The Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF) was established in Oxford University, in the middle of the 19thcentury, and was an outcome of the European scientific curiosity to map and examine every corner of the globe. It still is the oldest research company of the region.

The PEF sent expeditions to the shores of Palestine, Egypt and Syria in 1867. At the same time Britain had started to reveal the intention to seize the hold of the Middle East from the Ottoman Empire. The secondary task of the PEF was then, to keep a vigil eye on the Ottoman Empire, and gather some initial intelligence.

The first scholar was Captain Charles Warren, formerly the head of the London Metropolitan Police. Their contribution to the archaeological and historical understanding of the Holy Land was momentous: they were the first to make wide excavations of the Old City of Jerusalem, they made the earliest comprehensive surveys of vast parts of the Holy Land, and they were the first to discover that the Dead Sea is actually a lot lower then sea level.

In 1913, an expedition sailed to the northern shores to examine the constant drop of the Dead Sea. Coming near a big protruding rock next to the springs of Ein Fashcha, they marked a line 50cm above the surface of the Dead Sea, and engraved the initials of the fund 'PEF' underneath.

The PEF rock can be seen from road 90, while approaching from the south, a mile before the entrance to Einot Tzukim nature reserve, on the eastern side of the road. The amazing fact about the PEF rock is that the road was peeved in 1967 and today it lays some 4m underneath the line... Of course – the Dead Sea had lost good 40m since. This rock remains an alarming memorial of the rapid shrinkage of the Dead Sea.