Woolley, Leonard, 1880-1960

Sir Charles Leonard Woolley (17 April 1880 – 20 February 1960) was a British archaeologist best known for his excavations at Ur in Mesopotamia. He is recognized as one of the first "modern" archaeologists who excavated in a methodical way, keeping careful records, and using them to reconstruct ancient life and history.[1] Woolley was knighted in 1935 for his contributions to the discipline of archaeology.[2] He married the British archaeologist Katharine Woolley.

Early life
Woolley was the son of a clergyman, and was brother to Geoffrey Harold Woolley, VC, and George Cathcart Woolley. He was born at 13 Southwold Road, Upper Clapton, in the modern London Borough of Hackney[3] and educated at St John's School, Leatherhead and New College, Oxford. He was interested in excavations from a young age.

CareerIn 1905, Woolley became assistant of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Volunteered by Arthur Evans to run the excavations on the Roman site at Corbridge (near Hadrian's Wall) for Francis Haverfield, Woolley began his excavation career there in 1906, later admitting in Spadework that "I had never studied archaeological methods even from books ... and I had not any idea how to make a survey or a ground-plan" (Woolley 1953:15). Nevertheless, the Corbridge Lion was found under his supervision.[4]

Woolley next travelled to Nubia in southern Egypt, where he worked with David Randall-MacIver on the Eckley Coxe Expedition to Nubia conducted under the auspices of the University of Pennsylvania Museum. Between 1907 and 1911 they conducted archaeological excavations and survey at sites including Areika,[5] Buhen,[6] and the Meroitic town of Karanog.[7] In 1912–1914, with T. E. Lawrence as his assistant, he excavated the Hittite city of Carchemish in Syria. Lawrence and Woolley were apparently working for British Naval Intelligence and monitoring the construction of Germany's Berlin-to-Baghdad railway.[8]

During World War I, Woolley, with Lawrence, was posted to Cairo, where he met Gertrude Bell. He then moved to Alexandria, where he was assigned to work on naval espionage. Turkey captured a ship he was on, and held him for two years in a relatively comfortable prisoner-of-war camp. He received the Croix de Guerre from France at the war's end.[9]

In the following years, Woolley returned to Carchemish, and then worked at Amarna in Egypt.[10]

Excavation at Ur
Woolley led a joint expedition of the British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania to Ur, beginning in 1922, which included his wife, the British archaeologist Katharine Woolley. There, they made important discoveries, including the Copper Bull and the Bull-Headed Lyre.[11][12] In the course of excavating the royal cemetery and the pair of Ram in a Thicket figurines. Agatha Christie's novel, Murder in Mesopotamia, was inspired by the discovery of the royal tombs. Agatha Christie later married Woolley's young assistant, Max Mallowan.

Ur was the burial site of what may have been many Sumerian royals. The Woolleys discovered tombs of great material wealth, containing large paintings of ancient Sumerian culture at its zenith, along with gold and silver jewellery, cups and other furnishings. The most extravagant tomb was that of "Queen" Pu-Abi. Amazingly enough, Queen Pu-Abi's tomb was untouched by looters. Inside the tomb, many well-preserved items were found, including a cylindrical seal bearing her name in Sumerian. Her body was found buried along with those of two attendants, who had presumably been poisoned to continue to serve her after death. Woolley was able to reconstruct Pu-Abi's funeral ceremony from objects found in her tomb.

Excavation at Al Mina and Tell Atchana
In 1936, after the discoveries at Ur, Woolley was interested in finding ties between the ancient Aegean and Mesopotamian civilisations. This led him to the Syrian city of Al Mina. He excavated Tell Atchana in the years 1937–1939 and 1946–1949. His team discovered palaces, temples, private houses and fortification walls, in 17 archaeological levels, reaching from late Early Bronze Age (c. 2200–2000 BC) to Late Bronze Age (c. 13th century BC). Among their finds was the inscribed statue of Idrimi, a king of Alalakh c. early 15th century BC.[13][14]

Local Genesis flood theory
Woolley was one of the first archaeologists to propose that the flood described in the Book of Genesis was local after identifying a flood-stratum at Ur "400 miles long and 100 miles wide; but for the occupants of the valley that was the whole world".[15][16]

World War II
His archaeological career was interrupted by the United Kingdom's entry into World War II, and he became part of the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section of the Allied armies.[17] After the war, he returned to Alalakh, where he continued to work from 1946 until 1949.[18]

Woolley married Katharine Elizabeth Keeling (née Menke; born June 1888 – died 8 November 1945), who was born in England to German parents and had previously been married to Lieut. Col. Bertram Francis Eardley Keeling (OBE, MC). He had hired Keeling in 1924 as expedition artist and draughtswoman; they married in 1927 and she continued to play an important role at his archaeological sites.[10]

In 1930, Woolley invited his friend Agatha Christie to visit a dig site in Iraq, where she met her second husband Max Mallowan.

Woolley died on 20 February 1960 at age 79.

Archaeologist. Appointed as an assistant in the Department of Antiquities in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford under Arthur Evans (1905); joined a University of Pennsylvania expedition to excavate with David Randall MacIver (q.v.) at Karanog and Buhen in Nubia and later with an Oxford University expedition in the same region (1907-11); succeeded D.G. Hogarth (q.v.) as director of British Museum excavations at Carchemish (1911-19); this work was interrupted, first by a six week survey on behalf of the Palestine Exploration Fund (q.v.) in Sinai with his Carchemish colleague T.E. Lawrence (q.v.) (1914), and later by war service when he held the rank of major and worked as an intelligence officer (from 1916-18 Woolley was a prisoner of war in Turkey); subsequently worked at Tell el-Amarna, Egypt (1921-22) and then led an expedition to Ur and Tell al-Ubaid (for The British Museum and the University Museum, Philadelphia) between 1922-34; knighted (1935); began excavating at Tell Atchana [ancient Alalakh] (1937, resumed after until 1949). He was assiduous not only in producing full publications of all his excavations, but was also a good public communicator, giving radio interviews, publishing a number of popular books on archaeology, including: 'Dead Towns and Living Men', Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1920; and 'Spadework'.

Charles Leonard Woolley (1880–1960)
Charles Leonard Woolley

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 School, Leatherhead, in Surrey, and New College, University of 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 program 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 the joint expedition at Ur funded by the British Museum and the Penn Museum. It is with this site that his name will always be associated. He spent twelve seasons at Ur, 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 when they were divided—in the custom of the time of the “partage” system—between the host country and the excavation’s sponsoring institutions, both the British Museum and the Penn Museum were also assigned fabulous objects from Ur for 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; 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 Second World War in 1937–39, and after it, from 1946¬–49. He was knighted for his services to archaeology in 1935. During the 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.