This video is a compilation of two reels of silent excavation footage filmed by George Hedley and James Philmore Collins during the 1926 and 1935 seasons at Tell en-Nasbeh in Israel/Palestine. These silent films are a treasure not only for their documentation of the burgeoning archaeological field of the early twentieth century, but for the window it provides on landscapes and life-ways seemingly vanished from this region now overrun with urbanization. Images of excavations at Tell en-Nasbeh commingle with traditional Palestinian dancing, Bedouin bread making and Jerusalem street scenes that act as a historical narrative transferred without words.
