Sir Charles Leonard Woolley

British archaeologist Charles Leonard Woolley (April 17, 1880-February 20, 1960) became famous for the artifacts and information he uncovered during his magnificent excavations at Ur. Woolley is noted as one of the first modern archaeologists, and was knighted in 1935 for his services to archaeology.

Born in London to a clergyman, Woolley graduated from New College in Oxford, and in 1905 he became Assistant Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. In 1922, Woolley was chosen by the British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania to lead the famous excavation at Ur. The excavations of the temple complex and the ziggurat in the city complex were impressive but it was the Royal Cemetery of Ur which proved to be the most amazing archeological find of the period. His most important discovery was the tomb of "Queen" Puabi. Miraculously untouched by looters, her tomb contained thousands of beads and other pieces of jewelry including a seal bearing her name in Sumerian. Buried with her were her attendants, guards and musicians who had participated in the funerary ceremony. Woolley was adept in conserving objects while they were still in the ground. Filling the lost wooden elements with wax, dowels, and plaster, he was able to reconstruct the form of many objects. His work at Ur, which ended in 1934, added tremendous amounts of information to our knowledge of this early period.

Unwilling to rest on the laurels brought by the work at Ur, he also excavated at the sites of Tell Atchana and al-Mina in Syria. In addition to being a talented archaeologist, Woolley wrote more than 25 books including Excavations at Ur: A Record of 12 Years' Work, published in 1954, and Spadework: Adventures in Archaeology, published in 1953.