63. T. E. LAWRENCE
AND LEONARD WOOLLEY, CARCHEMISH
Photograph by Heinrich Franke, 1913 (printed c. 1940s)
During 1913 passenger services as far as Jerablus on the newly built Baghdad railway
line began to bring large numbers of visitors to the Carchemish excavations. This
photograph of Lawrence with Leonard Woolley (1880-1960) was taken by a visiting German in
1913.
Woolley had been put in charge of the excavations in 1912 replacing D. G. Hogarth,
whose responsibilities at the Ashmolean prevented him from taking any active part in the
dig after the 1911 trial season. It was therefore with Woolley rather than Hogarth that
Lawrence worked at Carchemish during five seasons between 1912 and 1914.
Judging by contemporary correspondence their relationship was very successful. The
workforce was divided into two groups, one under Woolley and the other under Lawrence.
Woolley took overall decisions and wrote most of the field notes. Lawrence was responsible
for pottery, photography, and for cataloguing the finds when they were moved into the
expedition store.. One of his more valuable talents was an ability to recognise fragments
from broken carvings and inscriptions, and this enabled him to reassemble many important
monuments.
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photograph of Lawrence
Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, Kings College London