Spying out the past
Sara Paton
WOOLLEY OF UR: THE LIFE OF SIR LEONARD WOOLLEY by H. V. F. Winstone
Secker & Warburg, f16.95, pp. 314
No successful career can have had a more casual start than that of Sir Leonard Woolley. After four years at New College he was vague about his future; not the Church, he thought, but perhaps he might be a schoolmaster. Then the Warden, Dr Spooner, sent for him and settled the question: 'Mr Woolley, I have decided that you should be an archaeologist'.
Woolley started as assistant keeper at the Ashmolean but soon found field archaelogy more to his taste than museum work, and in 1908 he headed for the Nile. Working with Randall Maclver on Meroi- tic sites in Nubia he learnt the excavation methods laid down by Sir Flinders Petrie. Other qualities, however, may have influ- enced his appointment in 1911 to take charge at Carchemish in Syria. The team consisted only of himself and T. E. Law- rence, and their purpose was twofold; to disentangle the Hittite levels at the site, and to keep an eye on the Germans who were bridging the Euphrates for the Berlin- Baghdad railway. Finances for the expedi- tion came from a secret source; Mr Win- ston suggests that D. G. Hogarth, Keeper of the Ashmolean, provided the link with the Secret Service. The connection be- tween spying and archaeology has a long history, going back to Winckelmann; Woolley took to it naturally and thorough- ly enjoyed it.
When war broke out Woolley was sent to Egypt as intelligence officer at Port Said, running agents on the Syrian coast from a motley collection of small ships, ranging from Lord Rosebery's yacht, the Zaida, to a lateen-rigged Turkish schooner; in order to pass unnoticed in those waters the crews were got up as pirates. The Royal Navy did not countenance this disreputable squad- ron but Woolley could deal with superior- ity. Fond of music, he trained one crew up as a band; they sailed out of Port Said harbour past a naval vessel idle since the beginning of the war playing 'Keep the Home Fires Burning'.
Captured in 1916, he was imprisoned in Turkey; fellow prisoners included ex- hausted survivors from the tragic siege of Kut. Spirited efforts were made to cheer things up, and Woolley was good at stand- ing up to the Turkish commandants. Back at Carchemish in 1919, fighting in the dis- puted territory of northern Syria made excavation impossible, and the site had to be abandoned. Two years later he was appointed director of the expedition mounted jointly by the University Museum of Pennsylvania and the British Museum to excavate at Ur in Mesopotamia.
Ur was a triumph — Ur of the Chaldees, birthplace of Abraham, already known from cuneiform texts to be one of the oldest cities in the world. Woolley's skill and imagination brought the Sumerian city to life as he cleared the vast ziggurat, the palaces and the dazzling royal tombs. A mass of cylinder seats and inscribed tablets revealed the city's foreign contacts, its trade and bureaucracy and its domestic life (unluckily there was no sign of Abraham), and broadended the foundation for compa- rative dating of Early Dynastic Sumer with the great civilisations of Egypt and the Indus valley. Lectures, broadcasts and publications made these discoveries widely known, while the excavation itself pro- vided the setting for Agatha Christie's Murder in Mesopotamia.
For Woolley there was fame and a knighthood, but his next excavation, once more in Syria, was again interrupted by war. Recommissioned at the age of 59, he was posted to the Intelligence Division at the War Office, later to be transferred to the Civil Affairs Directorate for a job that demanded all his experience of Intelligence work as well as his archaeological know- ledge, the enormous task of keeping track of all works of art scattered and en- dangered by the war. Throughout this biography, one feels the harmony of his life and character, the satisfaction of great ability put to the best possible use. The straightforward narrative allows Woolley's personality to unfold through his achievements. Woolley's con- tribution to archaeology lay not just in his excavations but also in the warm en- couragement he gave to others; his can- dour and enthusiasm made him a brilliant communicator of the remote past, and he 'The theme is "The Death of the British Pub" . gave and inspired much affection. His few intimate relationships with women appear to have been disastrous: released after 20 years of manage blanc to a demanding invalid he was immediately entangled with the rapacious wife of the local vicar. Freedom cost him dear financially but not, it seems, in spirit; his work continued unimpaired, and the sense of fun which had enlivened all he did remained with him to the end.
Sara Paton has worked on sites in Greece for the British School of Athens for the last 20 years.
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