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Remembered Today:

Archaeologists who served in the Great War


trajan

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Well, if we can have a thread on unusually-named people of the GW, I thought one on men who served then and who were archaeologists (in the broadest sense) or became such after hostilities ended might appeal also to other GWF members - even if it is only those who are archaeologically minded!

Here, to set the ball rolling, are three.

Lt.George Leonard Cheesman: Royal Hampshire Regiment, died on 10th August 1915 at Suvla Bay; eminent Roman historian and author of the seminal The Auxilia of the Roman Imperial Army (1914): see further - http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=179043&hl=cheesman and http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=230580&hl=cheesman

Maj.(Sir) Robert Eric Mortimer Wheeler MC: Royal Artillery - in 1918 commander of A' Battery of 76th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery (in WW2, Brigadier, RA); archaeologist in Britain, France and pre-partition India, and well, most will know of him, so need I say more?!

Wilhelm Heinrich Clemens Bosch: Ersatz Bataillon Inf.Reg. 117; Flieger-Ersatz-Abteilung 9; discharged on January 1919 as musketier with Inf.Reg.118: classical scholar, numismatist, and epigrapher, author of over 60 works on these subjects, including (published posthumously) Quellen zur Geschichte der Stadt Ankara im Altertum (1967).

Trajan

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Hi Trajan,

I think one or two, whose names escape me from the Sudan Political Service if you would know.

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John Beazley, like Leonard Cheesman a friend of James Elroy Flecker, served in Military Intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Beazley (perhaps classical historian rather than archaeologist but I always line him up on the archaeological side).

Leonard Woolley, Arthur Evans and Howard Carter were all alive during the period but I can't find any evidence of service (and, wrong war, but everyone should find out about John Devitt Stringfellow Pendlebury if they don't already know... )

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Wasn't TEL schooled to some degree in archaeology

Not a such as Oxford never did it then, but certainly he was of an archaeological mind - his BA thesis (or was it an MA one in the days they wanted one?) was Crusader Castles, and he also worked at Carchemich with Woolley, so, yes - he fits! He did use one of my favourite Roman forts in Jordan as one of his bases at one point (Qasr Azraq)...

I did a little research on this chap recently - Guy Dickens KRRC - if you fancy adding a bit of Hellenistic Sculpture into the mix.

Good one - I sometimes have to teach a course on that subject and had never made the connection!

John Beazley, like Leonard Cheesman a friend of James Elroy Flecker, served in Military Intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Beazley (perhaps classical historian rather than archaeologist but I always line him up on the archaeological side).

Leonard Woolley, Arthur Evans and Howard Carter were all alive during the period but I can't find any evidence of service (and, wrong war, but everyone should find out about John Devitt Stringfellow Pendlebury if they don't already know... )

Beazley - yes, new to me (well, the GW connection!)...

Woolley I don't know, to be honest, and although Artie Evans was wandering around the Balkans pre-GW looking for whatever he could find ( :whistle: ), and also getting arrested there, I think he was on Crete for the duration. Carter was certainly off in Egypt - working with Theodore Davies up to 1915 (Davies was the man who declared there was nothing left to be found in the Valley of the Kings!), and he started work for Caernarvon in 1917.

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O.G.S. Crawford (1886-1957), war photographer with the RFC, see http://www.keble.ox.ac.uk/about/past/archaeology-and-anthropology-at-keble-a-history

Of course - OGS was on my list, but I did not want to bag them all :whistle: I'm certain there was a German aerial photographer as well who spotted sites in Palestine, but I can't remember... And there was probably one or more scholars of a classical bent who wandered around Greece courtesy of HM and other armed services - yes, I'm being broad church: archaeology covers a wide range of subjects!

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Dorothy Garrod apparently did her bit during the war...not sure where.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Garrod

James Penrose Harland (US Navy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Penrose_Harland

Malcolm Jennings Rogers US Marine Corps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Jennings_Rogers

Ovid R Sellers served as a Chaplain to the AEF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovid_R._Sellers

Eleazar Sukenik (Israel) 40th Bn Royal Fusiliers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleazar_Sukenik

Luigi Maria Ugolini served in the Alpini https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi_Maria_Ugolini

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Hi

TEL was of course working as an archaeologist at Carchemish (a Hittite city) under Hogarth and then Woolley from 1911 to the Great War. Hogarth (who was in British Intelligence) got him the post of assistant archaeologist at Carchemish, this location also being on the route of the projected Berlin to Baghdad railway.

TEL's Thesis was published in 1936, after his death, and reprinted with other correspondence in 1992 as 'Crusader Castles', Immel Publishing, with a preface by Michael Haag.

Mike

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Surrey Recruitment Registers

First name(s) J S

Last name Playford

Service number 25055

Age 35 Years 0 Months

Birth year 1881

Occupation Archaeologist

Attestation year 1916

Attestation date 19 January 1916

Attestation place London

Unit or regiment East Surrey Regiment (depot)

Regiment East Surrey Regiment (depot)

Height 5ft 7in.

Weight in pounds 126

Chest expansion inches 2

Chest size inches 35

Remarks 65 Avondale Rd Croydon

Notes Conscripted men

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The National Archives article: Digging for King and Country by Dr Juliette Desplat

http://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/blog/digging-king-country/

…is it that surprising that archaeology and intelligence had such close links during the First World War?

The article mentions T. E. Lawrence, Gertrude Bell, Leonard Woolley, Captain Stewart Newcombe, later Royal Engineers, David Hogarth, then Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum…

… These archaeologists turned agents then regrouped in the intelligence department of the Egyptian Army in Cairo, and in that of the Indian Expeditionary Force D in Basra.

Cheers

Maureen

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Trajan,

Another one; probably not very famous though. In spite of ill-health he still got involved. I'd expected to find more in the University and Public Schools Brigade:

Regards

Colin

325 Evelyn-White Hugh Gerard Pte 19th Bn RF 30 Harwich, Suffolk 18/9/14 Cambridge No Rampton Rectory, Cambridge Kings School, Ely, Wadham College, scholarship (Oxford University Volunteers - OTC) Archaeologist - Egypt Dis 26/12/14 - ill health - anaemia?, to Egypt for excavations - returned Nov 15 Nov 15 3/6th LF, Palestine, sent home on med grounds, died 1924
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Three who served in Salonika from the Greek School:

Stanley Casson, E.A. Gardner and E.N. Pryce

Reponsible for 'Macedonia: Antiquities Found in the British Zone 1915-1919' The Annual of the British School at Athens, No XXIII, Session 1918-19, pp. 10-11

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2nd Lt Roger Meyrick Heath, 6th Somerset Light Infantry.

Born 1889. Educated Rugby and Oriel College Oxford. Archaeology student in Greece at outbreak of war.

Joined 19th (Service) Battalion (2nd Public Schools) Royal Fusiliers, promoted to Corporal. Commissioned 13 May 1915.

Arrived in France 8 September 1916, killed by shell in trenches 15 September 1916.

Mike

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Oskar Niedermayer - though his stated archaeological interests may have been simply a cover story

Walter Andrae, re constructor of the Ishtar Gate was on the staff of General von Goltz

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Dorothy Garrod apparently did her bit during the war...not sure where.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Garrod

Dorothy Garrod served in France with the Catholic Women's League, who ran Soldier's Huts.

The League's superintendent in France was Mrs Charlotte Augusta Baynes, who received a Mention in Despatches, an MBE and an OBE for her efforts.

During the 1920s she was a contemporary of Garrod at the British School of Archaelogy in Jerusalem and the two of them worked together.

A list of other students during the period 1920-36 can be seen at the link below. There are sure to have been some among them with Great War service.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ZLftw1CmKrwJ:files.figshare.com/89835/bsaj_students_1920_1936_1_1.docx+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

Bart

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I know nothing else about this fella who has mention in Saunders 'Killing Time'. Capt. Francis Buckley, Northumberland Fusiliers supervised the digging of trenches at Coigneux, some 6 miles behind the British lines SW of Arras. Coigneux was reinforced by these trenches, known as the 'Red Line', though, as Buckley observed, they were never used. Inspecting these freshly dug and empty trenches, Buckley discovered Palaeolithic artefacts, and noted, that, 'for about 15 or 20 yards along the parapets there was a good sprinkling of implements, some recently broken and some whole...including a hand axe..., a typical Levallois flake and a number of scrapers

Buckley, Francis (1920-21). 'Finds of Flint Implements in the Red Line Trenches at Coigneux, 1918', proceedings of the prehistoric Society of East Anglia for 1920-21, 1-9

Jon

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Woolley was a PoW in a Turkish camp. He wrote from Kastamuni to Kedos: Being a record of experiences of POWs in Turkey 1916-18 - I have a copy but not read it for some years.

Steve

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Steven V, if you have it to hand I'd be really glad to know if he mentions Sub-Lt Lionel Tudway RN (not sure if he was ever at Kastamuni but many of his fellow-survivors of Kut were).

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My gosh! Never realised that there were that many! Thanks to all contributors - and especially those who recognised the MI aspects of using archaeologists in this role. A aside: the doyen of Roman army studies was in MI in WW2 and soon discovered from his previous analysis of Roman army recruitment, promotion, etc., patterns, that they same method of analysis could be used to make sense of Soldatenbucher with regard to the Wehrmacht.

I do thank especially Jaydubya and StevenV though for those insights on recovering palaeolithic bifaces during war work and for Woolley being a Turkish POW - useful bits to put in future classes! On Woolley, I wonder if he learnt Turkish as well as Arabic at that time?

Julian

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Steven V, if you have it to hand I'd be really glad to know if he mentions Sub-Lt Lionel Tudway RN (not sure if he was ever at Kastamuni but many of his fellow-survivors of Kut were).

Hello seaJane - I don't have it to hand but happy to check for your chap over the weekend.

All best Steve

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Thank you! Will be away from screen all weekend so no massive rush.

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