Francis Adrian Joseph Turville-Petre (4 March 1901 – 16 August 1942) was a British
archaeologist
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
, famous for the discovery of the ''
Homo heidelbergensis
''Homo heidelbergensis'' (also ''H. sapiens heidelbergensis''), sometimes called Heidelbergs, is an extinct species or subspecies of archaic human which existed during the Middle Pleistocene. It was subsumed as a subspecies of ''H. erectus'' in ...
'' fossil
Galilee Man
Mugharet el-Zuttiyeh ("Cave of the Robbers") is a prehistoric archaeological site in Upper Galilee, Israel. It is situated from the Nahal Amud outlet, approximately above the wadi bed ( below sea level). It was found to house a fossil today know ...
in 1926, and for his work at
Mount Carmel
Mount Carmel ( he, הַר הַכַּרְמֶל, Har haKarmel; ar, جبل الكرمل, Jabal al-Karmil), also known in Arabic as Mount Mar Elias ( ar, link=no, جبل مار إلياس, Jabal Mār Ilyās, lit=Mount Saint Elias/Elijah), is a c ...
, in what was then the
British Mandate of Palestine British Mandate of Palestine or Palestine Mandate most often refers to:
* Mandate for Palestine: a League of Nations mandate under which the British controlled an area which included Mandatory Palestine and the Emirate of Transjordan.
* Mandatory P ...
, now
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
. He was a close friend of
Christopher Isherwood
Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood (26 August 1904 – 4 January 1986) was an Anglo-American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, autobiographer, and diarist. His best-known works include '' Goodbye to Berlin'' (1939), a semi-autobiographical ...
and
W. H. Auden
Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in ...
.
Life
Francis Turville-Petre was born into a
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
,
landed gentry
The landed gentry, or the ''gentry'', is a largely historical British social class of landowners who could live entirely from rental income, or at least had a country estate. While distinct from, and socially below, the British peerage, th ...
family in England, the oldest of the five children of Oswald and Margaret Petre (née Cave). He was the older brother of
Gabriel Turville-Petre
Edward Oswald Gabriel Turville-Petre (25 March 1908 – 17 February 1978) was an English philologist who specialized in Old Norse studies.
Born at Bosworth Hall, Leicestershire to a prominent Roman Catholic family, Turville-Petre was ed ...
, the noted scholar of
Icelandic and
early Scandinavian. The family moved to the ancestral home of
Bosworth Hall,
Husbands Bosworth
Husbands Bosworth is a large crossroads village in South Leicestershire on the A5199 road from Leicester city to Northampton and the A4304 road from Junction 20 of the M1 motorway to Market Harborough. The population of the village was 1,027 a ...
, Leicestershire in 1907.
Turville-Petre went up to
Exeter College, Oxford
Exeter College (in full: The Rector and Scholars of Exeter College in the University of Oxford) is one of the Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England and the fourth-oldest college of the un ...
in 1920. He was admitted as a Diploma student in
Anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...
at
Michaelmas Term
Michaelmas term is the first academic term of the academic year in a number of English-speaking universities and schools in the northern hemisphere, especially in the United Kingdom. Michaelmas term derives its name from the Feast of St Micha ...
, 1921, studying physical anthropology and cultural anthropology (
ethnology
Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural anthropology, cultural, social anthropolo ...
with archaeology and technology at the
Pitt Rivers Museum
Pitt Rivers Museum is a museum displaying the archaeological and anthropological collections of the University of Oxford in England. The museum is located to the east of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, and can only be accessed t ...
). He was awarded the Certificate in Physical Anthropology in 1922 and a Diploma in 1924. Following the completion of his studies in Oxford, Turville-Petre went to work on excavations in the
Levant
The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is eq ...
.
In 1925 he conducted digs in two caves in the
Nahal Amud
Nahal Amud ( he, נחל עמוד), also known as the Wadi al-Amud, is a stream in the Upper Galilee region of Israel that flows into the Sea of Galilee.
History
The source of the stream, Ramat Dalton, is located 800 meters above sea level. Its d ...
in Galilee, Israel,
Mugharet el-Zuttiyeh
Mugharet el-Zuttiyeh ("Cave of the Robbers") is a prehistoric archaeological site in Upper Galilee, Israel. It is situated from the Nahal Amud outlet, approximately above the wadi bed ( below sea level). It was found to house a fossil today known ...
(Robber's Cave) and Mugharet el-Emirah (Princes' Cave), both near the
Sea of Galilee
The Sea of Galilee ( he, יָם כִּנֶּרֶת, Judeo-Aramaic: יַמּא דטבריא, גִּנֵּיסַר, ar, بحيرة طبريا), also called Lake Tiberias, Kinneret or Kinnereth, is a freshwater lake in Israel. It is the lowest ...
. It was in the Zuttiyeh cave that he discovered the partial frontal cranial remains of what was first thought to be a
Neanderthal
Neanderthals (, also ''Homo neanderthalensis'' and erroneously ''Homo sapiens neanderthalensis''), also written as Neandertals, are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago. While th ...
individual. The fossil was dubbed the "Galilee skull" and was eventually classified as ''
Homo heidelbergensis
''Homo heidelbergensis'' (also ''H. sapiens heidelbergensis''), sometimes called Heidelbergs, is an extinct species or subspecies of archaic human which existed during the Middle Pleistocene. It was subsumed as a subspecies of ''H. erectus'' in ...
''.
Galilee Man
was the first
hominid
The Hominidae (), whose members are known as the great apes or hominids (), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: '' Pongo'' (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); ''Gorilla'' (the east ...
fossil to be unearthed in Western Asia. The fossil is presently housed in the
Rockefeller Museum
The Rockefeller Archeological Museum, formerly the Palestine Archaeological Museum ("PAM"; 1938–1967), and which before then housed The Imperial Museum of Antiquities (''Müze-i Hümayun''; 1901–1917), is an archaeology museum
A museum ...
in Jerusalem,
and a cast of the skull is on permanent display in the
Israel Museum
The Israel Museum ( he, מוזיאון ישראל, ''Muze'on Yisrael'') is an art and archaeological museum in Jerusalem. It was established in 1965 as Israel's largest and foremost cultural institution, and one of the world’s leading encyclopa ...
. Turville-Petre was later invited by
Dorothy Garrod
Dorothy Annie Elizabeth Garrod, CBE, FBA (5 May 1892 – 18 December 1968) was an English archaeologist who specialised in the Palaeolithic period. She held the position of Disney Professor of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge from 193 ...
to join her excavations at
Kebara Cave
Kebara Cave ( he, מערת כבארה, Me'arat Kebbara, ar, مغارة الكبارة, Mugharat al-Kabara) is a limestone cave locality in Wadi Kebara, situated at above mean sea level, above sea level on the western escarpment of the Mount Car ...
on Mount Carmel. He also took part in excavations in the
Sulaimaniya
Sulaymaniyah, also spelled as Slemani ( ku, سلێمانی, Silêmanî, ar, السليمانية, as-Sulaymāniyyah), is a city in the east of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, not far from the Iran–Iraq border. It is surrounded by the Azmar, Go ...
administrative region in
Iraqi Kurdistan
Iraqi Kurdistan or Southern Kurdistan ( ku, باشووری کوردستان, Başûrê Kurdistanê) refers to the Kurdish-populated part of northern Iraq. It is considered one of the four parts of "Kurdistan" in Western Asia, which also incl ...
in October – December 1928, excavating with Garrod the caves of
Zarzi and
Hazar Merd.
In 1928 he moved to
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
,
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
and stayed at the
Institute of Sexual Research, run by
Dr Magnus Hirschfeld. Whilst based in Berlin Turville-Petre was an active member of the
Scientific Humanitarian Committee
The Scientific-Humanitarian Committee (, WhK) was founded by Magnus Hirschfeld in Berlin in May 1897, to campaign for social recognition of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, and against their legal persecution. It was the first LGBT ...
, which campaigned for
gay legal reform and tolerance, and attended the Congress of the
World League for Sexual Reform
The World League for Sexual Reform was a League for coordinating policy reforms related to greater openness around sex. The initial groundwork for the organisation, including a congress in Berlin which was later counted as the organisation's first, ...
(also founded by Hirschfeld) in
Copenhagen
Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...
in 1928. Known by his friends as 'Fronny', Turville-Petre was openly
gay
''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'.
While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...
. He encouraged his friend
Christopher Isherwood
Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood (26 August 1904 – 4 January 1986) was an Anglo-American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, autobiographer, and diarist. His best-known works include '' Goodbye to Berlin'' (1939), a semi-autobiographical ...
to join him in Berlin, and together with
W. H. Auden
Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in ...
they enjoyed life, and especially the nightlife, in the city. Turville-Petre left Berlin in 1931, and took up residence on his private rented island of Agios Nikolaos (St Nicolas) near
Euboea
Evia (, ; el, Εύβοια ; grc, Εὔβοια ) or Euboia (, ) is the second-largest Greek island in area and population, after Crete. It is separated from Boeotia in mainland Greece by the narrow Euripus Strait (only at its narrowest poin ...
, in
Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...
. Isherwood visited him there in 1933.
Turville-Petre was the model for the title character of a lost play by Auden, ''The Fronny'' (1930); for the central character of their 1935 play ''
The Dog Beneath the Skin
''The Dog Beneath the Skin, or Where is Francis? A Play in Three Acts'', by W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood, was the first Auden-Isherwood collaboration and an important contribution to English poetic drama in the 1930s. It was published ...
'', Auden and Isherwood preserved the name Francis and the idea of the character's wanderings through Europe, but the character in the later play did not resemble Turville-Petre himself.
Isherwood's stay with Turville-Petre on Agios Nikolaos has been described as 'farcical but grim', and in 1959 Isherwood wrote a lightly fictionalised version of Fronny in ''
Down There on a Visit
''Down There on a Visit'' is a novel written by the Anglo-American author Christopher Isherwood and published in 1962. The title refers to a jibe fired at Isherwood's protagonist by another character, Paul: "You know, you really are a tourist, ...
'', where he is portrayed as Ambrose, the mad king of a small Greek island.
Turville-Petre died in
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...
,
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
in 1942 at the age of 41. His archaeological collections from the Middle East are held by the
Pitt Rivers Museum
Pitt Rivers Museum is a museum displaying the archaeological and anthropological collections of the University of Oxford in England. The museum is located to the east of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, and can only be accessed t ...
,
University of Oxford
, mottoeng = The Lord is my light
, established =
, endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019)
, budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20)
, chancellor ...
.
Selected works
*1927 Francis A J Turville-Petre; Dorothea M A Bate; Charlotte Baynes; Arthur Keith ''Researches in Prehistoric Galilee, 1925–1926'' London, Council of the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem
*1932 "Excavations in the Mugharet el-Kebarah" ''Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland'' 62, 271–276
*1932 "Excavations at the Cave Mugharet-el-Kebarah, near Zichron Jakob, Palestine" ''Man'' 32(20), 15
Notes
Sources
*Bar-Yosef, O., B. Vandermeersch, B. Arensburg, A. Belfer-Cohen, P. Goldberg, H. Laville, L. Meignen, Y. Rak, J. D. Speth, E. Tchernov, A-M. Tillier, and S. Weiner, 1992, "The Excavations in Kebara Cave, Mt. Carmel" ''Current Anthropology'' 33(5), 497–550
*Bar-Yosef, Ofer and Callander, Jane, 1997, "A forgotten archaeologist: the life of Francis Turville-Petre" ''Palestine Exploration Quarterly''
*Lehmann, John, 1976, "Two of the Conspirators" ''Twentieth Century Literature'' Christopher Isherwood Issue 22(3), 264–275
*Page, Norman, 2000, ''Auden and Isherwood: The Berlin Years'' Palgrave Macmillan, London
Diploma students in Anthropology at Oxford University
External links
History of the Turville-Petre family at Bosworth HallImage of Francis Turville-Petre in cave where he found the Galilee Man (on the British Palestine Exploration Fund website)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Turville-Petre, Francis
English archaeologists
1901 births
1942 deaths
Alumni of Exeter College, Oxford
LGBT people from England
LGBT rights activists from the United Kingdom
People associated with the Pitt Rivers Museum
20th-century LGBT people
Gay scientists