of the most important human fossil discoveries ever, yet her lasting contribution to early archaeology went unacknowledged and her story forgotten until it was taken up to 70 by Dr Hamdan. The audience is wondering if you can enlarge the image that you're sharing? Yeah, I think it's called... Yeah, yeah, sure. Oh no, if you do that, okay. If you hit the present... Okay, well it's now I'm sorry. So that is... Oh, sorry. The fourth higher glyph from the left, I think it's a presenter's view. No, no, not the percentage. Just next to that. Just to the left. Is it okay? I think it's called presenter's view. You see where the there's a higher glyph? Yes, it is. If you go three to the right, I think it's called slide show. Next to the where it says 80%. Then it becomes full screen if you click on. So just next to the 80%. There we go. Okay. Well, it hasn't changed for me. I don't know if the viewers... Thank you, Shuklan. So this is Yusra with Dorothy Gerrod down pillow. That is the photo of Yusra. And this is the photo of Dimitri Baramki showing him with his team working at here with the manager. And yeah, the as well as some photos from Hisham's Palace, part of his discoveries of this early Islamic site. This is also true for the native discoverers of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Mohammed Dweeb, who is never mentioned or accredited in proper terms. These are also part of the experts of al-Bina family who photographed the Dead Sea Scrolls. However, I will move quickly to another in circles of the first ethnographers working in the Palestine Oriental Society. The Palestine Oriental Society was established 1920 with the assistance of the American Assyriologist, A.T. Clay. It was held under the auspice of the colonel Ronald Sturz, military governor of Jerusalem. The membership of the society had always been dominated by non-locals, most non-presidents. In 1932 there was 191 members of which were 10 resident Palestinians, 20 were resident Jews, 42 were residents foreigners and 117 were non-residents. The society sponsored a journal entitled Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society G.P.O.S. The main focus of this journal was on Palestinians, so this however of the 3335 articles published in G.P.O.S. from 1921 and 1948, 50 were by seven Palestinian scholars, most of them were by Taufiq Kanan and Stephen Hannah-Steven. The 92 were by 26 Jewish scholars, reflecting growing weight in number of the Jewish scholars in this period. Taufiq Kanan, Omar Saleh al-Bargouti, Stephen Hannah-Steven contributed the activity in recording the native Palestinian culture and Byzantine out of their concern that they were under threat and undermined by forces of modernity. The Palestinian ethnographer have a holistic and inclusive vision of culture and they view this heritage of all accumulating culture including Canaanite, Palestine, Cypriot, Nabathians, Syrians, Aramaic, Jewish and Arab culture. Kanan was interested in particular in biblical studies, particularly the Old Testament as one of the main sources of his studies of best and present Palestinian culture. His articles appeared alongside those of English and Jewish writers, most notably Reazar bin Yehuda, and his hack and speed, his belief in the survival of ancient ethnography features in Palestine was not guided by a desire to invoke a right of antiquity in legitimizing the presence of Palestinian. His main referential Corbus was the Bible but he also compared practices in Quran in 1948 Kanan lost his house and his library in Jerusalem as well as three manuscripts ready for publication. I will end with a few words about archaeology and decolonization. In 1948 the name of Palestine was whipped out of maps, was replaced by Israel and approximately one million Palestinians were expelled from the areas proclaimed as belonging to the state of Israel. Three new entities were established on the ruins of the mandatory department of antiquities. The Israeli department of antiquities in the entity which became Israel while the Jordanian department of antiquities controlled the West Bank and Israel and the Gaza Strip fell under Egyptian administration. The British Secretary of State for Colonies Oliver Stanley declared that his government was bled to guide colonial people along the road to self-government. However, the British colonial power deprived the Palestinian people from a fundamental right of self-determination identified by as by a united nation as the core to decolonization. From the point of view of Palestinians decolonization is perceived as a means to uncover their history and narrative. It is associated with truth, recognition, apology as a way to reach reconciliation and by reclaiming and restoration of culture and political right and independence. I choose to end with this slide. This is the Tree of Life from Hisham's Merseys. It is the museum which has been uncovered by the Palestinian archaeologist Dimitri Baramki. Thank you very much. Thank you very much Dr. Hindan. We're beginning to get some questions in from the YouTube audience and I'm hoping we can take a moment here and I can provide you with them. But perhaps first, if you don't mind closing your presentation, yes, so that your images will be bigger than. Terrific. Thank you. For the first question. You are very welcome. Thank you. Before the antiquities automation in 1929, what were the regulations, if any, governing excavation, export or sale of antiquities? Yeah, there was as part of the modernization policy of the Ottoman government, the first law was issued here in 1869 to defining antiquities and it was modified in 1880s with the aim to regulate archaeological work since there was, as I mentioned, a great competition between European powers in Palestine and also there was a series of excavations conducted. So it was aiming also to control the flow of antiquities from to abroad. However, there was an antiquities law during the late Ottoman period. In the beginning, it was not the proclamation of the British law of 1918 and 1920. So there was elements of legislations from the late Ottoman period. Wonderful. Thank you. So it sounds like the the Ottoman law kind of came into the mandatory period as well and it was modified. And it was, in fact, it was inspired from European laws. There was some expert from, I forget the name, who helped in their support measure in initiating the first laws of antiquities in the British, in the Ottoman empire. And I think Felicity coming from the PEF would like to ask a question. Hi, lovely talk. Thank you very much, Dan. I just want to add that there's an awful lot of material in the Rockefeller Museum today that comes from that Ottoman period that comes from that Ottoman legislation. So all the material from Gaza, from the German Jericho excavations, from the Samaria excavations, these, you know, there are, there are, there's a quantity of material in the Rockefeller Museum that is as a result of that Ottoman legislation. So the PEF projects that we, we excavated places like Gaza, Beth Shemesh, the material went into that museum and we, the European excavators in that period before the mandate period were granted, I suppose you could say, a token of the finds. And a lot in our collection from that period, from let's say the 1890s through to 1913 is actually cast. So it's not original material. Yeah. Yeah, I think this is a chapter we need really to research more. I myself working in archaeology, I learned really just in last years about the real story of the first imperial museum in, which was established in Jerusalem. And it was actually a joint venture between the Ottoman authorities and the British archaeology, the Palestine Exploration Fund. Bliss was instrumental in that he prepared the inventories and for the first museum and also technical guidance for local authorities. Also the local role was instrumental. It was people, local authorities in Jerusalem were very much involved in the preparation of the first museum and it was a house in one of the most beautiful building during that time, the Ammonia School in Jerusalem. And I think till the first war, the beginning of the first war, there was more than 10,000 objects registered in this museum. And it has been during the war, it has been placed in a safe place in Jerusalem to protect the these artifacts. And it was the core of the museum of the Palestine Archaeological Museum, which was inaugurated in 1920 by Ronald Storz, the military governor of Jerusalem during that time. And I think this probably the archives of the Palestine Exploration Fund will be especially important to throw more light on this formative period. Yeah, I wrote an article with Jonathan Tubb on the first Palestinian Museum back in 97, but it's in a very obscure article, so I'll email it to you. Thank you very much. Thank you. And we have a few more questions from the YouTube audience. So if it's okay, I'll read the next one out. How did the British Department of Antiquities policies influence which projects or which people were granted excavation permits? Is there evidence of denial of permits on the basis of the cultural period of a site or the background of the applicants? I think it was a very liberal policy. The British were very liberal to the point that they donated the country, so there was no problem also with managing archaeology in this. It is known that they were in granting excavation license where they were very liberal, probably at the end of the 1930s with a growing attention with the Germans. Yes, they were not granted and I don't know if they have applied. So that was of course a clear political reason in a way, but to my knowledge, I think that generally the policy of mandate department of antiquities was generally very liberal in granting the excavation permits. Thank you. And then another question from the audience, but specifically from Mahmood Hawari, he asks, was there any handover of the mandate department of antiquities to any authority or person when the British withdrew from Palestine on the 14th of May 1948? Unfortunately, yes, there was and I think this is also an issue which needs to be explored from the probably the secret archives. I think the department of antiquities was responsible of establishing an international committee for the museum to ensure that the museum is not managed by a national body after 1948. And I think Hamilton was part of that of this conspiracy in a way who was the late director of the department of antiquities. I think lately there was some records pointing to this issue and therefore probably, yes, there was some influence in the last I would say moments of this department, otherwise it has been dismantled completely. The Palestinian employees working in the department where they lost their, at least in the land which has been proclaimed as Israel, they lost their jobs. And I brought the case of Naim Makhuli, thanks to Raz Kletter, who documented the case. He was the inspector, archeological inspector of Gary Lee, and he was by chance visiting the Sunset Bay route and he was planning to come back to his village and to his job. Fascinating, thank you. And we have another question and this may be the last one and it asks what sources were used to shed light on the role of Palestinian women working with Dorothy Garrett at Taboone Cave? Where are these archives and who has studied them? In fact, Pamela Smith, thanks to Pamela Smith and also another scholar, British scholars who uncovered the story of Yusra and her role in the early excavations carried out at Shukpa Cave and also in the galley in Taboone. There is, of course, this is a very interesting story, the archive of the great archaeologist, British archaeologist Gerard, which was by the way one of the first women archaeologists in England. Her archive was studied in 1996 by Pamela Smith and it was a very interesting story regarding this archive, which was, everybody thought that it was lost and it was found in a certain place in France. And she found, yeah, that was one of the stories, Yusra's case was one of the stories which has been taken out of this archive. This is a fairly recent story and I would say that it is moving and touching that because it has to do also with the role of women in archaeology in Palestine. Thank you so much and I believe Felicity has maybe a follow-up or some information for us. There's also a great organization called Trowelblazers, which looks, it's a British organization which looks to highlight the work of women archaeologists throughout the world, but the Middle East has quite a few women archaeologists and I think Yusra features there alongside Dorothy Gerard and we have the BSAJ archive here in the PEF and I don't know if there's much particularly but there may be a little bit of material relating to Yusra and her work in the Taboon Caves embedded in those archives, we're not quite sure. We have lost our speaker for a moment here. Dr. Hamdan, are you still there? Yes, I would like to thank them, I think this is it okay to ask one final question? Oh yeah, please be sure. This is from Dr. Melissa Kratik, who is our curator at the Bade Museum and she asks if you could explain for the audience how archaeology today in the Palestinian territories works. Who controls access to cultural heritage sites and materials? This is in the Palestinian Authority. Yeah, following the interim agreement in 1995, Department of Antiquities was established within the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities in charge of the material culture, which means archaeology, historic buildings and the immaterial culture is the responsibility of the ministry of culture. Since 1995, a wide range of excavation has been carried out and I was honored to be in charge for two decades about this department as a Director General of the Department of Antiquities. Part of the story is published by myself and other colleagues and it can be accessed on my academia side. There is a series of articles about documenting the evolution and development of archaeological archaeology including archaeological excavation and which has been carried out by this department. Wonderful, thank you so much for a fascinating paper and for a really interesting question and answer session as well, so informative. So it's my pleasure just to kind of wrap things up and of course to thank Dr. Hamdan Taha for this wonderful information that he's presented to our audience today and for giving us such great insights into the archaeology from that period from the really local perspective. And it's my pleasure also to announce that next month on February 24th, also at 9 a.m California time, we will be hearing another presentation from this one will be from Mahmood Hawari also in Palestine as well. So we hope that the audience can tune in and we're looking forward to furthering our series on Unsilencing the Archives. So thank you all very much for attending and for presenting and we look forward to continuing this series.