A Brief History of Archaeology: Classical Times to the Twenty-First Century by Fagan Brian M. Durrani Nadia

Author:Fagan, Brian M.,Durrani, Nadia
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781317220206
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Figure 8.4

Artist’s reconstruction of the royal burial at Ur, Iraq.

(The Trustees of the British Museum/Art Resource NY)

Woolley closed the Ur excavations in 1934, in the belief that a period of study and analysis was needed before more digging took place. He himself wrote most of the massive ten-volume report on the excavation, which took a half century to complete. After World War II, he conducted excavations in Syria and elsewhere, but nothing on the scale of his Ur campaigns, which rank as one of the classic excavations of history.

Leonard Woolley was one of the last independent archaeologists. He never held an academic or museum post, but relied on modest private funds and earnings from his writings for a salary.

Meanwhile, Gertrude Bell sat down to organize an Iraqi Department of Antiquities, with responsibility for granting excavation permits, and a new Iraq Museum to house artifacts found in foreign digs. She was in a difficult position. Expeditions mounted from abroad wanted as many finds as possible. Iraqis felt strongly that at least half the artifacts from any excavation should stay in the country. She drafted a new antiquities law that steered a careful course between foreign and local viewpoints. The first test of the new regulations came at Ur, where Bell and Woolley battled over the finds. Both were strong personalities, the arguments were ferocious, but in the end both were satisfied—which is why many of the finest Ur artifacts are now in the British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia and not in Baghdad.

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