In the long history of Palestine research one interesting devel-opment has to be noted. In the 19th century the Holy Landwas ‘rediscovered’, leading to the detailed use of all existingsources, the foremost being the Scriptures. The US theologianEdward Robinson, accompanied by the missionary Eli Smith,traveled in the Holy Land in 1838. The pioneering role in HolyLand research, the detailed reconstruction of the Scripturesas a historical-geographical source was accepted by contempo-raries – a milestone in the process of establishing Palestine re-search as a modern academic discipline. The voyage yielded adetailed, three-volume work, including various maps drawn bythe young cartographer Heinrich Kiepert. These maps estab-lished a new narrative within the historical-geographical dis-course, leading to a new construction of the identity of theHoly Land.
