QUARTERLY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ANTIQUITIES IN PALESTINE, THE. - A series, now concluded (1949-50), of 14 vols., which constituted the quarterly bulletin of the Department of Antiquities in Palestine, established by the British Mandatory Government and published in London by the Oxford University Press.
Vol. I appeared in 1931-32, succeeding the Palestine Museum Bulletin, which had been discontinued in 1927.
As a strictly scientific instrument of publication, it contributed to the development of those excavations and discoveries that thus far constitute the most fruitful period of archaeological research in Palestine. Its purpose was to publish with technical precision: a) every discovery made either during excavations conducted by the Department or by the application of other methods of archaeological investigation, or occurring incidentally in the course of its ordinary activity; b) notes on antiquities kept in the Department’s Museum or elsewhere in Palestine, but not yet published; c) texts and translations describing monuments or historical sites in Palestine; d) general information on archaeological work in Palestine. Excavations, numismatics, pottery, inscriptions, etc., from that important period are thus treated masterfully and exhaustively. The series is even more valuable for its bibliographies on excavations, mosaics, and other Palestinian objects, and is therefore indispensable for the study of biblical archaeology.
It has been succeeded, for the Hashemite Kingdom, by the Annual of the Department of Antiquities in Jordan (published at Amman by G. Lankester Harding, director general); for Israel, by the most accessible among several journals, the Israel Exploration Journal, 1 (Gerusalemme 1950-51). Pietro Nober