Leonard Woolley
| Sir Leonard Woolley | |
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Sir Leonard Woolley holding the noted excavated Sumerian Queen's Lyre, 1922
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| Born | Charles Leonard Woolley 17 April 1880 Upper Clapton, London |
| Died | 20 February 1960 (aged 79) London |
| Fields | archaeology |
| Known for | excavations at Ur in Mesopotamia |
| Spouse | Katharine Elizabeth Keeling Menke |
Sir Charles Leonard Woolley (17 April 1880 – 20 February 1960) was a British archaeologist best known for his excavations at Ur in Mesopotamia. He is considered to have been one of the first "modern" archaeologists, and was knighted in 1935 for his contributions to the discipline of archaeology.
Woolley was the son of a clergyman, and was brother to Geoffrey Harold Woolley, VC and George Cathcart Woolley. He was born at 13 Southwold Road, Upper Clapton, in the modern London Borough of Hackney and educated at St John's School, Leatherhead and New College, Oxford. He was interested in excavations from a young age.
In 1905, Woolley became assistant of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Volunteered by Arthur Evans to run the excavations on the Roman site at Corbridge for Francis Haverfield, Woolley began his excavation career there in 1906, later admitting in Spadework that "I had never studied archaeological methods even from books ... and I had not any idea how to make a survey or a ground-plan" (Woolley 1953:15). He was one of the first ‘modern’ archaeologists, who excavated in a methodical way, keeping careful records, and using them to reconstruct ancient life and history.T. E. Lawrence worked with Woolley on the excavation of the Hittite city of Carchemish from 1912–14.
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