Goell, Theresa.

Archeologist Theresa Bathsheba Goell was born in New York City on July 17, 1901. While in college, she experienced partial hearing loss, diagnosed as otosclerosis; she compensated for this by lip reading and by the use of hearing aids. In 1922, she married Cyrus Levinthal and had one son, Jay; she and Levinthal later divorced, with Goell receiving custody of Jay. In the early 1930s, Goell participated in archeological digs in Jerusalem and Jordan; on returning to New York, she undertook a variety of jobs and also took classes in art and architecture. A professor suggested she look into the little-studied monuments at Mt. Nimrud on the Anatolian plateau of southeastern Turkey; this led to her life-long work excavating the site known variously as Nemrud Dagh, Nemrud Dagi, and Nemrut Daği. Her first journey to Mt. Nimrud was in 1947 and she began excavations there in 1953. During her many years at the site, she uncovered the tomb-sanctuary of King Antiochus I (64-32 B.C.), who ruled when the Kingdom of Commagene, on the west side of the Euphrates River, was a buffer state between the Roman and Parthian empires. She also instituted an intensive digging program at Samosata, the capital city of Antiochus I, hoping to locate the palace and public buildings of Commagene. Goell died in New York City on December 18, 1985, after a long illness. In 2005, her niece Martha Goell Lubell produced and directed a documentary about Goell and Nemrut Daği, titled Queen of the Mountain.

From the description of Papers, 1906-2005 (inclusive). (Harvard University). WorldCat record id: 123379798