Sir Charles Leonard Woolley (17 April 1880 – 20 February 1960) 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 ...

best known for his

excavations In archaeology, excavation is the exposure, processing and recording of archaeological remains. An excavation site or "dig" is the area being studied. These locations range from one to several areas at a time during a project and can be condu ...

at Ur in

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...

. 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. Woolley was knighted in 1935 for his contributions to the discipline of

archaeology 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 ...

. He married the British archaeologist

Katharine Woolley Katharine Elizabeth, Lady Woolley (née Menke; June 1888 – 8 November 1945) was a British military nurse and archaeologist who worked principally at the Mesopotamian site of Ur. She was married to archaeologist Leonard Woolley. Personal li ...

Early life

Woolley was the son of a

clergyman Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...

, and was brother to

Geoffrey Harold Woolley Geoffrey Harold Woolley, (14 May 1892 – 10 December 1968) was a British Army infantry officer, Church of England priest, and Second World War military chaplain. He was the first British Territorial Army officer to be awarded the Victoria Cros ...

, VC, and

George Cathcart Woolley George Cathcart Woolley (24 December 1876 – 6 December 1947) was a British colonial administrator in North Borneo (now Sabah) in the early part on the twentieth century. Woolley was also an ethnographer and an ardent collector, and the ...

. He was born at 13 Southwold Road,

Upper Clapton Clapton is a district of East London, England, in the London Borough of Hackney. Clapton is divided into Upper Clapton, in the north, and Lower Clapton to the south. Clapton railway station lies north-east of Charing Cross. Geography and origi ...

, in the modern

London Borough of Hackney London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

and educated at

St John's School, Leatherhead Seek those things which are above , established = , closed = , type = Public SchoolIndependent school Co-educational day, weekly and flexi boarding , religious_affiliation = Church of England , p ...

and

New College, Oxford New College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1379 by William of Wykeham in conjunction with Winchester College as its feeder school, New College is one of the oldest colleges at th ...

. He was interested in excavations from a young age.

Career

In 1905, Woolley became assistant of the

Ashmolean Museum The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology () on Beaumont Street, Oxford, England, is Britain's first public museum. Its first building was erected in 1678–1683 to house the cabinet of curiosities that Elias Ashmole gave to the University of ...

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

. Volunteered by

Arthur Evans Sir Arthur John Evans (8 July 1851 – 11 July 1941) was a British archaeologist and pioneer in the study of Aegean civilization in the Bronze Age. He is most famous for unearthing the palace of Knossos on the Greek island of Crete. Based on t ...

to run the excavations on the Roman site at

Corbridge Corbridge is a village in Northumberland, England, west of Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle and east of Hexham. Villages nearby include Halton, Northumberland, Halton, Acomb, Northumberland, Acomb, Aydon and Sandhoe. Etymology Corbridge was kno ...

(near

Hadrian's Wall Hadrian's Wall ( la, Vallum Aelium), also known as the Roman Wall, Picts' Wall, or ''Vallum Hadriani'' in Latin, is a former defensive fortification of the Roman province of Britannia, begun in AD 122 in the reign of the Emperor Hadrian. R ...

) for

Francis Haverfield Francis John Haverfield, (8 November 1860 at Shipston-on-Stour – 1 October 1919) was an English ancient historian, archaeologist, and academic. From 1907 to 1919 he held the Camden Professorship of Ancient History at the University of Oxford ...

, 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 The Corbridge Lion, Northumberland, England, is an ancient Roman free-standing sandstone sculpture of a male lion standing on a prone animal (possibly a deer) on a semi-cylindrical coping stone base. Measuring 0.95m in length by 0.36m in width a ...

was found under his supervision. Woolley next traveled to

Nubia Nubia () (Nobiin: Nobīn, ) is a region along the Nile river encompassing the area between the first cataract of the Nile (just south of Aswan in southern Egypt) and the confluence of the Blue and White Niles (in Khartoum in central Sudan), or ...

where he worked with

David Randall-MacIver David Randall-MacIver FBA (31 October 1873 – 30 April 1945) was a United Kingdom, British-born archaeologist, who later became an United States, American citizen. He is most famous for his excavations at Great Zimbabwe which provided the first so ...

on the Eckley Coxe Expedition to Nubia conducted under the auspices of the

University of Pennsylvania Museum The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology—commonly known as the Penn Museum—is an archaeology and anthropology museum at the University of Pennsylvania. It is located on Penn's campus in the University City neighb ...

. Between 1907 and 1911 they conducted archaeological excavations and survey at sites including Areika,

Buhen Buhen ( grc, Βοὥν ''Bohón'') was an ancient Egyptian settlement situated on the West bank of the Nile below (to the North of) the Second Cataract in what is now Northern State, Sudan. It is now submerged in Lake Nasser, Sudan; as a resul ...

, and the Meroitic town of

Karanog Karanog ( Meroitic: ''Nalote'') was a Kushite town in Lower Nubia on the west bank of the Nile (near Qasr Ibrim). It was probably a provincial capital under its own (governor) in the second and third centuries AD. It was excavated between 1907 an ...

. In 1912–1914, with

T. E. Lawrence Thomas Edward Lawrence (16 August 1888 – 19 May 1935) was a British archaeologist, army officer, diplomat, and writer who became renowned for his role in the Arab Revolt (1916–1918) and the Sinai and Palestine Campaign (1915–1918 ...

as his assistant, he excavated the Hittite city of

Carchemish Carchemish ( Turkish: ''Karkamış''; or ), also spelled Karkemish ( hit, ; Hieroglyphic Luwian: , /; Akkadian: ; Egyptian: ; Hebrew: ) was an important ancient capital in the northern part of the region of Syria. At times during its ...

. Lawrence and Woolley were apparently working for British Naval Intelligence and monitoring the construction of Germany's Berlin-to-Baghdad railway. During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, Woolley, with Lawrence, was posted to

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 ...

, where he met

Gertrude Bell Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell, CBE (14 July 1868 – 12 July 1926) was an English writer, traveller, political officer, administrator, and archaeologist. She spent much of her life exploring and mapping the Middle East, and became highly ...

. 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 The ''Croix de Guerre'' (, ''Cross of War'') is a military decoration of France. It was first created in 1915 and consists of a square-cross medal on two crossed swords, hanging from a ribbon with various degree pins. The decoration was first awa ...

from France at the war's end. In the following years, Woolley returned to Carchemish, and then worked at

Amarna Amarna (; ar, العمارنة, al-ʿamārnah) is an extensive Egyptian archaeological site containing the remains of what was the capital city of the late Eighteenth Dynasty. The city was established in 1346 BC, built at the direction of the Ph ...

in Egypt.Crawford (2015), p. 10.

Excavation at Ur

Woolley led a joint expedition of the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

and the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

to Ur, beginning in 1922, which included his wife, the British archaeologist

. There, they made important discoveries, including the

Copper Bull The Copper Bull is a copper sculpture found at the site of Tell al-'Ubaid near the ancient city of Ur, now in southern Iraq, by Sir Leonard Woolley in 1923. The sculpture, which dates from about 2600 BC, is now in the British Museum.Bull-Headed Lyre.Copper figure of a bull
British Museum, accessed July 2010 in the course of excavating the royal cemetery and the pair of Ram in a Thicket figurines.

Agatha Christie Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, (; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictiona ...

's novel, ''

Murder in Mesopotamia ''Murder in Mesopotamia'' is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 6 July 1936 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. The UK edition retai ...

'', was inspired by the discovery of the royal tombs. Agatha Christie later married Woolley's young assistant,

Max Mallowan Sir Max Edgar Lucien Mallowan (6 May 1904 – 19 August 1978) was a prominent British archaeologist, specialising in ancient Middle Eastern history. He was the second husband of Dame Agatha Christie. Life and work Born Edgar Mallowan in Wands ...

. Ur was the burial site of what may have been many

Sumer Sumer () is the earliest known civilization in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. It is one of the cradles of c ...

ian royals. The Woolleys discovered tombs of great material wealth, containing large paintings of ancient

ian culture at its zenith, along with gold and silver jewellery, cups and other furnishings. The most extravagant tomb was that of "Queen"

Pu-Abi Puabi ( Akkadian: 𒅤𒀀𒉿 ''Pu-A-Bi'' "Word of my father"), also called Shubad or Shudi-Ad due to a misinterpretation by Sir Charles Leonard Woolley, was an important woman in the Sumerian city of Ur, during the First Dynasty of Ur (c. 2 ...

. 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 :'' Al Mina, Tyre is a spectacular and more familiar Roman site near Tyre.'' Al-Mina (Arabic: "the port") is the modern name given by Leonard Woolley to an ancient trading post on the Mediterranean coast of northern Syria, in the estuary of th ...

. He excavated

Tell Atchana Alalakh (''Tell Atchana''; Hittite: Alalaḫ) is an ancient archaeological site approximately northeast of Antakya (historic Antioch) in what is now Turkey's Hatay Province. It flourished, as an urban settlement, in the Middle and Late Bronze A ...

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 Idrimi was the king of Alalakh c. 1490–1465 BC, or around 1450 BC. He is known, mainly, from an inscription on his statue found at Alalakh by Leonard Woolley in 1939.Longman III, Tremper, (1991)Fictional Akkadian Autobiography: A Generic and Co ...

, a king of Alalakh c. early 15th century BC.

Local Genesis flood theory

Woolley was one of the first archaeologists to propose that the

flood A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are an area of study of the discipline hydrol ...

described in the

Book of Genesis The Book of Genesis (from Greek ; Hebrew: בְּרֵאשִׁית ''Bəreʾšīt'', "In hebeginning") is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its first word, ( "In the beginning") ...

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".

World War II

His archaeological career was interrupted by the United Kingdom's entry into

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, and he became part of the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section of the Allied armies. After the war, he returned to

Alalakh Alalakh (''Tell Atchana''; Hittite: Alalaḫ) is an ancient archaeological site approximately northeast of Antakya (historic Antioch) in what is now Turkey's Hatay Province. It flourished, as an urban settlement, in the Middle and Late Bronze A ...

, where he continued to work from 1946 until 1949.

Personal life

Leonard Woolley at the British Museum's Excavations at Carchemish, Syria, in the spring of 1912

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. Woolley died on 20 February 1960 at age 79.

Publications

* * republished by

Penguin Books Penguin Books is a British publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

...

* *
Syria as a Link Between East and West
1936 * * * * * (with Jaquetta Hawkes) *

References

Sources

* Crawford, Harriet. ''Ur: The City of the Moon God.'' London: Bloomsbury, 2015. * Winstone, H. V. F. (1990). ''Woolley of Ur''. London: Secker and Warburg. *''The Ancient Near Eastern World''

2005

External links

* *

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

(

WNET WNET (channel 13), branded on-air as "Thirteen" (stylized as "THIRTEEN"), is a primary PBS member television station licensed to Newark, New Jersey, United States, serving the New York City area. Owned by The WNET Group (formerly known as the ...

, New York)
"The Rape of Europa."
24 November 2008. {{DEFAULTSORT:Woolley, Leonard 1880 births 1960 deaths People educated at St John's School, Leatherhead Alumni of New College, Oxford 20th-century archaeologists 20th-century English writers Archaeologists of the Near East British Army personnel of World War II Woolley, Charles Leonard English Assyriologists Knights Bachelor Monuments men People associated with the British Museum People from Upper Clapton World War I spies for the United Kingdom British World War I prisoners of war World War I prisoners of war held by the Ottoman Empire Recipients of the Croix de Guerre 1914–1918 (France) Royal Navy personnel of World War I