Sir Leonard Woolley
and the Issue of Imperialism

From REDACTED: "Hey #AncientBluesky, I am taking a group of curious, thoughtful high school seniors to see Mesopotamian artifacts @ the Penn Museum soon. Can anyone connect me w/ some resources that might help them think about the historical / social context of Leonard Woolley & his excavations at Ur?"

This is an excellent question about 20th century archaeology, namely how we might navigate issues of imperialism in early excavation history, here specifically for Ur. Some context to the excavations at Ur (1922-1934):

Woolley was just one of many who got the excavation set up. In the introduction of "Ur 'of the Chaldees,'" he names all who helped. A bit more information is found in his 1923 publication 'Excavations at Ur of the Chaldee' in the Antiquaries Journal  Vol 3, iss. 4 (link here).

Further excavation history of Ur prior to Woolley's direction can be found in H. R. Hall's "Ur and Eridu: The British Museum Excavations of 1919" in the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 9, No. 3/4 (link here).

My history here in part follows Magnus Bernhardsson (2005)'s "Reclaiming a Plundered Past: Archaeology and Nation Building in Modern Iraq" and James Goode (2009)'s "Negotiating for the Past: Archaeology, Nationalism, and Diplomacy in the Middle East, 1919-1941."

Ur's funding came from the United States, though the main political actors were Great Britain and the British Mandate of Iraq. Inevitably, Woolley directed the excavation with support from Penn Museum and British Museum. That excavation took place from 1922-1934, a transformative time for Iraq.

Britain had an interest in Middle Eastern antiquities. In the 1920s, the country suffered economically and could not afford this interest. According to Winston Churchill, acting colonial secretary in 1921, "everything else that happens in the Middle East is secondary to the reduction in expense.”

But many British institutions and organizations jumped at the chance to dig without Ottoman intervention. So, Britain looked to the US for funding. In early 1922, Frederic Kenyon at the British Museum and George Gordon at the Penn Museum agreed upon informal conditions for excavating Ur.

As such, Woolley was principally supported by the British Museum and the Penn Museum. At the same time, excavations at Ur would "also share with the Iraq Government in the material results of the work." British agents like Gertrude Bell had helped develop legislature for Iraq to manage antiquities.

Woolley was enticed by Bell, who thought her legislature for 50/50 possession of archaeological material would easily pass in 1922 (it didn't). Keep in mind that Britain just discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun and, after the revolt of 1919, had ceded antiquities policy to Egypt only months prior!

Bernhardsson argues that Gertrude Bell sought to limit British handling of antiquities, not encourage it, and those efforts led to the creation of the Iraq Museum. Nevertheless, British institutions back home leveraged their position to find funding for excavation, especially via the United States.

Simultaneously, ideas surrounding pan-Arabism fomented. Someone who tried to limit British control of heritage sites was Sati’ al-Husri, who would become the first Iraqi director of antiquities from 1934-1941 under Ghazi ibn Faisal (33-39).

While I didn’t touch on it, Woolley’s purpose to excavate Ur was to “bring to life the Old Testament.” This mindset was deeply tied to the aforementioned British interest in Middle Eastern antiquities. Still, the current director of antiquities, Dr Laith Majid Hussain, writes of him fondly.

There are plenty of undiscussed things beyond this: treatment of workers, pay, how archaeological finds were split between museums, ongoing British and Iraqi relations, so on and so forth.