Olga Tufnell
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Olga Tufnell | |
|---|---|
 Tufnell in 1931 | |
| Born | 26 January 1905 Sudbury, Suffolk, England |
| Died | 11 April 1985 (aged 80) London, England |
| Known for | Lachish excavations |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Archaeology |
| Institutions | Wellcome Foundation |
Olga Tufnell FSA (26 January 1905 – 11 April 1985) was a British archaeologist who assisted on the excavation of the ancient city of Lachish in the 1930s. She had no formal training in archaeology, but had worked as a secretary for Flinders Petrie for a number of years before being given a field assignment. Olga then went on to join James Leslie Starkey in the expedition to find Lachish in 1929 and remained part of the team for the following seasons.
When Starkey was killed in 1938, the team finished the season then closed the site. Olga volunteered to write up the report of the dig and spent the following twenty years researching and writing up the majority of the excavation report. Olga's work has been regarded as the "pre-eminent source book for Palestinian archeology". Once the report was published, she turned her attention to cataloguing scarabs and other seals.
Many of Olga Tufnell's original letters and photographs are housed today at the Palestine Exploration Fund in London. Those published from 1927-1938[1] provide insights into dig life and archaeology, as well as the wider socio-cultural, political, and gendered context of colonial life within Mandate-era Palestine.
Olga Tufnell was born on 26 January 1905 in Sudbury, Suffolk to a prominent landholding family.[2][3] Her father, Beauchamp Le Fevre Tufnell had been a second lieutenant in the 4th Battalion of Essex Regiment,[4] and her mother, Blanche, maintained a broad range of cultural interests,[5] as well as working with the Anglo-Czech Society.[6] Olga was a middle child with two brothers, Joliffe Gilbert Tufnell and Louis de Saumarez Tufnell.[7] She spent her early life in Little Waltham, and was educated at schools in London and Belgium before going to finishing school in Italy.[6]
When Olga had completed her time at the finishing school in 1922, she went to help her mother's close friend Hilda Petrie and her husband Flinders Petrie, with an exhibition of their recent finds at University College London, before taking on a secretarial role at the British School of Archaeology in Egypt.[6] She held the position of Hilda Petrie's secretary for five years, though she described it as "dull and repetitive work" in fundraising,[8] but also spent some time drawing and repairing pottery.[6] Olga's work evidently impressed Sir Flinders who, at the end of 1927, offered her an opportunity to assist him in the field in 1928.[8]
Expeditions
Although Sir Flinders himself did not join the expedition in 1929, he sent Olga with a group of other archaeologists to Qau, where they spent two months recording the reliefs from the tombs of the ancient rulers.[6] She and a few colleagues, including Gerald Lankester Harding, then joined the season's primary expedition, which was being led by James Leslie Starkey at the Tell Far'a tomb group in Palestine. During the time she would not only supervise the work of a team, but also ran an evening clinic for the Arab workers and families, as well as other local people. In all, she would help up to forty people per day with minor injuries or upset stomachs.[9] Sir Flinders joined the group in 1930 and after reviewing Olga's work, allowed her to publish it under her own name.[6] In 1931, during the Petrie expedition to Tell el-'Ajjul, Olga discovered a Hyksos tomb which included a horse burial.[6]
In 1932, Starkey secured funding from Charles Marston and Henry Wellcome to start an expedition apart from the Petries, which Olga joined. The Wellcome-Marston expedition was to focus on the excavation of the ancient city of Lachish, a stronghold mentioned in the Bible.[6] Over the next six years, the team made some important finds, including the Lachish letters, but the work was interrupted by the murder of Starkey, while he was en route to the opening of the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem.[10] The remaining team finished during the 1938/9 season, then closed the site. Olga wrote the final report.[11]
