Begins her Ottoman-sanctioned excavation at Ashkelon, widely regarded as the first modern archaeological dig in Palestine and the Holy Land.
On 1 April 1815, Lady Hester Stanhope began what is now widely regarded by historians of archaeology as the first modern excavation in Palestine. Acting on a medieval Italian manuscript that hinted at a hoard of buried gold at the ancient port city of Ashkelon (Ascalon), she secured formal permission from Ottoman authorities—an extraordinary feat for a European, let alone a woman—to conduct a sanctioned dig at the site.
Unlike the treasure-hunting and looting that characterized most contemporary European engagement with Near Eastern antiquities, Stanhope organized her excavation with a level of formality and organization unusual for the period, employing local laborers under the supervision of her physician, Charles Meryon, and coordinating directly with Ottoman officials to ensure legitimacy and to allay local suspicions.
The dig at Ashkelon predates the more famous 'scientific' excavations of the later nineteenth century by decades, and scholars such as Neil Asher Silberman have credited Stanhope with anticipating some of the diplomatic and procedural elements that would later become standard in Middle Eastern archaeology. Her expedition is now seen as a foundational, if idiosyncratic, moment in the history of archaeological exploration of the Holy Land, notable both for its methods and for being led entirely by a woman in an era when such fieldwork was considered exclusively male territory.