FIRST MEMORANDUM
Page 2
2. These unavoidable deficiencies in our written sources are remedied to a great extent by the unwritten evidence of archaeology. Every scientific explorer of Palestine, from Edward Robinson in 1838 down to the latest archaeological surveys, has been struck with the great number and extent of ruined sites in the country as compared with present-day habitations. The following facts, taken from official sources, will show how far this impression is correct:
(a) In the Palestine Gazette No. 1375 of the 24th November 1944 (Supplement No. 2) the Director of Antiquities publishes a schedule of over 2800 historical sites and monuments. It should be noted that this lists only places whose importance entitles them to protection by law. The archives of the Department of Antiquities, which are open to the public, contain a total record of over 4000 sites. The number of inhabited sites in Palestine at the time of the 1931 census was 981, and at present cannot exceed 1200.
(b) For the kingdom of Transjordan schedules noting a total of 507 ancient sites have been published in the Official Gazette of the Emirate, Nos. 621 (1st January 1939) and 656 (2nd December 1939). The archives of the Transjordan Department of Antiquities record 607 sites. This is far from complete; in 1933-38 Prof. Nelson Glueck, Director of the American School of Oriental Research, Jerusalem, made an archaeological survey of Transjordan, which covered ancient Edom, Moab, Ammon and about half of Gilead. In those parts alone he found about 716 ancient sites 1.
The total number of inhabited localities in Transjordan, as shown on the 1: 250,000 scale map published in 1937 by the Department of Lands and Surveys, Transjordan, is 311.
There exists, therefore, a strong prima facie case for the belief that the ancient population of Western Palestine exceeded the modern by four to one, and that Transjordan's inhabitants were once two and a half times their present number.
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SECOND MEMORANDUM
Historical survey of the Jewish population in Palestinie from the fall of the Jewish state to the beginning of zionist pioneering
THIRD MEMORANDUM
Historical survey of the waves of Jewish immigration into Palestine from the arab conquest to the first zionist pioneers. (640-1882)
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