Milton C. Fisher
Readers of these biographies see by now that, for all their distinctive personalities and idiosyncracies, certain traits are held in common by true archaeologists. He or she must be moved by curiosity – driven by the urge to discover and learn. But there are other essential qualifications, such as keen observation which leaves no stone unturned (literally!), no object unexamined.
The work is laborious, requiring physical stamina and a mental state of ambition and perseverance. Analytical skill of deduction must combine with intuitive insight gained through both study and experience for interpretation of material remains from ancient sites. Working from the known to the unknown, a controlled, yet active, imagination enables the archaeologist to breathe life into the dry bones of a dead civilization, as Woolley himself has put it. Finally, a literary gift enhances the publicizing of the field work. Detailed, exacting technical reports provide the information and guidance needed by other scholars, and well-written popular treatments serve the general public.
Ever the gentleman, Sir Leonard was a well-dressed digger; his restoration of grave objects was spectacular.
BSP 6:1 (Winter 1993) p. 12
All these attributes well suit the person and work of C. Leonard Woolley, “Mr. Archaeology,” to a generation of enthusiasts. Exhibits of this are his Digging Up the Past (1937, Penguin) and A Forgotten Kingdom (1957, Pelican). The former gives a general introduction and the latter a fascinating description of the detective work involved in his excavation of Atchana and Al Mina in Turkey, which is 2nd Millennium BC Alalakh and its port. In The March of Archaeology, (1958, Alfred A. Knopf) C.W. Ceram says, “Many experts consider Leonard Woolley the most important excavator of the twentieth century” (232). Woolley’s own final memoir, As I Seem to Remember (1962, Praeger) is a collection of delightful and informative anecdotes relating to discoveries, thefts, and recoveries of antiquities.
He is best known, doubtless, for his 12 year directorship of the joint expedition – British Museum and the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania – at Ur of the Chaldees, 1922 ff. But Woolley had a wide-ranging career previous to that, including two years imprisonment by the Turks during World War I.
Educated at Oxford, then appointed assistant curator at the Ashmolean Museum, he first excavated at Roman sites in England and by age 27 was digging in Nubia (Sudan), 1907–1911. The next three years he collaborated with T.E. Lawrence (later heralded “Lawrence of Arabia”) at the Hittite citadel in Carchemish, for the British Museum. Knowledge he had acquired of Egypt and Palestine qualified him for the military intelligence staff in the Near East, which led to his capture by the Turks.
By 1919 Woolley was back at Carchemish, and in 1921 he spent the year at Tell-el-Amarna, the capital of the Egyptian “heretic pharaoh” (otherwise proclaimed “first monotheist”), Akhenaton. But it was at Ur, in southern Mesopotamia, that he earned greatest claim to fame. Here he unearthed the oldest royal graves in the world and identified the earliest known civilization, that of the Sumerians.
Somewhat more than anticlimactic, however, was his discovery in 1935 of Alalakh, the lost capital of Yarim Lin (suzerain over 20 other kings). A combination of practiced intuition and sharp reasoning led him directly to the correct site. It took Lord Carnarvan and Howard Carter years to find the tomb of “King Tut,” yet in his writings Woolley praises them for their methods and their tenacity.
Brilliant technician that he was, Sir Leonard exhibited uncanny practicality when excavating. Supervising as many as 200–300 workman at a time, he developed a system of sub-groupings and of foremen which enabled him to attain the safest and most efficient results. His payment of “baksheesh” (bonuses) for items of worth spotted by each worker added about 15% to the over-all cost, but avoided serious losses. By honestly appraising what an object might earn an employee on the antiquities black market, Wooley removed the temptation to thievery.
The presence of his wife by his side on the dig, devoted as she was to his well-being and to the work, added an air of gentility and loyalty to the undertaking. Similarly, M. E. L. Mallowan, who assisted Woolley for several years at Ur and at Nineveh, was accompanied by his own wife at the latter site when he was director there in 1952. Her name is more familiar than either of these two gentlemen—Agatha Christie, the mystery novel writer.