Museum Blog Entry November
I've been travelling a great deal this month, reporting on our first year and attempting to secure funds for the following three years. So my blog entry on the museum website this month is about the scope of the excavations rather than any one artifact. I show field photos of the excavation from the air and of the large numbers of workers employed in the excavation itself. Here's one such, the end of season 1926/27 photo:
In this field photo, number 912, we see some of the workers as well as (at bottom left) Max Mallowan, Katharine Woolley, and Leonard Woolley.
Hundreds of local workers were employed every year with only a few archaeologists present. In the museum blog entry I mention that in the final year of excavation Woolley laments that he could only hire 170 workers, the most he could adequately supervise with a very small staff. considering he only had his wife and one assistant with him as staff, it seems adequate supervision would be difficult. One thing I forgot to mention in the museum blog, however, is that Woolley did have the very able assistance of Hamoudi, his Arab foreman, and Hamoudi's sons as field supervisors. Hamoudi worked so closely with Woolley, even earlier than the excavations at Ur (he began working with Woolley at Carchemish in Syria before WWI) that he was quite familiar with Woolley's methods. Even with Hamoudi, however, we can still wonder if 170 workers could be supervised completely. Nonetheless, they did accomplish amazing things, things we are still analyzing and learning from today.
In this field photo, number 912, we see some of the workers as well as (at bottom left) Max Mallowan, Katharine Woolley, and Leonard Woolley.
Hundreds of local workers were employed every year with only a few archaeologists present. In the museum blog entry I mention that in the final year of excavation Woolley laments that he could only hire 170 workers, the most he could adequately supervise with a very small staff. considering he only had his wife and one assistant with him as staff, it seems adequate supervision would be difficult. One thing I forgot to mention in the museum blog, however, is that Woolley did have the very able assistance of Hamoudi, his Arab foreman, and Hamoudi's sons as field supervisors. Hamoudi worked so closely with Woolley, even earlier than the excavations at Ur (he began working with Woolley at Carchemish in Syria before WWI) that he was quite familiar with Woolley's methods. Even with Hamoudi, however, we can still wonder if 170 workers could be supervised completely. Nonetheless, they did accomplish amazing things, things we are still analyzing and learning from today.