Maynard
Owen Williams paid a second and equally memorable visit to the ancient Hittite
site at Carchemish (see my previous article dated 02 May 2019) on the day when the
excavators struck a rich find.
As
the excavations progressed and 3000-year-old Hittite remains began to reveal themselves
the great game of rewarding the fellows by allowing them to announce new
discoveries by firing off their pistol was abandoned and a more ritualised
format was devised. The site headman, Hamoudi, his title in this role being the
chawish, was given the prerogative to
fire his revolver as a signal to the archaeologists and the far-flung teams to
down picks and join in with the celebrations, but first he had to judge the
quality of the find - one shot for a fair-sized fragment of basalt rising to
seven or eight for a complete slab with figures and inscriptions, and so on. In
time, the men were vying with each other for the most cartridges expended for
their discoveries and would complain to Hamoudi: “Oh, but six shots, ya
chawish, six shots: was it not five for the chariot yonder? And here there are
three sons of Adam; by God, they deserve two rounds apiece.” This practice
acted as baksheesh to the finder, valued just as much as any monetary reward
that was added to their wages, and encouraged the men to aspire to the honour
of being able to say, “That is the stone of Yasin Hussein for which he had
eight shots.” In this way, the find not only benefited the finder, but also his
immediate team which typically comprised four men – a pick-man, a shoveller and
two basket-men. They were each paid a proportionate bonus. To many believers it
also paid homage to the stone and to the good fortune that put it in their
path.
One
day in October 1913 the excavators struck a rich find. Working beyond the
King’s Gate the men found a return buttress that was only 6 inches away from
the limit of their excavations the previous season. This new direction led them
to discover enormous decorative slabs of basalt and white limestone depicting
drums and trumpets heralding a seated goddess followed by 15 servants carrying
percussion instruments and mirrors. Then more slabs showing men carrying
gazelles on their shoulders until a break which revealed a door flanked by huge
panels of Hittite inscriptions. Lawrence called it a great find, “the greatest
we have ever made.”
If
patience was the archaeologist’s most important virtue then theirs had paid
off. Campbell Thompson recalled how week after week of digging would reveal
nothing; “a weary and indefinite time of waiting” he called it. And then... “on
a sudden the most glorious treasures will be revealed, tasking your time from
dawn to sunset.” Having been drawn into the seductive world of the
archaeologist, Maynard Williams had returned in time to bear witness to this
momentous occasion. “I was at Carchemish on the day the greatest Hittite find
ever unearthed was revealed to the eye of man for the first time in three
thousand years. I have never had a more exciting time in my life.”
It
was hoped that their patience and efforts might reveal something of real significance
– perhaps a find as rewarding as a Hittite version of the Rosetta Stone from
which they could decipher the lost language of the Hittites. Williams describes
the moment the find was revealed to the team:
"When
the enthusiastic labourers had carefully uncovered the precious dolerite slab,
and the overseer, bending over it like some near-sighted Silas Marner caressing
his gold, had discovered that it bore the longest Hittite inscription ever
found, ten shots from a big Colt revolver, fired as a baksheesh to the stone,
echoed and re-echoed across the Euphrates, and workmen and directors knew that
a big find had been made. Pandemonium was let loose. Labourers came running
from all directions to share the joy of discovery. I also shared in that joy. I
shouted congratulations to Khalil, the giant pickman. “Praise be to God!” I
cried. He grinned so I could see all his teeth, and answered, “God’s blessing
return to you!”
The
find was important but it was not the key to the language they were hoping for.
The answer to this particular mystery would come just two years later in 1915 when
a Czech Orientalist and cryptographer named Bedřich (Frederich) Hrozný was
conscripted into the Austrian Army as a clerk and in the midst of war found he
had plenty of time to study a set of tablets he had the foresight to copy in
Istanbul before war commenced. Recognising the single Babylonian sign for bread
set him on the path of unlocking the ancient riddle. With knowledge,
perseverance and a few lucky assumptions he was able to decipher just one
sentence, but it was enough. It read: “Now you will eat bread and drink water.”
It
was not until 1919 that Woolley was able to return to their old site on the
banks of the Euphrates which was now in an area of post-Ottoman Syria controlled
by French forces. Despite enquiries to Frederic Kenyon, the Director of the British Museum, Lawrence found
it impossible to return to his old life. In fact, his immense fame would
prohibit him from ever being able to continue with his archaeological career in
a post-Versailles world riddled with a suspicion of king-makers. “Woe’s me,” he
once wrote, “I suppose I’ll never dig anything again.”
