Gerald Lankester Harding

Gerald Lankester Harding (1901 – 11 February 1979) was a British archaeologist who was the Director of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan from 1936–1956. His tenure spanned the period in which the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered and brought to public awareness. Without his efforts many of the scrolls might have disappeared into private collections never to be seen again.

Harding was born in Tientsin, North China in 1901, but spent his childhood from age two to thirteen in Singapore. He returned to the UK with his parents in 1913, but his father was killed in World War I and Harding earned his living in a number of jobs from the ages of sixteen to twenty five. During this time he became fascinated by Egyptian hieroglyphics and eventually joined the evening classes run by the distinguished Egyptologist, Dr Margaret Murray. Recognising his brilliance, she encouraged him to write to Sir Flinders Petrie and apply to go on one of his excavations.

In 1926, Petrie was excavating at Tell Jemmeh, near Gaza in southern Palestine, where Harding joined him. Harding's archaeological talents quickly became apparent and with James Leslie Starkey and Olga Tufnell, he became one of a band of young archaeologists known as 'Petrie's pups'. While on the excavations he quickly learned spoken Arabic from the local Bedouin and spoke their dialect throughout his life, despite living in Amman and Lebanon in later years. He also taught himself written Arabic. Harding and the other 'pups' worked with Petrie at Tell Jemmeh, Tell Fara and Tall al-Ajjul between 1926 and 1931, but in 1932 they began a major excavation of their own, under Starkey's direction, at Tell ed-Duweir (Biblical Lachish), where the famous "Lachish Letters", written in the Palaeo-Hebrew script on pot sherds were found. With Olga Tufnell and Charles Inge, Harding was responsible for the second volume of the Final Report.

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