Biography of people working on Ur

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Algernon (known as Algy) Whitburn worked as archaeological architect at Ur from 1925 to 1930. He had enlisted in the Surrey Yeomanry at the start of the First World War, and was gazetted a Second Lieutenant in June 1915. Badly wounded at Vimy Ridge in 1916, Whitburn spent two years in hospital, and thereafter walked with a limp. After the War, he resumed his training as an architect. He was recommended to Woolley by the head of the firm for which he worked, who was a friend of Leonard Woolley. Whitburn replaced F.G. Newton, who had been the first archaeological architect at Ur from 1922. He began work at Ur at the same time as Max Mallowan and the two men became lifelong friends. There is a copy of a letter from Mallowan to Whitburn telling him of his marriage to Agatha Christie in 1930 before it became public knowledge. Despite his injury which caused him much discomfort, Whitburn had a great sense of humour and a store of funny stories. Woolley described him in a letter to Sir Frederic Kenyon, the Chairman of the Trustees at the British Museum, as “…irrepressibly talkative, amazingly self-centred, very good-hearted with a somewhat vulgar manner … I like him and his work is really valuable”. There are in the Ur archive a number of photographs of Algy Whitburn, often striking a pose or playing a joke on other members of the expedition. There is a Christmas card to Whitburn written by Katharine Woolley in 1927 and also a poem written by her on receipt of a box of marrons glacés sent by Whitburn for Christmas 1928 concluding with the stanza: “But we finished the marrons and voted them fine And drank Whitburn’s health in a bottle of wine Which the exiles agreed without any demur Was no more than his due who sent marrons to UR.” : 1
American archaeologist who supervised additions to collections from Mesopotamia, Palestine, Egypt, and the Continental Americas at the University Museum : 1
American University Provost from 1894-1910. Constructed University Museum: 1
An expert in ancient languages, Sidney Smith was the epigraphist at Ur in the first excavation season, 1922-1923. After the death of Gertrude Bell in mid-1926, he served as Honorary Director of Antiquities in Iraq (actually, Richard Cooke held this position 1926-1928; Smith held it from 1928-1931). He was then appointed Keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian antiquities at the British Museum and held the post from 1931-1948. He was also Professor of Semitic Languages and Civilizations at the University of London. Leonard Woolley is said not to have gotten along with Sidney Smith very well. When Woolley was working on publications at the British Museum after Smith became Keeper, he worked in a room outside the department in order to avoid him. : 1
Apprentice to Woolley during the Ur excavations, going on to excavate at Nineveh and direct excavations at Tell Arpachiyah, and the sites of Chagar Bazar and Tell Brak in Syria.: 1
Assisted in recordings, worked on the Ziggurat : 1
Assisted on the general archaeological side and kept the card index of objects, worked on the Ziggurat : 1
Born in Canada, Gordon studied archaeology at Harvard and went on expeditions to Honduras. He directed excavations at Copan in a few of the seasons and later led ethnographic expeditions to Alaska. In 1903 Gordon became curator of General Ethnology at the University of Pennsylvania Museum (then called the Free Museum of Art and Science) and in the next year he became curator of American Archaeology. He rose to the position of director in 1910 and began the Museum Journal. He organized the Ur excavations in conjunction with British Museum director, Sir Frederic Kenyon, from 1919-1922. Unfortunately he did not see the end of the Ur excavations, nor even the discovery of the Royal Cemetery, as he died in an accident early in 1927.: 1
Born to German parents in England, Katharine Menke studied history at Somerville College. She did not complete a degree due to health problems, and her health continued to give her trouble throughout her life. In fact, there are many indications that she suffered from a condition known as complete androgen insensitivity syndrome, though her life is somewhat mysterious as she had all of her papers burned on her death. She married Colonel Bertram Keeling in 1919, but he died later that same year. The widowed Mrs. Keeling joined Woolley's excavation at Ur as an artist in 1925. A young single woman on the dig stirred controversy; particularly among the Trustees at Penn. Woolley solved the problem by marrying her in 1927. Most descriptions of her say she was charming but also rather cold and manipulative. Nevertheless, she was a talented artist and very capable as an archaeologist. She came to be the primary assistant to Woolley's excavations in the final Ur excavation years, after Mallowan left in 1931. Agatha Christie is said to have styled the murder victim in her book Murder in Mesopotamia after Katharine Woolley.: 1
British Army officer renowned as "Lawrence of Arabia" for his liaison role during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign and the Arab Revolt against Ottoman Turkish rule of 1916–18; an archaeologist who worked with Woolley at Carchemish before the first World War; Advocated the Ur expeditions to Churchill: 1
British paleographer and biblical and classical scholar who from 1889-1931 occupied a series of posts at the British Museum, including principal libararian and Director; President and secretary of the British Academy (1917-1921); president of the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem (appointed in 1920) : 1
Colonial Office of the Middle East Department : 1
Director and Principal Librarian of the British Museum. Specialist in Renaissance medals.: 1
English Egyptologist and historian who participated in excavations of Deir el-Bahri and Abydos and organized digs at Nineveh and Mesopotamia : 1
Excavated Tell Arpachiyah in Nineveh alongside Mallowan, worked out the plans and sections of the grave-shafts and the top of the Ziggurat : 1
Famous mystery writer who first visited the excavations at Ur in 1928, after her controversial divorce from her first husband, Archibald Christie in that year. She returned in 1929 and this time she met Woolley's assistant, Max Mallowan. Although she was 14 years older than Mallowan, he proposed to her and the two were married in 1930. Katharine Woolley was a fan of Christie's books and was pleased to have her visit, but when Christie married Max Mallowan, Katharine Woolley is said to have forbade her from returning. Mallowan thus turned in his notice, completed the 1930-31 season at Ur, and then left to excavate with Reginald Campbell Thompson. Christie became an essential assistant to Mallowan's work and even wrote a non-fiction book, Come Tell Me How You Live, about excavations and life in Syria. This is the only book where she used both Christie and Mallowan as her surname. Christie wrote several archaeologically oriented books, stories and plays, including Murder in Mesopotamia which is in part based on the dig at Ur. Most of the characters in the book can easily be attributed to people at the dig in the years 1928-1930. She was appointed CBE in 1956 and fully knighted in 1971.: 1
Father Legrain was born in France, ordained as a priest there in 1904, and studied at the Catholic University of Lille and at the Collegium Appolinare in Rome. Assyriology professor at the Catholic Institute in Paris until WWI, he was then an interpreter in the war. He became curator of the Babylonian Section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum in 1920 and retired in 1952. A specialist in cuneiform, he was the epigraphist at Ur during the 1924-25 and 1925-26 field seasons. He published widely on texts and engraved seals, both in his time before the Penn Museum and after. He published seals and sealings from Ur (Ur Excavations volume 10), some of the tablets (Ur Excavations Texts volume 3) and was slated to publish a volume on the figurines from the site. His research and even an unpublished catalogue for this volume are in archives at the Penn Museum and now available on this website. Even after his two years at the site of Ur, Legrain played an integral role in the excavations. Not only did he research, publish, and display artifacts in the Penn Museum, but he was also the Museum's representative in the division of objects from Ur conducted almost every year in London. Legrain's letters about this process are very interesting, often in a more personal tone than Woolley's. In fact, many of his colleagues declared that Legrain was particularly entertaining and jovial, if cynical. His photographs at Ur are some of the only images we have of daily life, with many pictures of local Iraqis.: 1
First curator of Chinese art at Philadephia Museum of Art: 1
Founded the Iraq Museum in Baghdad and developed Iraq's first antiquities law which permitted the Ur excavations: 1
Hamoudi's eldest son; acted as junior foreman, clerk, and staff photographer : 1
Hamoudi's second son; he acted as junior foreman at the site but died young in 1932. : 1
Hamoudi's third son; he acted as junior foreman in the later seasons at the dig. : 1
Katharine Menke was born in Birmingham to German parents. Her father, Carl Menke, was a well-to-do general merchant who later became the German and Swiss Consul in Birmingham. Katharine attended a grammar school in Birmingham and then went up to Somerville College, Oxford, to read Modern History, but ill health forced her to leave before she had taken her degree. Despite difficulties with her German parentage, she joined the Red Cross in 1915 and was shortly posted to Alexandria where she worked in one of the large field hospitals. At the end of the First World War, she went to Poland to a former concentration camp housing some 7000 Bolshevik troops being detained in terrible conditions. Menke returned to London in 1919 when she met her first husband, Bertram Francis Eardley Keeling OBE, MC, RE. They married in March 1919. In September 1919, shortly after their arrival in Cairo where Keeling was Director-General of the Survey of Egypt and President of the Cotton Research Board, her husband committed suicide. Katharine Keeling travelled to Baghdad in 1924 with a letter of introduction to Gertrude Bell. She was staying with Lt.Col. J.R. Tainsh, Director of the Iraq State Railways, and his wife. They had taken Katharine to see the excavations at Ur, where she impressed Leonard Woolley with her ability to draw accurately some of the objects emerging from the excavations. Mainly because of this, but also because Woolley had succumbed to her undoubted charm of manner and appearance, he invited her to make a long stay during 1925, and then offered her a post as volunteer at Ur. Her official period as artist to the expedition began in the spring of 1926 when Mallowan helped extend the expedition house at Ur to include a bathroom for her use. The first mention of a payment to “K.K.” for £51.172.3d appears on the accounts at the end of the 1925/1926 season. She continued until the excavations closed in 1934. Katharine married Woolley in April 1927, mainly because George Gordon, the Director of the University of Pennsylvania Museum at Philadelphia, insisted that a situation in which a single woman was living in the expedition house with single men was untenable. A letter from Woolley to a legal representative in 1928 makes it clear that the marriage remained unconsummated but its threat to seek an annulment was never implemented. The Woolleys remained married and there is no doubt that Katharine’s contributions to Woolley’s excavations greatly enhanced his career. During the Second World War, Woolley worked closely with Winston Churchill and the Military Intelligence Directorate to monitor Nazi looting of European museums, art collections and royal archives. In this work, Katharine supplied invaluable assistance. Churchill had the Woolleys moved to the Dorchester Hotel in Park Lane in October 1943, and it was there, in November 1945 that Katharine died. Her death certificate put multiple sclerosis (from which she had suffered for over a decade) as the cause of her death. : 1
Keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities (British Museum; after 1948); Emeritus Professor of Ancient Semitic Languages and Civilizations at the University of London. : 1
Kenyon was a classical and biblical scholar, an expert in ancient languages, who began working at the British Museum in 1889 in the department of manuscripts. He wrote and edited many books on classics and language. He was knighted in 1912 and was president of the British Academy from 1917-1921. Kenyon became director of the British Museum in 1909 and held the post until 1931. He was instrumental in establishing the excavations at Ur. He and Penn Museum Director George Gordon discussed the possibility as early as 1919 and Kenyon suggested Woolley as director of excavations. : 1
Lecturer at University College London and president of the Library Association (UK): 1
Leonard Woolley was the third of eleven children of a Church of England clergyman, George Herbert Woolley, and his wife Sarah. He attended St John’s, Leatherhead, and New College, Oxford where he studied Classics and theology. It was the warden of New College, W.A. Spooner, who advised him to take up archaeology after graduation. In 1905 Woolley was appointed assistant to Arthur Evans, Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, in Oxford. Woolley’s early career took him to Nubia in 1907–11, and after that he went as director of the Carchemish expedition sponsored by the British Museum. One of his assistants was T.E. Lawrence (better known as “Lawrence of Arabia”). Woolley and Lawrence collaborated in assisting the Palestine Exploration Fund in its programme of making a definitive map of the Holy Land. This work was published in 1915 as The Wilderness of Zin. After the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Woolley was posted to Cairo where he acted as an intelligence officer. He was promoted to the rank of major in 1916 before being captured by the Turks and imprisoned at Kastamonu. He tried to return to Carchemish after the War but the political situation was too unsettled. In 1921, he excavated at Tell el-Amarna in Egypt with T.E. Peet, sponsored by the Egypt Exploration Society. In 1922, Woolley was made director of a joint expedition at Ur funded by the British Museum and The University of Pennsylvania Museum. It is with this site that his name will always be associated. He spent twelve years there, until 1934. Within two years of his arrival, Gertrude Bell had established the Iraq Museum in Baghdad which had a statutory right to first choice of all objects excavated. So rich were the finds from the site, however, especially from the Royal Cemetery, that both the British Museum and Penn Museum also contain fabulous objects from Ur in their collections. Woolley’s strengths were his painstaking approach to excavation; for example, excavation of the Royal Cemetery was delayed until he believed his local workforce was sufficiently well-trained to tackle the intricate disclosure of these opulent tombs. He also monitored and instructed his own staff, in particular Max Mallowan who early on acquired the habit of keeping careful field notes, making drawings, preparing monthly reports for sponsors, and most important, publishing in full each season’s work and finds as soon as possible after the season’s end. Woolley had a way with words and both his non-specialist books and lantern slide lectures were very popular with the public. His weakness was a familiarity with the Old Testament which led to unfounded connections between it and the work in hand, as for example, his belief that Ur was the birthplace of Abraham. Woolley also believed he had found evidence of The Flood. After Ur, Woolley moved to Tell Atchana in northern Syria, digging there before the War in 1937–39, and after it, from 1946¬–49. He was knighted for his services to archaeology in 1935. During the Second World War, Woolley worked for the Military Intelligence Directorate to assess and protect art and museum collections throughout Europe. He reported to Winston Churchill personally. In this work he was most ably assisted by his wife Katharine. After Katharine’s death and the end of his active archaeological career at Atchana, Woolley retired to Ashford in Kent. After an unsuccessful relationship, he retired to Dorset where he was looked after by a devoted housekeeper and her husband, thus enabling him to write up his archaeological work. : 1
Little is known about Hamoudi’s origins. Even his dates of birth and death are unknown. He is first known from the Carchemish excavations before the First World War, where he was in charge of organising and controlling the expedition workforce. Hamoudi also made himself indispensable in other ways, including administering medicine, and is credited with saving Lawrence’s life when he contracted typhoid fever. In June 1913, Lawrence and Woolley took Hamoudi to England, and they visited Oxford. The visit left a deep impression on Hamoudi. In 1914, Woolley and Lawrence shut down the site at Carchemish and both men were soon involved in military concerns. Woolley returned to Carchemish in 1919–20, but was unable to resume excavation because of the political situation. When Woolley was appointed Director of the joint British Museum/University of Pennsylvania Museum expedition to Ur in 1922, Hamoudi was appointed foreman. Described then as an elderly man, he brought with him two sons who worked under their father in organising the workforce. There are several photographs of Hamoudi at Ur, including some which show him in the same line as the Woolleys and the rest of the team. He was clearly a much-valued member of that team. At the start of every season, he would meet Woolley in Baghdad to discuss the ordering of stores of food and excavation essentials, then arrange for their transport to Ur. He also took instructions about work to be carried out to the expedition house before Woolley and his wife arrived. Mallowan frequently mentioned Hamoudi in a diary kept during 1925 and 1926. In October 1926 he reports buying presents (“sundry decorative articles”) in Paris on his way to Ur for Hamoudi and his (by then) three sons working at Ur: Yahia, Ibrahim and Isa. Undergoing an emotional crisis after the death of one of his closest friends, Mallowan “went to talk things over with Hamoudi, that tower of philosophy”. Hamoudi went on to be part of Mallowan’s digs in northern Syria at Chagar Bazar and Tell Brak. Agatha (Christie) related how he and two of his sons reported for duty at 5 a.m. while the Mallowans were still fast asleep in their hotel room. In 1949, when Mallowan was about to begin excavating at Nimrud, he found that Hamoudi had been awarded the King’s Medal for Service in the Cause of Freedom (KMS) for his services to British interests during the War. How long after this Hamoudi died is not recorded. Katharine Woolley made a bronze head of Hamoudi, which was once in the collection of the Horniman Museum, but the Museum does not have it now, and have no recollection of what happened to it. It was much admired at the time and considered to have been a good likeness. : 1
Mapped out archaic levels: 1
Max Mallowan was engaged as junior field archaeologist at Ur by Leonard Woolley between 1925 and 1931. He had just graduated from Oxford with a degree in Classical Greats but with no idea of a future career. A chance encounter led to his interview with Woolley at the British Museum, and his subsequent appointment. Ever careful not to squander funds, Woolley organised a free passage for his young assistant as a seaman on an oil tanker sailing from London to Port Said. At Beirut, Mallowan met Algy Whitburn and the two travelled together overland to Ur Junction where they met Woolley at the somewhat sparse expedition house. Woolley made it abundantly clear that they were there to work and he himself set a punishing schedule. The young men were expected to be on site half an hour after sunrise and to work until well after dinner writing up the day’s finds. Mallowan was lucky to have Woolley as his mentor. Not only did he instruct Mallowan in the rudiments of archaeology, but he also impressed upon him the importance of keeping precise daily field notes of all work going on, and also the necessity to publish that work, and especially any particularly interesting finds in order to inspire future sponsors. Woolley also insisted that Mallowan learn Arabic so that he could communicate with the workforce, which numbered between 200 and 250 men. That first season, Mallowan also kept the pay book, acted as untrained medical assistant, showed visitors round the site, and helped to build a new wing on to the expedition house. This extension was for the benefit of Katharine Keeling, an unpaid volunteer whom Woolley had engaged to do all the drawing of objects found on the site, and to whom Woolley was singularly attached. Mallowan resigned from his role at Ur after his marriage to Agatha Christie in 1930, because Katharine Woolley (she had married Woolley in 1927) insisted that there was room for only one woman at Ur. After Ur, Mallowan dug for one season at Nineveh with Reginald Campbell-Thompson, and thereafter conducted his own digs. In the years leading up to the Second World War, he excavated at Arpachiyah, Chagar Bazar and Tell Brak, as well as conducting a survey of the Khabur Valley. After the War, as Professor of Western Asiatic Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, he excavated at Nimrud (1949–1957) before handing over to David Oates. After Agatha Christie’s death in 1976 he remarried Barbara Parker, his epigraphist at Nimrud. : 1
Mr. Joyce was educated at Dulwich and Hertford College, Oxford. He was appointed in 1902 to the staff of the British Museum in the Department of British and Medieval Antiquities and Ethnography, of which Mr. (later Sir) Charles Hercules Read was then keeper. Mr. Joyce during the Great War was attached to the War Office on the General Staff (Intelligence), attaining the honorary rank of captain, and being awarded the O.B.E. in 1918. In 1921, he was appointed deputy keeper of his department, and on its reorganization was placed in charge of the Sub-Department of Ethnography in 1932. In his departmental work, he had specialized in the ethnography of the peoples of Africa and the antiquities of America. : 1
Originally secretary to Penn Museum director George Gordon, McHugh was an important, if often overlooked, figure in the organization and administration of the museum. More than simply keeping Gordon's schedule, she organized most of the administrative needs of the museum. The importance of her role can be seen in the number of letters in the directorial files that are addressed to and sent by her. In her official status she often corresponded with Woolley at Ur. So well did she know the museum and its business that she became Acting Director on Gordon's death early in 1927, serving in this capacity until 1929 when Horace Jayne was named Gordon's official successor. These years were at the height of the Ur excavation seeing the discovery of and intense work in the Royal Cemetery itself. Leon Legrain wrote directly to McHugh concerning the division of finds with London and Woolley often addressed her directly. After her stint as Acting Director, she again became assistant and secretary to the newly appointed full director and continued to manage much of the museum at least until 1936.: 1
Previously Provost and Vice President of the University: 1
Prominent British archaeologist whose excavation work includes digs at Roman Corbridge, Carchemish for the British Museum, Ur, and Al Mina and Tell Atchana in Syria. Knighted in 1935 for his contributions to the discipline of archaeology. : 1
Responsible for the ground plans of the Nannar courtyard and details of the northwest terrace: 1
Responsible for the original ground plan of the Ziggurat and the detailed elevations of its existing ruins: 1
Rev. Burrows was the epigraphist at Ur from 1926-1930. He was a Jesuit priest who is said to have dressed on the dig very much as he did back in England, though photos of Woolley and others show that it was typical to wear jacket and tie even in the field. Contrary to his predecessor, Leon Legrain, Burrows is said to have had few social graces and Woolley commented that he was "a man of very little stamina." This was in reference to an illness Burrows suffered in his first year at Ur, eventually diagnosed as "dysentery and malaria." He had a high fever and had to be removed to hospital at Basra. He recovered and returned to Ur for every season up to 1930, so perhaps he had stamina after all. Burrows studied Assyriology at Felstead and Keble College in Oxford and specialized in cuneiform epigraphy. He assisted with the official publications of many of the cuneiform tablets from Ur, including the archaic texts. He died relatively young, in a car accident in 1938.: 1
Secretary and Assistant Treasurer of the University of Pennsylvania Museum : 1
Sent by the University Museum to join Woolley's team in Iraq, but succumbed to a mysterious illness and violent behavior in Britain so that he was returned to the U.S without participating in the dig : 1
Served as Honorary Director of Antiquities in Iraq from 1931-1934. A German, he was the first non-British Director in the new nation of Iraq. He was also the director of the German excavations at Warka, creating a conflict of interest as far as divisions of finds were concerned. In his position as Director of Antiquities he should keep the best for Iraq, but as director of excavations, he would keep the best for the excavation. Nevertheless, when the first Iraqi Director of Antiquities, Sati al-Husri, took over in 1934, he maintained Jordan as his adviser, replacing him with Seton Lloyd in 1939 (notably the year when Hitler invaded Poland). Jordan was aligned with the National Socialist party and assisted in the 1941 Nazi-led insurrection against the Iraqi government, known as the Rashid Ali Al-Gaylani coup or the Golden Square coup.: 1
Studied Classics at Oxford University and became general assistant to Leonard Woolley at Ur in 1925, having no prior field experience. He spent six seasons at Ur, gaining increasing knowledge of the field. In 1931 he left Ur to work with Reginald Campbell Thompson in northern Iraq and quickly moved on to head his own excavations in Syria at Tell Arpachiyah, Chagar Bazar, and then Tell Brak. Despite his many contributions to the field of archaeology, he is perhaps best known for having married the famous mystery writer, Agatha Christie, becoming her second husband in 1930. Mallowan was knighted in 1968 for his contributions to archaeology. He wrote many books and articles in his lifetime, including portions of the Ur Excavation series. He became professor of archaeology at London University in 1947 and died in 1978. : 1
Successor to the late Gordon : 1
Surveyed site during tenth expedition: 1
The son of a missionary, Hill was born in India. He became a numismatist and archaeologist and joined the British Museum in 1893 in the coins and medals department. He wrote many numismatic catalogues and rose to the post of director in 1931. He held the position until 1936 and thus oversaw the end of the Ur excavations. He was knighted in 1933.: 1
Though not an archaeologist, Cooke was a prominent Briton in Iraq and he was made Honorary Director of Antiquities after Gertrude Bell's death. He served in this office from 1926-1928. Suspected of involvement in antiquities smuggling, Cooke was implicated in a scandal involving missing objects from Ur that had been allocated to the Iraq Museum. In 1930, he was caught in the smuggling activity when a truck driver he had commissioned was stopped at the Syrian border. The consignment of goods Cooke had given the driver included the head of a Gudea statue, bronze weapons, figurines, and cylinder seals. Cooke had no export permit. He was tried and made no defense other than being a poor man. He was expelled from Iraq three days later. As a result of this scandal, Iraqis pushed for more local education about their ancient past and moved toward a new antiquities law, finally enacted in 1936.: 1
Trained as an archaeologist at Oxford University and excavated in Roman Britain (Corbridge) briefly, then in the Sudan under British-born American archaeologist David Randall-MacIver, who was a curator at the Penn Museum. Woolley then conducted excavations at Carchemish near the current Syrian/Turkish border from 1911-1914. In World War I, Woolley's knowledge of the Middle East was extremely valuable and he worked for British Intelligence. Even before the War he was essentially spying on the German railroad that was under construction near Carchemish (the Berlin-Baghdad Railway). Relatively early in the war, however, Woolley was captured and spent two years in a Turkish POW camp. Woolley was chosen to lead the expedition to Ur as early as 1920 when the two museums began to discuss the details of a joint excavation. He began work at the site late in 1922 and completed excavations in 1934, working long hours and accomplishing a great deal. He was knighted in 1935 for his work at Ur. He went on to run excavations at Al Mina and Alalakh in Syria. In his lifetime he gave many lectures and wrote many articles and books but never held an academic position. He died in 1960 and was lauded by generations of scholars around the world for his contributions to the field of archaeology.: 1
Traveled in Middle East. Played a major role in establishing and helping administer the modern state of Iraq. As Director of Antiquities, she was in charge of division of finds.: 1
Worked alongside Gadd in supervising the clearing of excavation sites : 1
Worked at Deir el-Bahri, Egypt 1903-1907, Abydos in 1910 and 1925, Helped organize expeditions to Nineveh and Upper Egypt. Early director of Ur and Ubaid excavations: 1
Worked on the Ziggurat: 1
Youngest brother of T.E. Lawrence ('Lawrence of Arabia'), A.W. Lawrence was asked to fill the assistant position at Ur after the original field assistant from Penn, Paul Hunter, had fallen ill and been sent home before ever reaching Iraq. Lawrence arrived at Ur about mid-way through the first season. A.W. Lawrence was primarily a Classicist and rose to be a leading authority on classical sculpture and architecture. He then took a position in Classical Archaeology at Cambridge University (1940s) and became Director of the National Museum of Ghana, which he founded in the 1950s. : 1