This MedLibrary.org supplementary page on Leonard Woolley is provided directly from the open source Wikipedia as a service to our readers. Please see the note below on authorship of this content, as well as the Wikipedia usage guidelines. To search for other content from our encyclopedia supplement, please use the form below:
Related Sponsors
| Leonard Woolley | |
_and_T.E.Lawrence_at_the_British_Museum%27s_Excavations_at_Carchemish,_Syria,_in_the_spring_of_1913.jpg) Leonard Woolley (right) and T. E. Lawrence
at the British Museum's Excavations at Carchemish, Syria, in the spring of 1913 |
|
| Born | 17 April 1880 Southwold Road Upper Clapton London Borough of Hackney |
|---|---|
| Died | 20 February 1960 |
| Fields | archaeology |
| Known for | excavations at Ur in Mesopotamia. |
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 considered to have been one of the first "modern" archaeologists, and was knighted in 1935 for his contributions to the discipline of archaeology.
Contents |
Life
The son of a clergyman and brother to Geoffrey Harold Woolley, he was born at 13 Southwold Road, Upper Clapton, in the modern London Borough of Hackney1 and educated at St John's School, Leatherhead and New College, Oxford.
Work
In 1905, Woolley became assistant keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Volunteered by Arthur Evans to run the excavations on the Roman site at Corbridge 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). T. E. Lawrence worked with Woolley on the excavation of the Hittite city of Carchemish from 1912 to 1914. His work at Ur (in charge of the joint venture between the British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania) began in 1922, and he made important discoveries in the course of excavating the royal cemeteries there. Agatha Christie's novel Murder in Mesopotamia was inspired by the discovery of the royal tombs. Christie later married Woolley's young assistant, Max Mallowan.
Ur, found in present-day Iraq, was the burial site of many Sumerian royals. Woolley discovered tombs of great material wealth. Inside these tombs were large paintings of ancient Sumerian culture at its zenith, along with gold and silver jewelry, 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 in order to continue to serve her after death. Woolley was able to reconstruct Pu-Abi's funeral ceremony from objects found in her tomb. Her headdress, cylinder seal and body were formerly on display at the University of Pennsylvania, however they are currently being displayed in the British Museum in London.
In 1936, after his discoveries at Ur, Woolley was interested in finding ties between the ancient Aegean and Mesopotamian civilizations. This led him to the Syrian city of Al Mina. From 1937 to 1939, he was in Tell Atchana.
World War II
His archaelogical career was interrupted by the United States' entry into World War II, and he became part of the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section of the Allied armies.
After the war, he returned to Tell Atchana, where he continued to work from 1946 through 1949.
Books
- Digging Up The Past (1930)
- Alalakh, An Account of the Excavations at Tell , Oxford, (1955)
- Spadework: Adventures in Archaeology (1953)
- Excavations at Ur: A Record of 12 Years’ Work (1954)
- The Ancient Near Eastern World, Oxford, (2005)
Notes
 |
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2008) |
- ^ Sir Leonard Woolley (Historic plaque - 13 Southwold Road, E5) (LB Hackney} accessed 19 August 2008
Exernal links
- PBS (WNET, New York): "The Rape of Europa." November 24, 2008.
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 21 December 2008, at 23:24.
Wikipedia Authorship and Review
Wikipedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by MedLibrary.org. Wikipedia content is authored by an open community of volunteers and is not produced by or in any way affiliated with MedLibrary.org.
Wikipedia Usage Guidelines
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Leonard Woolley".
The URL for this specific entry is:
All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details). Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.