68. CARCHEMISH, THE
ARCHAEOLOGISTS’ HOUSE
Photographs by T. E. Lawrence (1913-14)
(i) General view of the exterior (1913)
The C-shaped house was begun in 1912 and gradually expanded as the archaeologists'
needs increased. By the time this photograph was taken in the summer of 1913 there were
eleven rooms: bedrooms for Hogarth, Woolley, Lawrence and Gregori; a living room; kitchen;
bathroom; photographic dark room; store room, and two 'Museums' where the smaller
antiquities were catalogued and preserved. In October 1913 four new rooms were built
creating a second courtyard in front of the one seen here. The expedition cook, Haj Wahid,
lived with his family in another building a few yards away from the main house.
(ii) Haj Wahid standing in the entrance to the living room
The most remarkable feature of this entrance is the lintel, which Lawrence decorated in
the summer of 1912 when staying at the house between digging season: 'As I had no chisels
I carved it with a screw-driver and a knife. It is a Hittite design and use, and looks
very fitting.'1 It proved to be a source of mischievous amusement, since
visitors to the site admired it as a genuine Hittite carving.
1. T. E. Lawrence to his family, 18.9.1912, HL p. 233.
(iii) The living room (1913)
Woolley and Lawrence were both interested in Near-Eastern
antiquities, and the Carchemish house was richly furnished with carpets
and other objects acquired from dealers in Aleppo and elsewhere. This
photograph was probably taken in the autumn of 1913. Dodd's portrait of
Dahoum (see No. 67) hangs on the left.
(iv) The living room (1914)
The house was extended during the winter of 1913-14, and some furniture was moved out
of the old living room. Lawrence sent a print of this photograph to his parents, writing:
'the ink-pot please note as an incense-burner from a mosque in Aleppo . . . the flower
vase next it on the table is Hittite and Bronze Age: on a little side table of a Greek
column and a Byzantine hearth-stone are a late Hittite stone bowl (usually full of roses,
but now with oranges inside) and a three-legged cooking pot, early Hittite, with daisies
inside. There is a large chest at the end of the room near the window, Aleppo work, carved
with human figures, and birds and vines, with lion-feet: and the tiles of the fire-place
are Damascus and Aleppo.'1
British Museum (Dept. of Western Asiatic Antiquities)
1. T. E. Lawrence to his family, 8.5.1914, HL p. 297.
(I) 033795 (ii) 033799 (iii) 033802 (iv) 039254 |
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