By Amara Thornton

One (let's imagine sultry) evening in August 1943, the 6th, to be precise, over two hundred people, so the records say, turned up to the Institute of Archaeology in Regents Park. They were there to hear the opening address of a large-scale two-day conference, ambitiously titled "The Conference on the Future of Archaeology".
 
I've known about this conference for a good while now, ever since a friend of mine acquired a second-hand copy of the subsequent publication. This publication is a historian's dream, because whoever was taking notes at the conference (let's be honest it was probably one of the many women on staff there) did an outstanding job. So, the publication records not only the speakers at the conference, but also the chairs, the people who offered comments at the end of each session, and other people who later wrote in with their thoughts. 
 
Because this document gives such an amazing snapshot into the world of British archaeology (overseas and domestic) in the midst of war, I've taken it upon myself to give you the programme, arranged in such a manner (courtesy of the conference publication Table of Contents which puts the papers in the order given here) as to reflect a conference lineup, including chairs, speakers, discussants and correspondents.  The paper and session titles are as given in the Table of Contents.
 
Where possible, I have linked to Wikipedia entries for individuals (not all of them have Wikipedia entries). For some, I have found alternative online biographies. Others will have to remain link-less for the time being. Links have been provided once only - the first time a name appears in the text. Thanks to the power of Twitter, I've had help from various colleagues to ensure that nearly all of the women whose names are recorded in the publication have first and last names, making them (I hope) easier to trace in future. 
 
I have made a few changes to the names as listed in the conference publication. Frequently I have included first names (or at least the names individuals commonly used) – the programme tends only to include initials and last names for men, and titles and last names (or married names) for women. Where possible I have included maiden names (in parenthesis) for married women. I have also put affiliations as they are listed in the programme. These reflect the affiliations applicable to speakers and chairs at the time of the conference. 
 
Most of the sessions were followed by discussions. These were recorded after the end of the abridged conference papers in the publication – I have listed the names of the "Discussants" after each session where they are given. The publication also included extracts from letters from people who were unable to attend (due to war-related duties overseas, for example) so these "Correspondents" I have listed underneath discussants.
 
For more information on the conference, please see Gabriel Moshenska's article in Archaeology International.  
 
Opening Presentations
 
Charles Peers (University of London) - Opening Address 

Grahame Clark (Cambridge) -" The Contribution of Archaeology to the Post-War World" 
 
Session 1: "The Future of Discovery: Archaeology at Home"
Chair: AW Clapham (Society of Antiquaries)
 
Christopher Hawkes (British Museum) – "Prehistoric Archaeology"
Ian Richmond (Durham) –"Romano-British Archaeology"
TD Kendrick (British Museum) – "Mediaeval Archaeology"
 
Discussants: John Linton Myres, Dina (Portway) Dobson, Marjorie Venables Taylor, Mr Glendenning, EC Curwen, Mr Hockheimer, N. Bradfer Lawrence, Jacquetta (Hopkins) Hawkes, Mr Bromhead, Margaret Murray, WF Grimes, Kathleen Kenyon, Kenneth Oakley, H St George Gray, Cyril Fox
 
Correspondents: CH Desch, AHA Hogg
 
Session 2: "The Unity of Archaeology"
Chair: Gertrude Caton-Thompson (Prehistoric Society)
 
Gordon Childe (Edinburgh)
 
Session 3: "The Future of Archaeology: Archaeology Overseas"
Chair: John Winter Crowfoot (British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem)
 
John Linton Myres (Oxford/British School at Athens) – "Greek and Roman Archaeology"
Claude Schaeffer (French National Museum) – "Syrian, Palestinian and Turkish Archaeology"
Ernest Mackay (Independent Excavation Director) – "The Archaeology of Iraq, Baluchistan and India"
HAR Gibb (Oxford) – "Islamic Archaeology"
 
Discussants: Kathleen Kenyon, CFA Schaeffer, OGS Crawford, Olga Tufnell, Hilda Lorimer, Mr Bushnell, Leonard Woolley, Mr Shuttleworth, Norman Baynes, Gordon Childe, AW Lawrence, Dorothy (Simmons) Mackay
 
Correspondents: Guy Brunton, Hilda Lorimer, George Kirk
 
Session 4: "The Training of Archaeologists"
Chair: Gordon Childe (Edinburgh)
 
Kathleen Kenyon (University of London) – "Training for Field Work"
John D. Beazley (Oxford) – "University Training"
DB Harden (Ashmolean Museum) – "Training in Interpretation and Presentation"
Frederick Zeuner (University of London) – "Training in the Subsidiary Sciences"
 
Discussants: Margaret Murray, Margaret Whinney, ND Lacaille, Claude Schaeffer, Edith Stiassna [Stiassny], Sylvia Benton, Margot Eates, Alexander Keiller, Kathleen Kenyon, Aileen (Henderson) Fox
 
Correspondents: AHA Hogg
 
Session 5: "Records and Discovery – Local and National"
Chair: TD Kendrick (British Museum)
 
Cyril Fox (National Museum of Wales)
 
Discussants: H St George Gray, Agnes (Conway) Horsfield, WF Grimes, John Linton Myres, Christopher Hawkes, EC Curwen, Mr Swede, Mary (Kitson-Clark) Chitty, Cyril Fox
 
Session 6: "Planning and the Independence of Societies"
Chair: Frederick Kenyon (British Academy)
 
John Nowell Linton Myres (Oxford) – "The Need for Planning"
H St George Gray (Somerset County Museum) - "Societies Working at Home"
Alan Gardiner (Egypt Exploration Society) – "Societies Working Overseas"
 
Discussants: Grahame Clark, Margaret Whitley, Mr Turner, Phoebe Keef, Mr Faulkner, Joan du Plat Taylor, Margaret Murray, Mary (Kitson-Clark) Chitty, Claude Schaeffer, Miss M. E. Shaw, Jacquetta (Hopkins) Hawkes, Dorothy (Simmons) Mackay
 
Correspondents: CFA Schaeffer
 
Session 7: "Archaeology and the State at Home"
Chair: OGS Crawford (Ordnance Survey Department)
 
WF Grimes (Ordnance Survey Department)
 
Discussants: Claude Schaeffer, Elise (Goldschmidt) Baumgartel, Mr Dunning, Mr Glendenning, Dr Clark, Kathleen Kenyon, OGS Crawford, Peter Shinnie
 
Session 8: "Archaeology and the State Overseas"
Chair: John Linton Myres (Oxford/British School at Athens)
 
Leonard Woolley (Independent Excavations Director)
 
Discussants: JH Iliffe, AJ Arkell, Seton Lloyd, Kathleen Kenyon, Alan Gardiner, Mr Swede, Dr le May, Gertrude Caton-Thompson, CFA Schaeffer, Frederic Kenyon
 
Session 9: "Museums and the Public"
Chair: DA Allan (Liverpool Public Museums/Museums Association)
 
Christopher Hawkes (British Museum) – "National Museums"
FS Wallis (Bristol Museum and Art Gallery) – "Other Museums"
 
Discussants: Jacqueline Tyrwhitt, Norman Baynes, Fritz Saxl, WF Grimes, Mary (Kitson-Clark) Chitty
 
Correspondents: Stuart Piggott 
 
Session 10: "Archaeology and Education"
Chair: Janet Ruth Bacon (Royal Holloway)
 
Dina (Portway) Dobson (Independent Scholar) – "Elementary Schools"
Philip Corder (Verulamium Museum/Society of Antiquaries) – "Secondary and Public Schools"
Henry Theodore Wade Gery (Oxford) - "Universities – Oxford" 
DS Robertson (Cambridge) – "Universities – Cambridge"
WJ Varley (Liverpool) –  "Universities – Other"
Mary (Kitson-Clark) Chitty (Yorkshire Museum/Yorkshire Archaeological Society/Hull) – "Adult Education"
 
Correspondents: Beatrice de Cardi, Stuart Piggott
 
Summing Up
Chair: Harold Claughton (University of London)
 
Cyril Fox (National Museum of Wales)

By Amara Thornton

I've been working over the past few months on a new programme for HistoryHit.TV, "Archaeologist Spies of World War One".  It is an intriguing and complicated history, covering an international sphere of operations and several different wartime fronts.  
 
The programme concentrates on a network of archaeologists who had (mainly) travelled and excavated in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East before the war; when many of them volunteered for military service at or soon after the outbreak of war, their skills were valued, and they were swept into "special service".
 
I've been researching archaeologists' public visibility before, during and after this period over the past few years – you can see the results of this in my new book Archaeologists in Print (UCL Press). So it was interesting to discover, when doing some preliminary research for the programme, that before entering the war officially (though he had already been involved in war related activity), David George Hogarth gave a series of public lectures on Ottoman Turkey in relation to the ongoing conflict in the UK in early 1915. One of them, in Sheffield, was organised by the "War Lectures Committee" of Sheffield University. 
 
Archaeologists' popular books were also referenced in newspapers as the areas in which they had travelled became more militarily important.  At the end of 1914, Hogarth's 1902 popular geography book The Nearer East, a volume of Heinemann's "Regions of the World" series, was referenced in an article in The Sphere for its relevance to understanding the most likely routes Ottoman forces (only recently allied to the Central Powers) would take to get to Egypt via the Sinai Peninsula.
 
Reginald Campbell Thompson's unusual memoir A Pilgrim's Scrip was published by John Lane The Bodley Head in early 1915. Thompson's evocative description of Port Said, at the head of the Suez Canal and an important naval base and steamship alighting point, was reprinted in an article in The Globe: "a place of passage, a khan at one of the world's toll gates, to pass the night and change the order of a journey."  
 
Shortly afterwards, Thompson's archaeological colleague Leonard Woolley arrived in Port Said to head up a small intelligence headquarters there.  Woolley recorded his wartime exploits in his own post-war memoirs, injecting at the end of his life light-hearted and humourous notes into an otherwise extremely serious subject. Woolley's wartime raid in a Port Said flat, recounted by Stephen Smith in "Archaeologist Spies of World War One", was posthumously published in 1962 in his memoir As I Seem to Remember. (Unlike many of his archaeological contemporaries who were more involved in processing information, mapping, and breaking codes, Woolley was actively running agents and arranging drops.  Those who worked with him put their lives on the line more than once.) 
 
Woolley's intelligence activity ended in August 1916, when the yacht he used for operations hit a mine and he was picked up by Ottoman forces.  His time as a prisoner of war began. In 1921 Oxford-based publisher Basil Blackwell issued From Kastamuni to Kedos, a volume of reminiscences, poems and drawings edited by Woolley of life as prisoners of war at three different camps in Ottoman Turkey. 
 
Archaeological interest was not abandoned during this time. Kastamuni records Woolley providing lectures on archaeological topics ("The Hittites", "Roman Frontier Problems" and "The Evolution of Religion in the Old Testament") as well as modern languages ("Hindustani and Arabic") to his fellow POWs. Dramatic productions also took place, with "Woolley & Co" highlighted for admirable work in costumes and props.
 
When they died, many of the archaeologists in "Archaeologist Spies of World War One" were commemorated in part for the roles they played in intelligence during the war.  This intense experience in their lives has been for the most part superceded by their archaeological and (for T. E. Lawrence & Gertrude Bell particularly) their political work in the post-war period. But in the early 1980s journalist H. V. F. Winstone's book Illicit Adventure provided the first broad history of this wartime network.
 
Perhaps the best acknowledgement-summary of the work of archaeologists in intelligence comes from Leonard Woolley himself.  He wrote the Preface to his 1920 memoir Dead Towns and Living Men in 1918, while still a prisoner in Turkey: 
 

Watch "Archaeologist Spies of World War One" on HistoryHit.TV (subscription needed)
 
Read Archaeologists in Print online (free) via UCL Press.
 
References/Further Reading
 
"Turkey and the War" Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 20 Feb 1915.
 
"Books Worth Reading" The Globe, 20 Feb 1915.
 
"The Situation in Egypt" The Sphere, 14 Dec 1914.
 
Hogarth, David George. 1902. The Nearer East. London: William Heinemann.
 
Thompson, R. Campbell. 1915. A Pilgrim's Scrip. London: John Lane Bodley Head.
 
Thornton, Amara. 2018. Archaeologists in Print: Publishing for the People. London: UCL Press.
 
Winstone, H. V. F. 1982. The Illicit Adventure: The Story of Political and Military Intelligence in the Middle East from 1898 to 1926. London: Jonathan Cape.
 
Woolley, C. Leonard. 1920. Dead Towns and Living Men. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 
Woolley, C. Leonard (Ed). 1921. From Kastamuni to Kedos: Being a Record of Experiences of Prisoners of War in Turkey. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Woolley, C. Leonard. 1962. As I Seem to Remember. London: George Allen & Unwin.  

By Amara Thornton

In 1930, archaeologist Harry Reginald Holland Hall published a book on his wartime journey to Mesopotamia on behalf of the British Museum in 1918-19.  Its lengthy descriptive title - A Season’s Work at Ur, Al-Ubaid, Abu Shahrain (Eridu) and Elsewhere: Being an Unofficial Account of the British Museum Archaeological Mission to Babylonia, 1919 - masks what an interesting read it is.  
 
Hall was sent out to Mesopotamia as a military intelligence officer, “British Museum” unit, but on arrival he was converted to political service.  (I imagined, on reading his memories of this incident, something akin to a scene in Marguerite Vance’s Marie Antoinette in which the young Austrian Archduchess Maria Antonia changes from Austrian to French clothes to become the Dauphine Marie Antoinette.)
 
He’d packed up his trowel in a kit bag, to paraphrase that popular WW1 song, and gone to “Mespot” to check on its antiquities and conduct some preliminary excavations, in preparation for what he called a “new regime” of British administered archaeology in the region. 
 
He describes his rather complicated and quite fascinating journey to “Mespot”, involving several stops and changes en route, in great detail with characterful flair in the first chapter of his book. It begins at Waterloo Station, where he boarded a troop-train headed for the coast.  On arrival at the northern French port of Cherbourg, he boarded another train, travelling through France and Italy, celebrating Armistice Day en route at Lyon.  He caught a boat from Taranto, Italy to Port Said, and then went overland to Cairo to have an archaeological confab with fellow excavators David George Hogarth (in charge of the Arab Bureau intelligence network), Leonard Woolley (fresh from a prison camp), and James Edward Quibell (Curator of the Egyptian Museum).  
 
From Egypt he caught the British India Steamship Navigation Co’s Chakdarra, stopping in Bombay. Major-General Sir Walter Cayley, commanding the 13th (Western) Division in Mesopotamia, was also on board, and he asked Hall to deliver a series of archaeological lectures to the troops on board. This request is fascinating, as it indicates the provision of educational opportunities for soldiers serving on the Mesopotamian front during wartime, and an attempt satisfy troops' interest in the archaeological landscapes they were moving through.

Hall observed:

This juxtaposition of military manoeuvring and an archaeological landscape is highlighted in a contemporary publication on the war from the Amalgamated Press. An overview of the war’s theatres and main protagonists, The War Illustrated Album de Luxe highlighted stories of wartime triumph and tragedy alongside every-day activities. The Mesopotamian front was included in several volumes, with images of soldiers on the ground and the emerging British administration featured alongside the archaeology surrounding them. (Two such examples are “Ancient Ruins and Modern Doings in Mesopotamia” and “From the Ruins of Babylon to Modern Baghdad”.)
 
There is a 21st century equivalent to this history too.  After the looting of the Baghdad museum in 2003 archaeologists created a bespoke set of ‘heritage’ playing cards to educate US soldiers serving in Iraq about antiquities and archaeological sites.  Pictures of some of these cards were published in Public Archaeology journal in 2007.
 
The 100th anniversary of World War 1 is still continuing, and with it associated digital history and exhibition projects.  Although there is no equivalent for Mesopotamia that I know of (but do check out Paul Cooper's recent Twitter thread on his great-grandfather's archive), you can discover how WW1 soldiers captured their own experiences in Egypt and Palestine through the Views of an Antique Land project.  I’ve also written a post on the Palestine Exploration Fund blog about a fascinating series of post-war letters from WW1 soldiers who had served in Palestine.  You can read “To the Secretary, Palestine Exploration Fund” here.
 
References/Further Reading
 
Hall, H. R. 1930. A Season’s Work at Ur… London: Methuen.
 
Public Archaeology 2007. The Civilisation Cards: US Army Style. Public Archaeology 6 (4): 242-244.
 
Woolley, L. (Ed.). 1920. From Kastamuni to Kedos Being a Record of Experiences of Prisoners of War in Turkey, 1916-1918. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
 

By Amara Thornton

In autumn 1923 Hurst and Blackett published Ethel Stefana Stevens (Drower)’s By Tigris and Euphrates.   I came across the book while researching post-WW1 guidebooks to Iraq; it was listed as recommended reading in Cook’s guide to Palestine and Syria (which in the 1920s also included a section on Iraq) and extensively quoted in the text relating to Baghdad.  As I’d written a previous post on Stevens as a pre-war travel writer with an eye for archaeology, naturally my interest was piqued, and I wanted to have a look at the book.  So, off I went to the British Library.
 
Stevens met her husband Edwin Drower in Sudan, but in 1919 they were living in Iraq – first in Basra and then in Baghdad, where they remained for twenty years.  By Tigris and Euphrates is dedicated to Drower, “the best of comrades, with whom many happy hours and good times in ‘Iraq have been shared”.  
 
Stevens charts her experiences in and observations of Iraq and Iraqis early on in the period in which Britain occupied and then administrated Iraq under a League of Nations Mandate – an occupation, it must be said, that she benefited from.*  By Tigris and Euphrates offers an illuminating if imperial glimpse into this period; among the subjects she highlights is the increase in British tourism to the country.  Stevens also reveals the nature of English expat society in Iraq, particularly for women – her chapter “The Englishwoman in ‘Iraq – Her House and Her Husband” is devoted entirely to their experience.
 
Stevens’ two chapters on archaeology form Part II of the work, taking readers on a highlights tour to “Some Buried Cities of Assyria” (including Nineveh, Nimrud and Asshur) and “Some Buried Cities of Babylonia” (including Babylon, Akerhuf and Ur).  At Ur, Stevens explains, the Iraq railways had arranged for a twenty minute stop at Ur junction for passengers to eat a meal and gaze at “great ziggurat” visible from the station. 
 
At the time of her visit to Ur in 1922, Leonard Woolley was just beginning his excavations at the site on behalf of the University of Pennsylvania and the British Museum.  Stevens credits him for providing her with information on the discoveries made in the first season, and acts as excavation champion in the text of the Ur section by flagging up a lack of funds hampering the continuation of work.    
 
While on site she went up to the top of the ziggurat in order to look down on the excavations.   Seeing the site deconstructed (as it were) gave her a perspective on how the site must have looked to the community of builders who originally constructed it.  She also examined some of the expedition's finds, carefully arranged on shelves in a “little room” awaiting conservation (a process she describes in some detail).  
 
Stevens was writing at a time before the Museum in Baghdad was formally instigated.  Gertrude Bell was acting as Honorary Director of Antiquities, but there was no building for accommodating and displaying collections.  Bell’s letters, now text searchable thanks to Newcastle University, show that “Mrs Drower” helped Bell arrange a small exhibition of finds from Ur (those to be left in Iraq after the division, more specifically) in March 1923, constituting the start of a publicly accessible Museum.  At the private view Bell arranged, Woolley and Bell conducted the notable visitors (including King Faisal and his ministers) round the display.
 
A new documentary film, Letters from Baghdad, offers another perspective of this immediate post-war period in Iraq. A visual smorgasbord of archive footage, Letters explores Gertrude Bell’s life and her work in archaeology and politics, complete with recreated interviews with key figures in Bell’s life – including several archaeologists.  It’ll be in UK cinemas from 21 April, so get you to the movies!
 
References/Further Reading
Buckley, J. J. (Ed). 2012. Lady E. S. Drower's Scholarly Correspondence: An Intrepid English Autodidact in Iraq. Brill.

Desplat, J. 2016. The beginnings of the Iraq Museum. National Archives blog. [Online]. 16 Nov.

Newcastle University, 2016. The extraordinary Gertrude Bell. [Online resource].

Stevens, E. S. 1923. By Tigris and Euphrates. London: Hurst & Blackett Ltd.
 
*Edwin Drower was Judicial Advisor in Iraq; Gertrude Bell worked with him to draft Iraq’s Antiquities legislation in 1923.

By Amara Thornton

There were always copies of National Geographic lying around in my parents’ house.  My father has been a long-time Nat. Geo. reader, and he recently told me about how, as a young boy, reconstruction drawings of ancient life published in the magazine stoked his childhood imagination.  My great-grandfather, he said, had accumulated a large collection of National Geographic issues going back to the 1920s. I can easily picture my father as a youngster sitting in his grandfather’s house with an open magazine on his lap, entranced.*
 
I knew that the digitised archive of National Geographic back issues would be the perfect birthday gift for him.  Plus, as I am actively accumulating evidence of popular publishing in archaeology, it would be quite handy for my own research too.  And so it was that, over the recent holidays, my father and I sat down with his laptop and browsed chronologically through the first sixty years of National Geographic. 
 
The very early issues were much closer to an academic journal than I expected – few papers, sparsely illustrated.  Most seemed to cover what we might call physical geography.  By the 1910s, however, articles were heavily illustrated, sometimes in colour, and resembled the modern format for National Geographic more closely.  A wide range of topics were featured – travels, cultures, peoples, places, scientific discoveries, current affairs and (importantly for my purposes) archaeology. 
 
I was especially interested in what archaeological topics were being covered, when, and who was writing the articles.  Being an US-published magazine, it’s perhaps not surprising to find that a significant proportion of archaeology covered between the 1910s and the 1940s focused on the Americas – North, Central and South - and the US expeditions uncovering the past in these regions.  Hiram Bingham, the American archaeologist associated with Machu Picchu, for example, wrote about his explorations in Peru (sponsored by Yale University and the National Geographic Society) in the April 1913 issue.  But the archaeology of the Eastern Mediterranean, Asia Minor and the Near East makes an appearance too. In September 1913 a series of three well illustrated articles on ancient Egypt were published, the first by Rev. James Baikie, who as a popular archaeology author was the pre-First World War equivalent to post-Second World War Leonard Cottrell.
 
The most fascinating result of the browsing sessions, however, was finding Leonard Woolley’s 1928 article on excavation. Woolley was then Director of the University of Pennsylvania/British Museum excavations at Ur in Iraq, but he had been working in archaeology for over twenty years. Entitled “Archaeology the Mirror of the Ages”, it’s the article’s subtitle that really packs the punch: “Our Debt to the Humble Delvers in the Ruins at Carchemish and at Ur.”  It is the story of the diggers. 
 
Archaeologists, Woolley states, would have very little to report without the men they employ to do the backbreaking physical labour of digging out the earth.  To these pick-men – the real ‘spade’-workers – the credit of discovery should be due.  He includes narrative sketches of his foreman "Mohammed ibn Sheik Ibrahim" (known as Hamoudi) who worked for him at Carchemish, a city of the ancient Hittite empire in northern Syria, and Ur.  Though Woolley’s stories are slightly tinged with early 20th century superiority, his message about the debt archaeologists owe those they employ to dig is a critical one; and one that historians of archaeology have begun to address in the past decade.**  
 
Through Woolley’s eyes we see not merely human digging machines, but individuals from a variety of backgrounds actively engaged in interpreting and recreating the past alongside Woolley and the other ‘archaeologists’ on site.  Woolley’s nineteen-page article has nineteen images; one of the photographs shows workers re-enacting daily life in ancient times in the remains of a kitchen uncovered at Ur.  National Geographic readers in 1928 would have had an introduction both to the diversity of culture on site and to a rather more nuanced view of diggers than was evident through most archaeological publications.
 
Over thirty years’ worth of National Geographic magazines from the late 19th and early 20th centuries are now available online via Internet Archive.  There’s a lot to discover in these pages; my brief foray into the back issues of National Geographic has shown me that, for the history of popular archaeology publishing at least, it’s a periodical definitely worth a closer look.
 
*I'm now reliably informed that my father's 'reading room' was in fact an incredibly hot and humid attic, complete with old cannon balls and suitcases.

**See, for example, Stephen Quirke’s book Hidden Hands; the Petrie Museum exhibition “Framing the Archaeologist”; the article on the Palestinian excavator Yusra on Trowelblazers and the profile of Ali Suefi, an Egyptian excavator for Flinders Petrie in Characters and Collections.