CHAPTER IX
“The Most Sordid Document”
The Megiddo expedition, and Guy’s leadership in particular, began to come off the rails (through no fault of the Decauville!) during the 1932 season. The heady days of the previous season, when digging out the water system played a close second to the discovery of Solomon’s Stables three years earlier, were now over. Although the team continued to uncover more stables in 1933, Breasted was so unhappy with the excavation and with the publication situation by that point that he stepped in to reorganize things personally, including ordering Guy and Yemima to move out of the dig house. Eventually, by August 1934, the ever-present personnel problems culminated in a lawsuit filed against the expedition. In addition, two staff members threatened each other physically, a young scholar was fined for smuggling antiquities, and, in the end, Guy was fired.
Virtually all of these problems revolved around three people, one of whom was Guy himself. The second was Herbert May, who had just arrived with his wife, Helen, in October 1931. As we have seen in a previous chapter, he had been sent from Chicago to replace Staples, against Guy’s wishes. However, after meeting and interacting with May for a few weeks, Guy told Breasted twice in early January 1932 that he liked May, as mentioned. By July, Guy decided that May was an “admirable young man” who was easy to get along with. By that point, Guy said, he had formed “the highest opinion” of May, and his work “has been excellent in every way.”1 However, even if Guy had come around, their relationship subsequently began to sour in 1933, because of Emanuel Wilensky, the third man involved in this interpersonal tangle.
Readers will remember from an earlier chapter that Wilensky had initially worked at Megiddo for a few months during the spring of 1928 as a surveyor, when DeLoach was back in Chicago recovering from malaria (and dating his future wife, Florence). Unfortunately, Wilensky’s second stint at Megiddo, from April 1932 through June 1933, was an unhappy one for all concerned, and it was he who eventually filed a lawsuit against the expedition.
But all of that lay in the future in early January of 1932. At that point, Engberg was still in Egypt, recovering from what he finally told Breasted was a bladder ailment, aggravated by chronic kidney problems that had begun in childhood. The problem persisted throughout the year, though doctors in Jerusalem eventually told him there was nothing to be done except to watch his diet, and so forth. He had, however, sufficiently recovered by the summer and was able to tour the museums of Europe with Lamon after they attended an Archaeological Congress in London along with Guy.2
It was also at that time, in January, that Guy began asking for permission to hire Wilensky again. He reminded Breasted that Wilensky had worked for them previously, and extolled his virtues. He noted that Wilensky had been trained as an architect, was a very good draftsman, and had worked for four years at Harvard’s excavations at the site of Nuzi, in Mesopotamia. Moreover, Guy said, Wilensky could speak Arabic fluently and could “handle men.” As Guy put it, “he needs no breaking-in but knows his job and can pull his weight from the first day.”3
Guy wanted to hire Wilensky as an archaeological assistant this time, rather than as a surveyor, and said that he would put him to work up on the tell, supervising the excavation up there and sharing in writing up the field notes, since he was “a natural excavator,” which none of the other team members were, at least in Guy’s opinion. He planned to have Wilensky begin in April, commuting to the dig from Haifa, where he lived with his wife, since the road from Haifa to Megiddo was so improved that the journey now took less than an hour each way.4
Charles Breasted wasn’t particularly in favor of all this, noting to his father that “Wilensky sounds well qualified—but—would we be adding another Semite?” Wilensky was indeed Jewish, a Ukrainian-born immigrant, as noted above.5 Charles’s comment to his father notwithstanding, Guy was granted permission in February to hire Wilensky in time for the start of the spring 1932 season. A three-year contract, ostensibly running through the spring of 1935, was soon signed, although a misunderstanding about a travel allowance dragged on into the fall before being cleared up.6 However, within a year Wilensky was at odds with most of the other members of the expedition; hiring him was a decision that they would all come to regret.
There are two things to note initially from the 1932 season, both of which had lasting repercussions to differing degrees in coming years. First, there was an ongoing battle for much of the winter and spring, between Guy and the District Commissioner’s Office in Haifa, over the proposed location for a new prison—described as a “labour camp”—that was to be built near Megiddo. A site had originally been picked out that was about thirteen hundred meters away from the ancient site, on the other side of what is now called “Megiddo Junction”—where the road leading to Afula crosses the road leading to Jenin.
Guy was okay with this location, but then the commissioner’s office decided to move the location to a new area some five hundred meters closer to the site. Guy threw a fit and, eventually, the decision was made to build the prison at the location that had originally been chosen, primarily out of respect for the amount of money that Rockefeller, the sponsor of the dig, had invested in the country to that point, not just at the site, but also in the new museum in Jerusalem, which was just then being completed.7 Ironically, as was discovered less than twenty years ago, the land on which the prison was built turns out to be directly on top of another ancient site, the town of Kefar ‘Othnay or Caporcotani, which contains a mosaic discovered in 2005 that has the earliest occurrence of the name Jesus Christ to be found anywhere.8
In addition, Charles Breasted, along with other members of the family, made a highly confidential trip to Megiddo and across much of the rest of the Near East before the spring digging season began. Initially alerted to this by a series of cables, ironically not sent in code, Guy was ready and waiting in late February with an “absolutely reliable closed car with driver.”9
From then through the first week in March, they filmed all of the activities at Megiddo and then beyond, including aerial shots, and journeying to the other OI excavation sites in Egypt, Turkey, and Iraq. Everyone got into the act—quite literally. In April, Engberg wrote back to the OI that “C.B. and his party have come and gone, but before they left, they succeeded in introducing a rather new vocabulary, the effects of which will probably be with us for some time. All of us are now establishing, shooting, panning, fading, and cutting in all of our daily tasks.”10
The filming eventually resulted in Breasted’s greatest—and only—cinematic triumph. Entitled The Human Adventure, it appeared in 1935. The movie explores the history of past civilizations in what was, essentially, an hour-long illustrated lecture given by Breasted for the general public. It was shown three times at Carnegie Hall in New York City and then played to audiences around the United States for years afterward.11 A reviewer in the New York Times, who clearly did not anticipate the popularity of the Indiana Jones movie franchise that lay far in the future, began by saying: “Barring stamp collecting, archaeology would seem to be about the least likely subject matter for a motion picture. It is all the more surprising, then, to discover that even this science can be made into an entertaining film.”12
Charles Breasted wrote the script and also served as the narrator. The movie opens with James Henry Breasted, clad in his usual three-piece suit and tie, standing in his office behind a table covered with artifacts. He holds up and describes each one in turn, from Neolithic stone tools to a cuneiform clay tablet. A map of the ancient Near East is conveniently set up on a nearby easel, to which he gestures occasionally with a long, old-fashioned wooden pointer.
The air tour, complete with aerial shots of modern Cairo and the ancient pyramids at Giza, starts fifteen minutes into the movie and first takes us the length and breadth of Egypt, describing its history from before the Old Kingdom through the end of the New Kingdom. Action shots at many of the sites that were under excavation at the time serve as a backdrop for the narration. The OI’s archaeological headquarters in Luxor, “Chicago House,” is highlighted and described in detail before the tour proceeds north to British Mandate Palestine. Flying over Jerusalem and then the Jordan River as if in a biplane with an unencumbered view, we are then treated to a bird’s-eye panorama of Haifa followed by the site of Megiddo, almost exactly half an hour after the film has begun. Describing Megiddo as “a layer cake of ancient cities, one built upon another,” Charles Breasted dramatically informs the listeners that the Oriental Institute’s excavators are stripping off these layers one by one; undoubtedly, he says, “a Stone Age settlement awaits exposure at the very bottom.”
The film is not without its problems, of course, not least of which is that much of it is now out of date in terms of the information being presented. Still, for its time, it was an extremely innovative and very daring project that anticipated today’s television documentaries on archaeology, and that paid off handsomely in terms of production value and public relations for the Oriental Institute. Moreover, those interested specifically in Megiddo would have found the price of admission more than justified by the scenes of the digging in progress, complete with shots of the Egyptian pickmen and dozens of workers carrying baskets of dirt. There is also an overhead view of the entrance to the water system, a close-up of Engberg excavating skulls in a tomb, the inner courtyard where pottery restoration was in progress, and a demonstration of the balloon being carried up to the top of the mound and sent aloft to film the ruins from high above.
Charles Breasted, as the narrator, takes the time to explain how the digging is actually done, complete with views of the railway system in use. The small cars are filled to the brim with dirt and debris, he says, and are then rolled over the tracks to the chutes, where their loads are released, with the stones “booming and clattering” down to the “ever-growing dump.” Even the process of recording and registration back in the dig house is shown, complete with cameo appearances by most of the core staff members, studiously working at their desks, measuring and drawing whole vessels, and so on. Perhaps the best line in the movie is uttered completely deadpan at this point: “Freshly discovered objects are treated much like newly arrested prisoners, brought in to a detective bureau for identification.”
The segment on Megiddo stretches for more than eight minutes in all. It ends on a lighthearted note, with a celebration by the workmen, complete with a mock swordfight with sticks, boiled rice and “sweets” for the children, and dancing by the men.13
With the filming completed, the 1932 digging season finally started at Megiddo near the end of March.14 However, once again there was no information about it in any letters sent by Guy back to Chicago during the next few months—not a mention of where on the tell they were digging, what finds they were making, or even when they were stopping for the summer break. It was not until the following January that Guy finally told Breasted what they had been finding.
In the meantime, in late May, Olof Lind was asked to take photographs at the prehistoric site of Atlit, just south of Haifa. The site is located on the slopes of Mount Carmel and is home to what is now usually referred to collectively as the Carmel Caves.
Most of the discoveries at these caves during the 1920s and 1930s were made by an archaeologist named Dorothy Garrod, who later became the first woman to be named a professor at Cambridge University, where she held the Disney Chair in Archaeology from 1939 to 1952. She began digging at Kebara Cave in 1928 and then excavated two other caves, known as Tabun and el-Wad, from 1929 to 1934. The latter two caves had been occupied continuously from about 500,000 years ago until sometime after 40,000 years ago; they became known in particular for Garrod’s discovery of the burial of a Neanderthal woman dating to about 120,000 years ago.15
However, Lind was being asked to take photographs of skeletons in a different cave, one that lay nearby, known as Skhul Cave. Here, Ted McCown, an American physical anthropologist who had just received his BA degree in 1929 and later went on to a distinguished career at UC Berkeley, was working with Garrod.16 They had begun to find what eventually turned out to be a series of skeletons, some of which were Neanderthal and others of which were anatomically modern people, that is, Homo sapiens. When published, these generated much discussion among scholars, since they provided some of the first evidence that the two groups existed at the same time and seem to have lived side by side, at least here in the Carmel Caves.17
McCown suggested that the rest of the Megiddo team might want to come with Lind and visit the site as well. They took him up on the invitation, but disaster struck almost immediately, just twenty minutes after they arrived.
They were standing on a terrace outside the cave, examining the skeletons that were still in situ, when, as Guy later reported, “a stone measuring about a foot across was dislodged, probably by a goat pasturing higher up the hill.” It rolled down the slope, he said, and fell “a clear twenty feet onto Mrs. Wilensky’s head.” It was not a direct blow, for if it had been, her skull would have been crushed “like an egg.” Even so, the doctors later said that her skull had been fractured fairly high up in the back, as well as in a double fracture at the base. Moreover, the force of the blow had knocked her facedown onto the terrace, so that she also suffered a terrific bruise and a concussion, although it wasn’t clear whether the concussion had been caused by the initial blow from the falling rock or by her striking her face on the rock terrace.18
Guy immediately sent the news back to the Breasteds in Chicago, cabling succinctly, “WILENSKYS WIFE TODAY HAD SERIOUS POSSIBLE FATAL ACCIDENT NOT AT MEGIDDO.”19
They all thought that she would die en route to the hospital, but they did what they could anyway, sending for an ambulance to take her to Haifa as quickly as possible. Remarkably, and apparently in part because the attending doctor decided not to operate but to simply let nature take its course and allow her to heal on her own, she recovered enough to be discharged and to return home just a few weeks later, in late June. She still had trouble with her eyesight and had to learn how to walk all over again, but overall she was already on the mend.20
Breasted was incredibly frustrated with Guy by this time, especially since he had been left in the dark all spring as to what was happening at the site. In June, he started right in again, pushing back against Guy’s emphatic rejections of the proposal that he change his systematic attack on the mound. He badgered Guy to dig faster and get to the palace dating to the time of “the Egyptian Empire.” He pointed out that they had originally been given financing for only five years of digging, but that they were now “well along in a second period of five years.”21
What Breasted wanted, before this second set of five years was up, was to “find the area of the royal castle with its important monuments of Canaanite or Egyptian period.” If they found it, he said, it would be imperative to excavate the royal area entirely. In contrast, he noted, “it will be relatively less important to extend the clearance over the entire mound to regions covered with houses only.” While reconstructing a street plan of Megiddo in the Canaanite period would be interesting, of course, Breasted pointed out that “there is every likelihood that the house plans will be roughly uniform throughout.” He continued, “After you have excavated a few of them [the houses], you will probably learn very little more by excavating the rest.”22
Hammering his points home, Breasted said that he found it incredible that they had been working at Megiddo for six years already and had not gotten into the Egyptian or Canaanite levels yet. While he didn’t want to disturb the routine of the excavation or “the scientific and systematic execution of the work,” the fact remained that they needed to reach those levels soon. Using Guy’s own earlier efforts against him, Breasted noted that they had already gone deep into the mound when digging out the water system the previous year, and that the same thing could be done in the north half of the mound, “where the more pretentious buildings seem to have been situated, and where you might be able to locate the castle or palace of the Canaanite rulers.”23 Breasted ended his long letter by saying that he hoped to visit Megiddo during the winter months. In the meantime, he wanted to hear back from Guy, regarding the question of reaching the Canaanite levels in the near future.
Breasted also took the opportunity to bring up again the lack of publications, apart from the two preliminary reports that had appeared in 1929 and 1931. He did concede that there were legitimate reasons why no final publications had yet appeared, although he didn’t spell them out, but also said that the time had now come to rectify the situation. He asked Guy, first and foremost, to go back through the letters and reports that he had sent from time to time, pull together the material into one place, and then estimate the length of the text and the number of plates that would go into what Breasted thought would be two volumes—one on the tombs and the other on the discoveries on the top of the mound. His reasoning, he said, was the financial situation in America—that is, the continuing Great Depression—which was making it more difficult for them to complete all of their unfinished tasks. Breasted may well have been anticipating the looming cuts in philanthropy from the Rockefellers, which indeed began soon thereafter.24
To all of this, Guy responded in early July with a few proposals of his own. He deliberately ignored Breasted’s continued goading and his pleas to get down to the Late Bronze Age levels. Instead, Guy focused on the question of publications. The tombs alone would require two full volumes, he said; they already had 116 plates of tomb material ready to go, along with the plans, complete with captions. As for the material coming from the summit of the mound, that would go into another volume, which could also contain the description and discussion of the water system. For this, he said that twenty-five plates with their captions were already set to go, and that he would want to add a dozen plates concerned with pottery and another twenty or so plates concerned with the Stratum I and surface material from the top of the mound. Thus, rather than two volumes, he proposed three—two of the tombs and one of the material on top of the mound.25
However—and it was a big however—Guy said that in order to complete this task as quickly as possible, he would need to cancel the upcoming fall season of excavation and put every team member on the task of pulling together the material for these volumes. As he put it bluntly: “Digging and publication cannot possibly go on at the same time; I tried that this Spring, and had to stop the latter. My whole staff is needed for either piece of work.”26
If Breasted gave them permission to do this, Guy said, he could have everything ready to hand over for publication when Breasted came to visit in the winter. And, as for digging quickly and looking for the Egyptian/Canaanite levels and a palace at the northern edge of the mound, Guy said he would be happy to discuss that further with Breasted during his visit. As he put it, that would have the advantage of allowing him “to have the benefit of your views on the mound itself, and you could then give me, on the ground, your instructions as to how you wanted the remainder of the present five years to be employed.”27 And with that, Guy threw the ball back into Breasted’s court.
Breasted refused to play, however. Writing back at the end of July, just prior to leaving for vacation himself, he stated with no equivocation that the fall digging season would absolutely take place. They could not possibly adopt a policy of halting excavations just to publish previous results; none of their expeditions had ever done anything like that, he said. Decreasing the annual amount of excavation by canceling the fall season would increase their costs appallingly, as he put it, and so all publication preparations must be done in the intervals between digging periods, as usual—that is, in the winter months between the ending of the fall campaign and the beginning of the spring campaign.28
To all of this, Guy had no answer, and so in October the team members began to return, one by one, for the fall season. To their surprise, they found that over the summer Olof Lind had gotten engaged to a young Swedish lady named Astrid who was quite literally half his age—he was forty-five, and she was twenty-two. The wedding was scheduled for September 1933, one year thence. Guy was not optimistic about their future together, noting, “The Lord knows how it will turn out.” As it happened, it turned out badly, with Astrid requesting (and getting) a divorce just a few years later, in 1937.29
By early October, the full team was in place once again. Among the team members this time was Breasted’s younger son, James Henry Breasted, Jr., who was twenty-four years old at the time, and who took part in the excavations for a few weeks.30
Toward the end of the season, Lamon received news that his father had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and was not expected to live much longer. In early November, Lamon’s mother went to see Breasted in Chicago, appealing to him to let Lamon return home as soon as possible, while Lamon himself did the same at Megiddo, asking both Guy and Charles Breasted for permission to return home before his father passed away.31
Not only was the request granted, but an advance on his summer travel money was sent immediately, so that Lamon could afford to book passage home. He left Megiddo in early December, just as they were closing down the dig for the year, and reached the States in plenty of time, for his father did not pass away until June 1933, at the age of fifty-four, having lived long enough not only to see his son again, but to be present when Bob married Eugenia Keefe in early February (though this is getting a bit ahead of our story).32
This brings us to the 1933 season, however, which was both a direct continuation of 1932 and a different story altogether. Breasted was no longer amenable to the slow pace of Guy’s digging. He mused on the various possible ways to prod Guy to speed things up and then eventually sent a note in late January, informing Guy that he and Mrs. Breasted would be coming out in person this year, rather than simply sending Charles.33
As a result, although the Breasteds would not arrive at Megiddo until April, there was an air of anticipation, not to mention anxiety, at the dig house, especially when team members spied an article in the New York Tribune published in early February that documented the Breasteds’ departure with the headline “Saver of Cities Sailing Today for Near East.” Below that, in smaller letters, the subheading read, “Dr. Breasted Off to Review His Armies of Excavation in Ancient Bible Lands.” The article began in a similar militaristic tone, “Dr. James Henry Breasted, commanding general of the American army of archaeologists stationed now between the hill at Armageddon and Persepolis in Persia, will start out again at noon today for the Bible lands to review his troops in the field.”34
At the end of March, Guy notified Breasted that they had been working steadily on the publications for the past several months. While it was still raining at that point, he felt that it was time to begin digging again, so he was planning to send for the Egyptians and begin as soon as they arrived. He also noted that Lamon and his new bride were due to arrive the next day (26 March), and that they would be at full strength in terms of staff by the time that Breasted arrived at Megiddo.35
Guy thought he knew what was coming, based on Breasted’s previous letters. He planned to go over the yearly budget with Breasted, show him around the site, discuss the remains that had been recently exposed, and find out what was envisioned in terms of excavation for the future. Anticipating these conversations, Guy decided to begin the dialogue before Breasted even arrived, writing to say that he knew both time and money were tight. While he would hate to abandon the stratum-by-stratum method of horizontal excavation that they had been following up to that point, he agreed that it might be advisable to begin working in just one area, rather than across the whole tell, and to dive deep in that area. As he put it, “I do realize that it may be necessary to cut our coat according to our cloth.”36
This, of course, was exactly what Breasted had been trying to get across to Guy in his letters of the previous year. Perhaps Guy had finally realized that, with the director himself coming to visit again, it might be time to get in line with his wishes. Some of those wishes were made abundantly clear when Breasted immediately replied from Luxor. “It will indeed be necessary to contract the area included in the clearance,” he wrote, “and in doing so to make every endeavor to determine the most promising place on which to concentrate the clearance operations.” However, Guy did not yet realize that Breasted envisioned the change in excavation strategy as just one piece of a much more substantial reordering that had to be enacted.37
In the meantime, in mid-April, the team was visited one morning by the excavators from nearby Samaria—John and Grace Crowfoot, as well as their daughter Joan and two students. One of the students was Kathleen Kenyon, daughter of Sir Frederic Kenyon, the longtime director of the British Museum. Kenyon worked as a team member at Samaria from 1931 to 1934, decades before becoming famous in her own right, in large part because of her excavations at Jericho and Jerusalem.38
At the time, Kenyon was already experimenting with the excavation techniques that she had just learned from her mentor and adviser Sir Mortimer Wheeler. These involved digging more slowly and carefully and keeping track of the pottery, walls, and other discoveries “according to the natural layers of soil”—in other words, paying closer attention to the stratigraphy while excavating. Although disparaged by Crowfoot, her method was eventually adopted almost universally by most excavators in this region, after she also used it successfully at both Jericho and Jerusalem. Today it is known as the Kenyon-Wheeler method.39
The other student was Betty Murray, who later sent a letter to her mother describing their visit to Megiddo. “It was worth going there,” she wrote, “just to see how an expedition can be conducted when money is no object.”40 The dig house was charming and beautifully furnished, and it even had a sun parlor, she said. This is the first such description that we have of the newly renovated accommodations, following the completion of all the improvements that Woolman had suggested a few years earlier.
FIG. 29. Mending pottery at Megiddo, during Guy’s directorship ca. 1931–34 (courtesy of the Oberlin College archives)
FIG. 30. Pottery room at Megiddo, during Guy’s directorship ca. 1931–34 (courtesy of the Oberlin College archives)
To reach the house, they passed through a courtyard “gay with flowers—bougainvillea and geraniums and shaded by palm trees,” Murray said. She was particularly impressed by the hot and cold water and the “palatial bathroom and shower” in each room, as well as the tiled passageways and the marble windowsills. The tennis court also merited a mention.
And, as she put it, “the business part is equally elaborate.” There was a special room for photography and a huge room just for drawing the pottery, as well as “rooms and rooms for the pottery fitted with shelves.” She was also very impressed by the idea of balloon photography, even though the balloon wasn’t working at the moment because they were once again out of the gas that they imported from Marseilles.
After being treated to a picnic lunch and coffee in the courtyard, they were shown around the tell. According to Betty, the top of the mound was “a vast place but uninspiring to look at—foundations of room after room carefully numbered.” She was not particularly impressed by the supposed Solomonic stables and walls, but was quite taken by the water system, which they walked through and which she spent quite a bit of her letter describing, calling it “one of the most spectacular finds.” Unfortunately, she didn’t record Kathleen Kenyon’s reaction to any of this.
Breasted and his wife missed the Crowfoots, Kenyon, and Murray by ten days. They finally arrived at Megiddo in late April and proceeded to spend a full three days visiting with Guy and the team.41 It was only the fourth time that Breasted had been to the site since excavations had begun: the first was in March 1926, following which he fired Higgins; the second was in April 1927, after which he fired Fisher; the third was in March 1929, for the “Great Royal Visit” with the Rockefellers; and now the fourth was in April 1933, when he once again fired someone. There would be only one more trip, in mid-October 1935, but that still lay in the future.
As with several of Breasted’s earlier visits, the results of this fourth tour of inspection had repercussions not only for the rest of that season, but for the remainder of the time that the Oriental Institute excavated at the site. The first inkling of what transpired comes from a cable that Breasted sent immediately afterward to Charles, who had stayed behind in Chicago. It reads:42
SPENT THREE DAYS MEGIDDO AFTER CONFERENCES WITH ENTIRE STAFF HAVE DISCHARGED WILENSKY AND SERIOUSLY REPRIMANDED CHIEF WHO TOOK IT LYING DOWN WILL LIVE HAIFA WITH WIFE AND IS MEEKLY ACCEPTING THOROUGH REORGANISATION OF PROGRAM AND STAFF LATTER JUBILANT.
It’s not hard to read between the lines and see what happened during the three days that Breasted spent at Megiddo. Simply put, he decided to take command again and reassert control over a dig that he thought had gone rogue, with a field director (“Chief” in the cable) who was digging too slowly, not publishing enough, and in general not listening to the orders coming from far-off Chicago. Somehow Breasted had caught wind of what Woolman had wanted to tell him the previous year but didn’t feel that he could; recall that Woolman had said Breasted would have to figure it out for himself, which apparently by now he had.
So, while at Megiddo, Breasted told Guy that Wilensky should be let go at the end of the spring season, with his contract terminated early. He also reprimanded Guy for a variety of perceived misdeeds and banished him to commute from Haifa. If we believe Breasted’s cable, the staff members were “jubilant” about these changes.43
Leaving nothing to chance, Breasted soon put everything in writing, posting a long letter to Guy in early May. In it, he said that he was taking the first opportunity to recapitulate and elaborate on the main points that they had discussed during their three days together in late April. This may be one of the most important letters written by Breasted in connection with Megiddo since the early days of initial efforts to procure funding and begin excavations at the site, so it is worth spending some time parsing it.44
To begin with, Breasted split the contents of his letter into three sections: (I) publications; (II) excavations; and (III) house, equipment, and maintenance. In the first section, Breasted itemized his understanding of the first three volumes that were to appear, which differed from Guy’s previous suggestion. The initial volume was to be concerned with the one hundred or so tombs on the East Slope. Since the plates were nearly all ready, he thought that Guy could complete the accompanying text quickly, if he spent at least three hours per day on it, assisted by the others as necessary. The volume was to be finished and submitted no later than 1 October, five months thence, which would also allow Guy to work on it during the summer break. In order to keep track of progress, Breasted asked for monthly reports, to be sent to him on the first of each month.45
The second volume would then be a summary of all the upper levels excavated on the mound, Strata I through IV, but would also include discussions of both the stables and the water system. The third volume was left up in the air for the moment but was envisioned as covering the important buildings that presumably would be discovered in the deeper areas of the mound.46
As it turned out, the end results deviated from what Breasted envisioned, of course. For example, the book that Engberg and Shipton had been working on, concerning the early pottery from the East Slope—which wasn’t even discussed in this letter—was actually the first to appear, in 1934. Moreover, the water system ended up being published separately, written by Lamon and appearing in 1935. And a volume that May had begun working on in 1933, concerning the cult objects and buildings at Megiddo,47 also appeared in 1935.
The “Volume I” mentioned in Breasted’s letter, Guy’s long-promised volume on the tombs, was finally published in 1938, fully five years after Breasted’s visit to the site. “Volume II” of the original plan appeared one year later, in 1939. Written by Lamon and Shipton and published with the title Megiddo I, it covered the seasons of 1925–34, as mentioned previously, and Strata I–V (rather than I–IV, since they renumbered the strata in the interim, during the course of working through the material for publication). That was a good year for Shipton, for he also published a volume that could technically be considered part of the envisioned “Volume III,” which was on the pottery that they found in Strata VI–X, in the years after Breasted’s visit. Also in 1939, Gordon Loud, who took over as field director after Guy was fired, published a volume on the ivories that they found in 1937—in the palace that Breasted had long been waiting for but didn’t live to see discovered. It wasn’t until nearly a decade later, in 1948, that Loud subsequently published the other part belonging to “Volume III.” Entitled Megiddo II, it covered the seasons of 1935–39; we will discuss this later, in one of our last chapters.
Thus the three volumes that Breasted and Guy initially envisioned eventually became eight, published over the course of the next fifteen years. There were also the two preliminary reports that had been published in 1929 and 1931, and two additional volumes published by other scholars more than fifty years later. It is more than a little ironic that Guy published only the single volume on the tombs, albeit with assistance from Engberg, while Lamon, Shipton, May, and Engberg collectively published five of the eight volumes. We hardly need reminding that all of them were junior staff members with whom Guy had problems at one time or another, and that none of them came to the dig specifically trained as a field archaeologist.
However, in May 1933 all of that was yet to come. It would be greatly impacted, though, by the second section of Breasted’s letter. This dealt with the changes that were to be made in their excavation strategy, even though by then the season had already started.
First and foremost, Breasted said, the strategy of clearing the entire surface of the mound, stratum by stratum, was to be abandoned immediately. Instead, they would concentrate their efforts on a specific area located on the southern part of the top of the mound, stretching from Squares O to T and 5 to 10—this would henceforth be labeled as “Area A” on their plans.48 Breasted did not specify why he had suddenly shifted from wanting to dig in the northern half of the site, but simply said that any buildings that were presently exposed in the southern area would be recorded and removed “without hesitation,” so that they could get on with their work.
Breasted was at particular pains to stress this point about removing the remains, since the southern stables covered the entire western half of this area. He also, specifically, accused Guy of conferring with the British Mandate government about making the stables a national monument, and permanently preserving them, without having consulted him first. We will see that this point will come up again, a year later, as one of the reasons why Guy was fired.49
Breasted also said that at least two hundred workers should be employed at all times, that they should dig at the fastest possible rate, and that, “if necessary, you will employ the entire scientific staff in supervision of the increased force of Field laborers.”50 He reiterated that the entire staff should be on the mound whenever they were needed. When they weren’t up there, they should be helping with the registration of finds, which shouldn’t take long, he said, and then devote the rest of their time to working on the publications, which could mean several hours per day. Finally, in order to keep track of all this as well, Breasted asked for further monthly progress reports, though he said that they could be sent at the same time as the reports on the progress of the publications; the first one should be sent on 1 June, which was fast approaching.51
The third section of Breasted’s May 1933 letter ostensibly dealt with the house, equipment, and maintenance, but it was really about something else entirely. The first point he brought up was minor, discussing a glassed-in porch that was to serve as the new social room. Breasted directed that carpets, furniture, hangings, and pictures should be purchased, as much as was necessary to decorate and furnish this room, but it needed to be done promptly, within the current budget year (i.e., by the end of June).52
The other two points within this section were both major, and related. Breasted said that the service staff—the cooks and kitchen help, the waiters, the cleaning women, and the like—was to be reduced immediately, in part because it had been too large to this point. However, it was also to be reduced “as a remit of the Field Director’s removal to Haifa.” In other words, the staff was being reduced because Guy—and Yemima as well—would thenceforth live in Haifa and he would commute to the tell each day.53
This is the first time that anything had actually been said about Guy relocating to Haifa, besides Breasted’s initial telegram to Charles. It was, quite frankly, unprecedented for the field director not to be living in the dig house. It is hard to believe that this was done with Guy’s acquiescence, but apparently it was. Moreover, Breasted said, since the field director (i.e., Guy) had a salary that was three times that of most of the other staff, and since the OI was presently in a difficult financial situation, it would not be possible to give him additional money toward housing expenses or a travel allowance to cover the cost of the daily commute, not “when every piaster is needed on the Mound to retrieve the heavy loss of time incurred during the last five years.”54 Just like that, Guy was responsible for his housing, food, and travel costs, and was basically told that these changes were all imposed because it was his fault that they had been going so slowly during the previous five years.
Guy eventually pushed back again, when he naturally missed the 1 October deadline for the manuscript on the tombs and received an irate cable from Breasted a month later.55 Regarding the impossibility of trying to prepare publications at the same time as excavating, he wrote, echoing several previous communications, “it is not a good plan to try to publish one thing while one is digging another. Both are full time jobs, and if one tries to carry on both at the same time, one can do justice to neither.”56 To his credit, Guy was absolutely correct in this assertion—it is for this reason that most excavation teams in Israel and Jordan today usually dig for either six to seven weeks every other summer, or only four weeks every summer, and work on their publications in the interim.
Moreover, as Guy pointed out, while the excavation was in progress during the workday, he needed to be on the mound overseeing things; he couldn’t be down at the dig house working on plans, plates, and publications. Taking three hours out of each day to do completely different work “makes it impossible to keep fully abreast of digging, particularly with a big gang working among the difficult buildings we get in Palestine.”57 The real problem, Guy said, was that their digging seasons were too long, and that there was not enough time in between to write up the results. He pointed out that their field season at Megiddo was longer than that of any other expedition working in the area—longer, even, than that of any of the other excavations being run elsewhere by the Oriental Institute. “I do beg of you,” he wrote, “to allow me … to have shorter ones [i.e., digging seasons], with more time for writing up in between.”58 Again, in his favor, Guy was completely correct; this is why nobody digs all year round, or has two dig seasons during each year any more, and it is why dig directors are almost always to be found somewhere on-site while excavation is ongoing.
However, there was no pushback at all from Guy regarding the reduction in service staff or his relocation to Haifa. Only once, more than a year later, does he even mention the fact that he was not living at the dig house between May 1933 and August 1934. It’s not clear where in Haifa he and Yemima lived during that period, though we should remember that when Guy was the chief inspector for the Department of Antiquities for five years, from 1922 onward, prior to being hired as field director at Megiddo, he had been stationed in Jerusalem and Haifa.59 Had he owned a house in Haifa at that time, which is likely, it is by no means out of the question for him to have held on to it during the intervening years, especially so that he could have a place to escape to on the weekends during the dig seasons at Megiddo.
Sadly, at the moment we are also lacking any personal letters or journals from Lamon, Shipton, Engberg, and May dating to this period, so we have no way to separately ascertain how the move and the other changes impacted the rest of the staff members. Apart from the supposed jubilation on the part of the rest of the staff that Breasted wrote about in his earlier cable, the only relevant item that we have is a letter that May wrote to his friend William Graham at the Oriental Institute, in which May said: “Dr. Breasted has arrived and gone. A new program has been arranged for Megiddo, and it has in it possibilities of richer finds and more efficient digging.”60
In the cable that he sent to his son Charles in late April, Breasted also said that he had discharged Wilensky, but did not elaborate. In fact, he had not done so personally, as it turned out, but instead had left a letter for Guy to deliver to Wilensky, thereby putting it in writing. Dated 28 April 1933, it began: “Dear Mr. Wilensky—I regret to inform you that the Oriental Institute will be unable to continue your appointment beyond September first, 1933. Your last salary check therefore will be for the month of August, 1933.”61
Wilensky promptly replied, sending his letter to Guy as the official representative of the Oriental Institute. He was “not prepared to accept the termination of my employment before its lawful expiry,” he said, “unless the Oriental Institute is prepared to offer me adequate compensation in respect of the loss that I am only too likely to sustain.” After acknowledging that he had received Wilensky’s response, Guy forwarded everything to Breasted, who immediately replied in turn, reminding Guy that Wilensky was dismissed for cause, and that the facts could be proven if need be.62
By this time, they had a new addition to their staff, a volunteer named Arthur Piepkorn, who had previously sent a letter asking whether he could join them in May and stay until the spring season ended. Piepkorn was twenty-six years old at the time, had a PhD from Chicago with a specialty in Babylonian archaeology, was the American School of Oriental Research (ASOR) annual fellow in Baghdad, and had been digging at Tepe Gawra and Tell Billah in Iraq. He said that their season in Iraq was ending in April and so he would be free after that. Since Piepkorn was also a known quantity to Breasted, on account of his having done his PhD at Chicago, both he and Guy were amenable to this arrangement, and so Piepkorn had arrived at Megiddo in early May.63
Guy had also, since Breasted had given him permission to look for two new surveyors, just hired Ernest Forrest (E. F.) Beaumont as a partial replacement for Wilensky.64 Beaumont was older than most of the other Megiddo staff members. Born in 1871, he had come to Ottoman Palestine in 1896 as part of a group of Americans bent on joining the American Colony religious venture in Jerusalem, to which Lind also belonged.
According to Jack Green, former chief curator of the Oriental Institute Museum, Beaumont was originally the dentist for the American Colony but over the years had also taught himself to be “an artist, draftsman, surveyor, city engineer, and archaeologist”; he had served as a draftsman during the excavations at Beth Shemesh from 1909 to 1911. Some of his artwork, from sketches to lithographs to photographs, was offered for sale by the American Colony from time to time, and there are now twenty-two such pieces at the Oriental Institute, dating to the 1920s and 1930s, which were donated in 2014 by Beaumont’s granddaughter.65
Like Lind, Beaumont left the American Colony after disagreements with the leaders. According to Green, Beaumont then set up a lodging house in Jerusalem where a number of well-known archaeologists stayed, including Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie. He also began working again for archaeological expeditions, including at Beth Shean in 1931 and now at Megiddo, where he worked on and off from 1933 to 1935. He left British Mandate Palestine in 1938, after a final season working in Transjordan for Nelson Glueck and ASOR, and returned to the United States, where he settled in San Diego.66
In early June, just a few days after he had been told by Guy that Breasted was remaining firm in his decision to terminate him, Wilensky physically threatened Herbert May. We have a firsthand account of what happened, courtesy of the new arrival, Arthur Piepkorn, who was present when the incident took place. Guy was working in his office at the time, but his secondhand summation also adds another twist to the episode.67
May and Piepkorn had gone up to the top of the tell toward the middle of the afternoon, in order to verify the findspot for one of the figurines that May was studying. Unable to determine the answer simply by looking at the proper spot, they asked one of the workmen to dig a little bit in one specific area for them. Wilensky suddenly appeared and demanded to know what they were doing—which he had every right to do, since he was in charge of overseeing the area and the workmen. May and Piepkorn explained why they were there, and asked Wilensky to what stratum the wall that they were interested in belonged. He replied sharply, “That will all come out in due time.” When pressed again for an answer, he retorted, “Go and ask Mr. Guy,” and then walked away.
After watching them for a while, during which time May and Piepkorn enlisted another workman to help them as well, Wilensky left the tell without speaking. All told, according to Piepkorn, they were on the tell for a total of only about fifteen minutes. Later, while on his way to tea, Piepkorn passed by Wilensky and May standing near the dig house. He overheard Wilensky tell May, “If you ever act that way again, I’ll smash your d*** face!” According to Guy’s secondhand account, however, May had first told Wilensky that “he had behaved like a damn fool,” at which point Wilensky told May that “if he spoke to him like that [again], he would smash his face.” Whichever version one chooses to believe, it is clear that Wilensky had physically threatened May. As a result, he was dismissed immediately, rather than at the end of the season.
Two thoughts immediately come to mind. First, Wilensky was undoubtedly already in an extremely bad mood because of the news from Breasted that Guy had given him just a few days earlier. He also knew that a new surveyor—Beaumont—had just been hired and was destined to be one of the two men who replaced him, so he can perhaps be forgiven, or at least granted a little leeway for his actions. Second, such personal incidents between staff or team members are by no means uncommon on archaeological excavations, both in this region and elsewhere, and both then and now. Tempers flare and voices are raised because of stress, the heat, working and living in close quarters for weeks or months at a time, and a myriad of other reasons. However, people usually get over it, albeit sometimes after sulking or stewing for a while.
So was this really sufficient cause to fire Wilensky on the spot? Or was this simply the final straw, on top of everything else? As it turned out, in later statements made under oath, the main complaint against Wilensky actually was much more minor—that he was usually late to work. It was estimated by May, whose office window overlooked the driveway, that Wilensky generally worked at least seven hours less per week than any of the other staff members.
It is likely that there was already bad blood between Wilensky and May, for there would have been no reason otherwise for May to keep a tally of Wilensky’s arrival times. However, one could also argue that this is the sort of situation that is found in workplaces the world over and possibly since time immemorial: if the bosses want to fire someone, they will do so, citing a specific action or actions as objectionable; if they don’t want to fire that person, they will overlook the very same action. In Wilensky’s case, it seems that they were no longer willing to overlook his transgressions.
However, a later letter from Breasted does specify some of the other reasons that they had let Wilensky go for cause. Besides being habitually late, they said, he was also incompetent, having “little or no knowledge of pottery.” He had also told the head of the Egyptian workmen, the reis, that he was second in command of the expedition. Since they were Muslim and Wilensky was Jewish, this caused serious trouble, not to mention that the other staff members were “also highly indignant and demoralized by it.” In fact, Breasted said, when he came for his April visit, he had found the expedition “completely demoralized by this situation,” and he had told Guy that the expedition would fall apart unless Wilensky was let go.68 As Mark Twain reportedly once said, history might not repeat itself, but it does rhyme, and this sounds very much like the situation between Fisher and Higgins all over again, almost a decade later.
Wilensky retaliated, threatening to sue for full salary and damages if he were not reinstated in his position by the end of August. After a flurry of letters and cables, as well as an appeal to the high commissioner in British Mandate Palestine, Breasted and the university’s legal department arranged for a local Jerusalem attorney, Sidney Richardson, to represent them.69 Both sides were now set.
During their summer break, Guy hired another new surveyor, named Thomas Concannon, so that he now had two people to replace Wilensky: Beaumont and Concannon. Concannon was known as a “PWD architect” and was working at the time under a respected architect named Harrison as a member of the Public Works Department (hence “PWD”) in Jerusalem. Later in life Concannon went on to become an esteemed architect in his own right, eventually settling in Jamaica and restoring historic houses. For now, though, Guy hired him at the bargain rate of fifteen pounds per month for the upcoming fall 1933 and spring 1934 seasons, a position in which he served admirably.70
Guy returned to the area at the end of September, finding Engberg and his wife, Irene, newly arrived in Haifa. He reopened the dig house on 1 October, and the rest of the team turned up shortly thereafter, including Lind and his new bride, who had just gotten married a month earlier. The Egyptian workmen made their appearance soon afterward, and they all set to work again, on 7 October, “with a gang of 213.”71
Since it was also growing colder, they installed a new stove in the common room and finished furnishing it, in accordance with Breasted’s orders. They now actually had two common rooms; Guy said the upstairs one tended to be used for the morning break and after lunch, while the downstairs one—with the new stove—was used for afternoon tea and in the evenings. He had turned his old sitting room into the expedition library as well, he remarked with some apparent satisfaction.72
We should also mention that discussions were ongoing throughout the fall concerning a division of the antiquities that had been found since 1928 or 1929, including where the skeletal material that was assigned to the Oriental Institute should be sent. Breasted had been harping on this for some time, writing in late August 1933: “I need hardly remind you that the Palestine and Megiddo alcove in the exhibition galleries here at the headquarters are the least interesting and least impressive of the Institute’s entire display. Yet the Megiddo Expedition has been running since the summer of 1925!”73 The division was eventually scheduled to take place after the beginning of the new year.74
Meanwhile, the legal proceedings with Wilensky also dragged on through the entire fall, with May eventually presenting a letter against Wilensky to Richardson, their attorney, in early December. In it, he made no mention of the incident that had taken place back in early June, when Wilensky threatened him, but instead listed the various deficiencies that he and the other staff members saw in Wilensky. These included “a lack of interest and ability utterly inconsistent with his position and salary”; “unnecessary absences and late arrivals”; “insufficient educational preparation”; “inability to report adequately on work which he undertook”; as well as “unintelligible” writing and a “lack of knowledge of the historical and cultural background of the excavations.” He also “knew nothing about the chronological classification of archaeological materials of Palestine.” In other words, he was insufficiently prepared, in the eyes of the other staff members, despite his “extreme arrogance and assumption of superiority,” and was a liability rather than an asset. Even Guy had acknowledged Wilensky’s “relative lack of ability as a surveyor” and confessed that he wasn’t sure what he’d be able to find for Wilensky to do during the winter months, according to May.75
In all, it was a very damning letter that May wrote. Soon thereafter, when Breasted heard, to his astonishment, that Guy had tried to weasel out of the situation by informing the lawyers that “he would not be prepared to go so far as to state that he found Wilensky actually inefficient in the performance of his duty,” he asked Lamon and Engberg to also send letters to the attorneys, which they did.76 The case continued into the opening months of 1934, which is where we will pick it up again below and finally bring it to a close.
While all of this was going on during the fall, tensions between Arabs and Jews in British Mandate Palestine also rose once again and reached a crescendo beginning on Friday, 27 October. Olof Lind wrote to Charles Breasted, reporting that “there has been a bit of a shootup” in Jaffa, with several British policemen and more than twenty Arab protesters killed. There had been a general Arab strike declared that day, with shops closed throughout the country and demonstrations in Jaffa, Haifa, Nablus, and Jerusalem. As Lind noted, the demonstrators were protesting against the admission of thousands more Jews into British Mandate Palestine. Much of the country was sympathetic to the protesters and there was unrest everywhere, especially in the major cities. He himself was in Jerusalem, Lind said, and had been advised to stay there for the time being, although he hoped to leave for Megiddo the following morning if the police allowed.77
Guy sent a cable back to Chicago two days later, saying that everything was quiet at Megiddo and work was proceeding. He followed it up with a longer discussion during his scheduled monthly report in the first week of November.78 In addition to the problems in Jaffa on the twenty-seventh, there had also been trouble in Haifa that same evening, which continued the next day. A mob tried to rush the police station to seize the rifles that were stored in the armory, according to Guy, and so the police had fired upon them. Two Arabs were killed and more than forty wounded, while a number of policemen were stabbed or otherwise injured. A few cars were also set on fire, though not his, and stone barricades had been built across some of the streets. The troubles in their region were mostly confined to Haifa, though, and did not spread to the adjacent towns or villages, said Guy.
At Megiddo, everything remained peaceful, which was fortunate because the staff members had dispersed for the weekend beginning on the afternoon of the twenty-sixth. Guy was in Haifa for his daughter’s twenty-first birthday; May, Lind, and Shipton had all gone to Jerusalem; and the Lamons were visiting Jerash. They all returned safely, mostly on the twenty-seventh, though Lind and May remained in Jerusalem until the thirtieth. The next day, Guy gave the workmen a half holiday to thank them for continuing to come to work and not taking part in the general strike. He said that when they had finished their work at the end of that morning, “they formed a procession on the dig and marched off to their houses with a white flag in front, and singing songs saying they only wanted peace and quietness.” By the time that he was writing, a little more than a week after the disturbances, Guy said that “the country, so far as I can gather, now appears to be normal, but I am not certain in my own mind that the episode should be described as closed; there may be more of it.”79 Indeed there would be more, namely, the Arab Revolt of 1936–39.
It is interesting to note that there was something else different about the staff members that fall. With Olof Lind’s wedding in early September, for the first time ever, with the exception of Parker and Shipton who were still confirmed bachelors, every one of the core staff was now married and each had his spouse with him—Guy, Lind, May, Engberg, and Lamon. Moreover, Herbert and Helen May had, for the first time in Megiddo history, added to their family and had a baby girl while at Megiddo, instead of returning to the United States or Canada to give birth, as the DeLoaches and the Stapleses had done previously. Gola Joyce Kina May was born in Jerusalem during July, with “Kina” as a nod to the biblical brook in the Jezreel Valley near Megiddo.80
Even Charles Breasted had recently gotten married,81 and it may be that this event drew his attention to the fact that they were now providing room and board for a number of people—that is, the spouses—who were seemingly not directly contributing to the activities of the dig. Clearly their mere presence was more an asset than a liability, providing a social atmosphere at tea and mealtimes, and leavening the working environment, but it was also costing the expedition quite a bit. As a result, in late September, Charles drafted—but to his credit never sent—a memo stating that, forthwith, all spouses residing at the dig house would be charged a daily rate for food and lodging.82
One possible reason why he did not send it, aside from common sense telling him that he would have had a riot on his hands, not to mention a resignation en masse, is that he began hearing rumors that the women were volunteering to help (as no doubt they had done before) and that Guy had finally reversed course and accepted their offer. As a result, for instance, Engberg wrote in late October: “My wife has been highly pleased with Megiddo, not a little of which pleasure as well as interest is due to a new directorial attitude which allows women to work on excavation registration and publication if they prove themselves capable. The ladies have taken avidly to their work, and now I am surprised that I didn’t understand until this autumn why a woman wouldn’t care to do nothing in her room all day long.”83
By early December, Guy wrote in his monthly report to Breasted: “You will be interested and, I think, pleased to know that I have lately been having some additional and useful assistance. Mrs. Lamon and Mrs. Engberg volunteered on the work of the expedition, and have been hard at it for some weeks. Mrs. Engberg has chiefly been helping May with his cult objects, and Mrs. Lamon has been at registration as well as assisting with the O.I.P. The arrangement works well, and I am glad about it. Mrs. Lind is also prepared to do something, but she has so far been rather busy with personal matters in connexion with a house they have in Jerusalem, where she spends part of her time.”84 There is no mention, or hint of irony, regarding the fact that Guy had been previously—and adamantly—opposed to having any of the women helping, though it is not difficult to recall his snide reaction back in July 1931 when, before her arrival, Breasted had suggested that Mrs. May—a skilled artist who had taught drawing—could help with the illustrations.85
So far, the first two of these three interconnected seasons, stretching from 1932 to 1934, had been extremely busy, chaotic, and rather tempestuous, we could say, but it was the third one that was to be even more important. It marked a turning point for the Chicago expedition in a number of ways, from a change in the method of excavation to a change of field director (once again). It also determined the authorship of the various final volumes that would eventually be produced by members of the team.
We therefore pick up again with the Wilensky situation, from where we left off in early December 1933. May, Lamon, and Engberg had just sent their statements to the lawyers, while Breasted was angry at Guy for seeming to equivocate in front of those same lawyers. However, it now became clear—in early January 1934—that not all was as it had seemed.
For one thing, we now learn for certain that Breasted had not actually told Wilensky to his face that he was fired during his visit to the site the previous April. Contrary to what he had implied in his cable back to Chicago, Breasted had rejected Guy’s suggestion that he speak with Wilensky directly, and had instead simply left the termination letter to be delivered after his departure. Moreover, it became clear that there had not been any prior warnings issued to Wilensky about his behavior, nor were any causes for his termination specified in the letter of dismissal that Breasted had left for him. In other words, although the firing might have been entirely justified, those involved had not gone about it properly.86
The subsequent incident between Wilensky and May on the mound was left unaddressed in all of the written documents for some reason, though May told Breasted in mid-January that he and either Lamon or Engberg had met with the lawyers, so it is possible that they related the story in person. The only item of substance that May reported back to Breasted at the time was that “the situation is made extremely difficult through Mr. Guy’s insistent refusal to acknowledge Wilensky’s patent deficiencies.”87
Guy subsequently defended himself to Breasted. To be honest, his statements make a certain degree of sense. He said, for instance, that Wilensky was “an efficient excavator,” whose architectural knowledge enabled him to “disentangle one building from another.”88 This is an extremely useful trait and is one of the reasons why so many of the earliest archaeologists, like Fisher, had been originally trained as architects.
Guy also pointed out that of course Wilensky didn’t know Palestinian pottery, since he had been working in Iraq, and that none of the others had knowledge of any types of Near Eastern pottery either before they had joined the staff, which was certainly true. As for often being late, Guy noted that Wilensky was commuting daily from Haifa and upon occasion had to get his car serviced and, even more often, had to tend to his wife, who was still slowly recovering from her near-fatal accident at the Carmel Caves.89
Moreover, Guy reminded Breasted, he had told him back in April that Wilensky could not legally be dismissed, and had strongly suggested that Breasted should talk to Wilensky personally about the situation. “You took a contrary view in regard to his dismissal, and you declined to see him,” Guy wrote. “Yet I understand from Richardson that it is in these very points that the strength of Wilensky’s case lies.”90
All of this certainly sounds quite reasonable, but we should also remember that Guy and Wilensky were in similar situations at this point, especially in relation to the other members of the team. Apart from Shipton, they were the only staff members currently present who had not been sent from Chicago. Furthermore, both were Zionists and, for what it’s worth, both were living in, and commuting from, Haifa at this point. While they might not have been kindred spirits or soul brothers, it is not too surprising that Guy would defend Wilensky, especially since he had petitioned Breasted to allow him to rehire Wilensky back in 1932.
However, Guy made two grievous errors in his letter to Breasted, the second of which would come back to haunt him several months later. First, he said that Wilensky was “able to handle men,” which was patently untrue. Second, he said that he had told Breasted at the time of his visit the previous April that it would be impossible to continue having all three—May, Engberg, and Wilensky—on staff simultaneously, and that he had specifically asked Breasted “to remove the two former and to let me keep the latter.”91 To this astonishing statement, Breasted replied in no uncertain terms: “I have careful notes of our conversation and your memory is decidedly wrong.… For the sake of your own judgment I am very glad that you never said any such thing to me, for anybody who would trade May and Engberg in exchange for Wilensky would be demonstrating his complete lack of judgment.”92
Unfortunately, we are undoubtedly missing some crucial relevant documents at this point, for the next thing we know, Breasted ordered Guy to settle up with Wilensky and close out the matter without further protest. His cable was direct and concise:93
FROM INSTITUTE FUNDS PAY IMMEDIATELY TO RICHARDSON AND TURTLEDOVE FIVE HUNDRED TWENTYFIVE POUNDS PALESTINIAN FOR WILENSKY SETTLEMENT CABLE ME WHEN INSTRUCTIONS EXECUTED
We have no idea what happened. Why was Breasted settling without further argument? Had there been a ruling in favor of Wilensky? Did the University of Chicago lawyers, or the lawyers in British Mandate Palestine, advise Breasted to settle before the case went to trial? There must be documents somewhere, but they are not in the files and folders where one would expect them to be in the archives of the Oriental Institute, nor are there any in the Mandate files within the archives of the Israel Antiquities Authority. Undoubtedly, they will show up somewhere one day, but in the meantime, it is enough to note that this settlement brought an end to the legal problems with Wilensky.
So how much was it worth? At the time, the Palestinian pound was tied to the British pound sterling on a 1:1 basis.94 Accounting for inflation from 1934 until today, 525 British pounds back then would be worth almost £36,000 today.95 And, given today’s exchange rates, that would be worth close to $50,000. In other words, it was quite a substantial sum of money that Breasted paid to make Wilensky and this case go away.
In the meantime, however, Wilensky had apparently also begun working as an intelligence officer for the Haganah and the Jewish Agency from at least 1933, “gathering information about Britons, Jews and Arabs.”96 We do not know whether he was already working in such a capacity while engaged at Megiddo from 1932 on, or if he began spying only after leaving the dig in June 1933. No mention of such activities, or suspicions thereof, is ever made in the letters sent back and forth between Guy and Breasted, although, as we have seen, all sorts of other things about Wilensky were discussed.
Moreover, by 1936, Wilensky was reportedly one of three men who founded the Arab Department of the Haganah. According to some sources, he also served as the head of paramilitary intelligence for the Haganah in Haifa and on at least one occasion compared intelligence work to archaeology: “Archeology, in general, has served, and is serving, as an excellent preparation for intelligence work, because at the core it is similar to such work. In both archeology and intelligence, the researcher has to acquire an image of a distant reality, by piecing together patiently and slowly bits of information and hints, classifying and sifting them, and trying to bring them into an orderly system.”97
Wilensky, as it happens, was not the only Megiddo staff member to go into intelligence work immediately after leaving the expedition, but we shall revisit that topic below, in one of the final chapters here. For now, it is enough to know that with the settlement payment, the Wilensky situation came to an end. Wilensky does not seem to have worked in archaeology ever again and instead returned to his career as an architect. He published at least one article that we know of, on residential buildings in Haifa in 1946, and lived for another thirty-five years beyond that, eventually passing away in 1981 when he was seventy-eight years old.98
While all of the above was taking place, the usual January through March activities were also continuing. Breasted persisted in making Guy’s life miserable by sending letters in which he repeatedly ranted about the lack of progress in both publications and digging. Guy continued to defend himself. The others carried on as usual, trying to survive the situation as best they could.99
In fact, Breasted did what he could for all of them, at least in terms of salary. During 1933 and into early 1934, President Franklin Roosevelt had instituted a number of drastic economic measures as part of the New Deal, designed to pull the United States out of the Great Depression. These culminated in the Gold Reserve Act, enacted in January 1934, which overnight increased the price of gold from just under $21 per troy ounce to $35 per troy ounce.100 Although these machinations did eventually have the desired effect and set the United States on the road to recovery, the depreciation of the dollar that went along with it dramatically affected the salaries of all those working at Megiddo (not to mention those back home at the Oriental Institute). Breasted wrote a note to each of them, giving them a substantial salary “supplement,” as he called it, in addition to their annual increase, in order to make up for their loss in purchasing power. All of them were extremely grateful, including Guy. Lamon, in particular, wrote to thank Breasted.101
However, of them all, May was probably the happiest, and not just because of the salary boost. In early January he sent Breasted a long book manuscript on the religious objects and related finds from Megiddo. He said that Albright had already taken a look at it and approved of it.102 Breasted was extremely pleased to receive this and delighted in informing Guy that it would appear before the tombs volume, since Guy was still working on that. Indeed, since May sent it in as a complete manuscript, it went through the editorial process quickly and appeared in 1935, three years before Guy’s book, as mentioned.
Beyond this, however, May was also offered a job at the Oberlin Graduate School of Theology, back in Ohio, as an assistant professor of Old Testament languages and literature. He wrote to Breasted in late February, telling him of his new position and giving advance notice that he would be leaving. Since his new position called for him to begin teaching at Oberlin in the fall, he and his wife, plus their new daughter, Gola Joyce Kina, would be departing from the expedition at the end of the spring season, in mid-June.103
Never one to waste time, Breasted immediately set plans in motion to replace May. By mid-March he had awarded a one-year postdoctoral traveling fellowship to Dr. William A. Irwin, who was a junior professor teaching Hebrew at the Oriental Institute.104 The fellowship would begin almost immediately, with Irwin leaving for Megiddo just two weeks later, in early April, so that he could learn from May for several months before having to take his place entirely. Breasted cabled Guy to alert him to the impending change, writing:105
PROFESSOR IRWIN OF INSTITUTE HEBREW STAFF WILL SERVE TEMPORARILY AS MAYS SUCCESSOR ARRIVING HAIFA APRIL TWENTYSECOND STEAMSHIP EXOCHORDA BREASTED
At the same time, Breasted also sent a notice to Engberg, alerting him that he had been awarded a research assistantship at the Oriental Institute for the coming year (1934–35). This would technically begin 1 July, but they wouldn’t need him in Chicago until 1 October.106 Eventually, because of all these personnel changes, Breasted also promoted Shipton to acting recorder for the expedition, based upon Guy’s recommendation.107
Breasted, who seems to have been quite busy during this period, sent off a long letter to Guy, assuring him that Irwin not only was Canadian, rather than American, but was “a man of unusually pleasing and attractive personality—courteous, considerate, and easy to get along with.”108 Alert readers will notice that, yet again, Breasted was sending someone out from Chicago without having first consulted Guy.
At the same time, Breasted also informed Guy that Engberg had been awarded a fellowship for the coming year, which meant that both Engberg and May would be leaving the expedition, with Irwin staying on until December. There would be nobody replacing Engberg, Breasted said, which probably came as a relief to Guy; having two new people foisted upon him at the same time from Chicago might have been too much. Finally, Breasted also wrote to May, congratulating him on his new position, informing him of the imminent arrival of Irwin, and expressing the hope that May would be able to train Irwin sufficiently prior to departing.109
Needless to say, everyone was happy. Even Guy was probably reasonably content at the prospect of both May’s and Engberg’s departures. We need only recall, as mentioned a moment ago, that he had been willing to trade both of them for Wilensky at a point in the very recent past.
On the other hand, the animosity between Guy and May seems to have reached a new low by this point, although very little was actually put in writing by either of them. The closest that we get is a statement by May to Breasted in his letter of late February when, in telling him of the job offer at Oberlin, he also asked about housing for the upcoming months, after the rent expired on the house in Jerusalem where his wife and young daughter had been staying. He asked whether they might move into the dig house for that short period of time, but said, “I have not inquired of Mr. Guy, knowing that it would be rejected in view of his attitude towards me.”110 (For what it’s worth, Breasted promptly also vetoed the plan.)
During this same period, the long-awaited division of antiquities was finally made in late January. It had been several years since the last division took place, so there was a fair amount of material to consider, coming from the excavations of 1930–32, inclusive. These included the tombs on the East Slope, the surface soil of the mound, Schumacher’s dump heaps, and the “early stages” pottery sequence that had been worked up by Engberg and Shipton. Breasted had told Guy that he wanted some material that they could use for study purposes and other material that they could exhibit at the Oriental Institute. He was especially interested in putting together an exhibit that would illustrate the development of pottery forms over time, but since he was aware that there wasn’t all that much room available in the display cases at the Oriental Institute, he asked specifically for “only one example of each important type.” He also noted that they wouldn’t be able to display more than one tomb group (i.e., one tomb with all of its grave goods), so “it should be the best and if possible one left complete and not mutilated by the division.”111
The representative of the Antiquities Department was John Henry “Harry” Iliffe, a British archaeologist who had previously served as a curator at the Royal Ontario Museum of Archaeology in Toronto until his appointment in 1931 as the very first curator (keeper) of the soon-to-be-built Palestine Archaeological Museum in Jerusalem. He held that appointment until 1948, at which time he moved to England and served as the director of museums in Liverpool until 1959, a year before his death.112 This was his first time presiding over the division at Megiddo, but he would do so from then on, always aware that the share he was selecting for the government would be going into “his” museum, when it eventually opened in 1938.
In the division, Guy was able to procure much of what Breasted had requested, though Iliffe took the lion’s share of the scarabs that had been found, and many of the bronze items. In addition, all of the skeletal material that had been promised to the OI, which seems to have been from about half of the tombs, was also duly handed over, and Guy prepared this for shipment first. It was sent to New York in early April and from there was forwarded on to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, to be studied by Aleš Hrdlička, one of the leading specialists of the day.113
Hrdlička eventually published the skeletal material in Guy’s Megiddo Tombs volume, as a single page of text, plus one table and sixteen pages of photographs (all of skulls, except for one figure with seven mandibles).114 He determined that the material, which he complained was very fragmentary and “inadequate for any extensive anthropological study or deductions,” was from sixty-eight different individuals. However, he evaluated only their “racial” types, including “Alpine,” “Mediterranean,” and “negroid,” which seems to have been done at the request of Breasted, who specifically asked him for “an intimation of the racial connections or physical characters of the skulls and skeletons which we have deposited at the Smithsonian Institution.”115 The skeletal material is still at the Smithsonian, awaiting a more detailed analysis more than eighty years later; it is not nearly so fragmentary as Hrdlička made it out to be.116
The rest of the material from the antiquities division, some three cases’ worth—which included a collection of sherds illustrating Engberg and Shipton’s seven “stages” of pottery development and the best artifacts from a number of tombs—was packed up and sent two months after the skeletal material, on the SS Exochorda, which sailed from Haifa on 17 June.117 In an odd coincidence, May and his family were scheduled to be passengers on the same ship, departing for his new job at Oberlin.
Speaking of departing, what is now known as the “May affair” took place on the day that May and his family were scheduled to leave from Haifa, on 17 June. It began simply enough but quickly took a turn for the worse. The best way to begin explaining what happened is to simply quote in full the cable that Guy sent to Breasted nearly a month later:118
ON LEAVING PALESTINE MAY WAS PROVED GUILTY OF AND FINED TEN POUNDS FOR SIGNING FALSE DECLARATION WHICH HE ASKED ME TO COUNTERSIGN IN CONNEXION WITH ANTIQUITIES WHICH HE ATTEMPTED TO EXPORT WITHOUT LICENSE STOP LETTER FOLLOWS GUY
Two days after sending the cable, Guy sent Breasted two letters. One was a long report on the season, which he ended by once again suggesting that they should refrain from digging during the coming fall and instead concentrate on their publications.119 The other letter was marked “Confidential.” This missive, which apparently provided further details on the incident involving May, was later said by Charles Breasted to be “the most sordid document ever to reach this office.”120
Unfortunately, we cannot quote from the “sordid” document itself. In the spot where it should be in the archives of the Oriental Institute, within the folders full of materials relating to Breasted, Guy, and the year 1934, there is now a single pink sheet of paper on which is typed, “Letter from Guy dated July 13, 1934, has been retained by CB for his personal files.”121 Those “personal files” seem to have gone astray, for they cannot now be located, but when the letter comes to light in the future, as it undoubtedly will, it will be interesting to see what it specifically says.
In the meantime, here is what seems to have transpired, as near as we can reconstruct the events, using a combination of other materials from the archives of both the Oriental Institute and the Israel Antiquities Authority. We have no fewer than five points of view, in the form of letters and/or memos from various people: (1) Guy (now missing); (2) Irwin; (3) R. W. Hamilton (acting director of antiquities); (4) an anonymous member of the Department of Antiquities; and (5) K. W. Stead (director of the Department of Customs, Haifa).
May and his family showed up at the dock in Haifa on Sunday evening, 17 June, ready to board the SS Exochorda in time for a midnight departure and their journey back to the United States. Engberg was there to see them off, as were Irwin and Parker, and possibly others who are not mentioned in any of the relevant correspondence. However, Guy did not bother to attend.
While going through customs, May signed a declaration stating that he had no antiquities in his luggage. However, when the customs authorities opened his bags, they “found a number of pot-sherds which were antiquities,” according to a memo that was filed two days later. Taking a “serious view of the matter,” the authorities promptly detained May and refused to let him board the ship until they could investigate further.122
According to Irwin, who was an eyewitness for much of the episode, having shown up shortly after the incident began, the custom officers’ suspicions “were raised by the size and weight of May’s boxes and by the fact that they came in from Megiddo along with the cases of antiquities that were being shipped”—remember that this was the same ship that was to carry the three boxes of antiquities from the division made back in January, which were finally making their way to Chicago.123
May promptly called Guy, who was at his home in Haifa, alerting him to the problem, and “stated positively that he had no antiquities.” Clearly May did not consider the items in his luggage to be technically classified as “antiquities,” as he understood them. However, that wasn’t how it appeared to the customs officials, for, according to Irwin, the material that was discovered during the search included “a number of potsherds, a few stones and flints, a couple of Roman lamps to which he was fully entitled having bought them in Jerusalem—and perhaps something more.” It was all “quite worthless stuff,” as Irwin reported to Breasted, but the customs officials wanted confirmation of that fact.124
According to a member of the Department of Antiquities, who filed a detailed memo with an illegible signature two days later, Guy called him at 9:30 p.m., immediately after having spoken with May. Guy asked to be put in touch with Richmond, the director of antiquities, only to be told that Richmond was in Syria. Guy then asked for Hamilton, the acting director, and was told that Hamilton had no telephone, that he might not even be home at that hour, and that there was no way to get a message to him.125 In fact, the department simply wanted Guy to tell the director of customs that the sherds were not important, and to “take responsibility on behalf of the expedition.” However, as the memo notes, “Mr. Guy did not seem to wish to take this responsibility.”126
In the meantime, May was also busy making phone calls, as was Engberg as well, on May’s behalf. Both of them were able to reach Hamilton, either directly or indirectly, according to a memo that Hamilton filed two days later. He said that May had left him a message, reporting that he was being prevented from catching his boat because of “a few discarded sherds collected from the dumps of Megiddo which he was taking with him for study.” When Engberg eventually spoke to Hamilton, he confirmed that the sherds were discards and that they were of no value. Moreover, Engberg said, that fact could be verified by Mr. Iliffe, the representative of the Antiquities Department, who had seen the sherds while at Megiddo for the division of antiquities back in late January.127
Hamilton said that he was also contacted that evening by Mr. Habash, one of the customs officials, and had, at his request, spoken with K. W. Stead, who was director of the Department of Customs, Excise & Trade in Haifa. Stead informed Hamilton of the following facts, as he understood them:
- Mr. May, on being asked whether he had anything to declare, had signed a statement that his luggage contained “nothing dutiable.”
- When Mr. May’s luggage was opened, however, “a considerable quantity of pottery and other minor objects” was discovered.
- Mr. May then “admitted that these were antiquities and contraband.”
Stead took a serious view of May’s perceived offense, despite being told that the items were of no value.128 Nevertheless, he agreed that May could board the boat at its next stop, in Beirut, after the “antiquities” had been taken from him, and that the customs office should deal with the incident and decide upon any penalties, so that May did not have to appear in court.
As a result, May was able to catch up with the ship in Beirut, and he and his family made their way to Boston, arriving on 9 July,129 and thence to Oberlin without further incident. He eventually paid a fine of ten pounds as a penalty for attempting “to export antiquities without a licence.” While ten pounds does not sound particularly exorbitant, it is the equivalent of £680 today, which comes to just over $900 in today’s currency.
That next morning, Hamilton said, Guy finally reached him by phone. Guy said that May had actually called him before his luggage had been opened, asking him to send a written statement to the customs officials to the effect that there were no antiquities in May’s bags. He said that he had declined to do so, but had offered to say that he had been assured by May that he had no antiquities—in other words, he had not backed up May or offered much help at all. Hamilton concluded his memo by stating that “amongst the objects that Mr. May was exporting were some that were by no means without value, including an alabaster pot, and some bits of bronze.”130
About two weeks later, as part of the ongoing investigation, Richmond, the director of antiquities, who had been away in Syria at the time of the incident, asked Stead to provide him with a full report, including what had been done with the antiquities that they had seized from May. Stead sent him a copy of the “Seizure Note” (which we do not now have) and included a brief cover letter that read in part, “The case was a bad one in as much as the accused having been working as an antiquarian in Palestine for several years, was well aware that he had to declare the antiquities, that he should have obtained a permit for their exportation, and that in any case he had removed [them] from Megiddo without permission of the Manager of the Megiddo Expedition.” He also added, “I felt that in all the circumstances a fine of ten pounds would be sufficient in addition to the confiscation of the antiquities.” As for the items themselves, he said, without any apparent trace of irony: “I have issued instructions for the antiquities to be forwarded to your Department at Jerusalem. They are not of any particular value, but this does not affect the offence.”131
In early September, long after all the fuss had died down, the incriminating objects were forwarded by the Customs Office to the Antiquities Department, in a small box. The attached letter listed the contents:132
List of Antiquities.
93 pieces potsheds [sic] fragments.
95 Flint Flakes.
2 Pieces Basalt Rings.
5 Lamps.
6 Stone Implements.
3 Jars.
1 Decorated Stone.
In other words, Engberg and May were essentially correct; for the most part, the objects had little value. It was what we would today call a “study collection,” which is used to teach students in the classroom what actual artifacts look like, and is especially important if they haven’t participated in an excavation yet. The potsherds and flint flakes were undoubtedly from the discard piles at the dig house, along with a few items (e.g., the Roman lamps and the jars) that May had apparently purchased legally in Jerusalem (according to Irwin). While May certainly should have declared exactly that on the customs form, it also goes without saying that if Guy had simply said as much to the customs officials that evening, this entire incident could have been avoided.
This was certainly the opinion that Irwin held, when he wrote to Breasted immediately afterward, saying, “Possibly we should admit that May’s conduct here was in some way deficient; doubtless he should have linked up with his denial of possession of antiquities some mention of these things which he regarded as not worth consideration.” As he pointed out, it all hinged on the definition of an “antiquity”; and he felt sure that May did not consider the sherds and bits of flint to be antiquities. In fact, he said that Hamilton had said as much by phone the previous evening, which is why the situation had eased and May was allowed to board the boat in Beirut and then pay a fine, rather than having to appear in court.133
Irwin also said that Guy could have avoided all of this at several points. The first was at the time of the actual incident, when Guy refused to confirm that the items were discards and of little value. The second, which Irwin thought was worse, was the next morning, when the officers were going through May’s boxes again. Irwin says that it transpired as follows:
When the searchers got into May’s second box and began pulling out a series of sherds and other worthless pieces, Mr. Guy was asked to come down from his house and two questions were put to him. “Are these antiquities?” He answered yes. And “are they valuable?” He shrugged his shoulders and said “Who’s to say whether they are or not? I don’t know,” or words to that effect. If he had given the entirely honest answer, which obviously he was fully competent to give, if he had said no, the affair would have ended right there.134
As it was, the Oriental Institute had now been dragged into the mess, for all of the information and copies of the various communications were forwarded to the chief secretary of the Palestine government for his consideration.135 Breasted and the others were essentially helpless and could only hope that the contretemps would not worsen and would not get reported in the local papers (which it did not).
That, however, was not the end of the episode. Far from it, in fact, for Guy compounded the problem by sending a confidential letter of apology on 4 July to Richmond, the director of antiquities, in which he explained his side of the incident and threw not only May but also Engberg under the proverbial bus.136
Sir, Now that you have returned from leave you will have been informed that on 17 June, when about to leave Palestine, Dr. H.G. May made a false declaration, which he asked me to countersign, in regard to the contents of his baggage; that this baggage, when opened by Customs, was found to contain over two hundred antiquities for which he had obtained no licence to export, and that as a consequence he was fined ten pounds by the Director of Customs. I beg to express to you my most sincere regret that a member of this expedition has been guilty of this offence and to assure you that Dr. May took such of the antiquities as came from Megiddo without obtaining my permission or informing me. I beg furthermore to express my regret that when Dr. May and Mr. R.M. Engberg, who was also at the time a member of this expedition, telephoned to the Acting Director of your Department asking him to help Dr. May in the case they stressed the smallness and unimportance of the collection and omitted entirely to mention the false declaration which had just been brought home to Dr. May.
In the letter, Guy also implied that both May and Engberg had been let go by the expedition as a result of this incident, but in fact they were both departing anyway, with May heading for Oberlin and Engberg heading back to Chicago for his fellowship. According to port records for New York City, the Engbergs sailed on the SS Excalibur and arrived back in the United States on 14 July, so they must have left just a few days after May and before Guy sent this letter to Richmond.137
Further sealing his own fate, on 11 July Guy sent Breasted the thirty-six-word cable quoted at the beginning of this discussion of the “May affair,” and on the thirteenth he followed it up by sending the letter that Charles Breasted called the “most sordid document ever to reach this office.” As mentioned, this letter has now gone missing, but it is likely to have read very much like the one that Guy had sent the previous week to the director of antiquities.
In the meantime, having received from Irwin his confidential eyewitness account of the episode, the Breasteds had been in touch with May following his return to the States, including conversations with him in person, presumably when he stopped off in Chicago en route to Oberlin in late July or early August. During these, May apologized profusely, expressing his “deep regret for the Haifa incident, and for any complications it may have caused.”138
He also refuted several rumors that Guy had spread about him and related further episodes that had transpired at Megiddo of which the Breasteds were unaware, including conversations with the Guys when Helen May first found out that she was pregnant. May told Breasted: “After Guy’s own insulting reaction when I told him that we were expecting a family, Mrs. Guy came into the room to see Mrs. May when I was not there. She first stated that Mrs. May should have informed her of her condition before I was told, so that she could have informed Mrs. May of methods of getting rid of the child before I knew anything about it. She also declared that it still was not too late to prevent the birth, and said that I would find it a nuisance and a hindrance, quoting her own experience as evidence.”139
A decision was reached back in Chicago, and even though Breasted had left for vacation by that time, he sent a cable to Guy, directing him to remain in London pending receipt of a forthcoming letter. He also had Charles send a cable to Parker, telling him to remain in Wales until he received a letter of his own that was being sent. He then directed Charles to send a termination letter to Guy, effective immediately. In this letter, dated 28 August 1934, over the course of more than five single-spaced typed pages, they itemized Guy’s transgressions over the years, one by one, beginning with the May affair and his 13 July letter, which they further described as “tardily reporting the May incident with Jesuitical and thinly disguised malevolence,” and which “succeeds not so much in discrediting the objects of your criticism as in revealing your own unworthiness of the responsibilities hitherto entrusted to you.”140
In the remainder of the letter, they worked their way backward through the previous seven years, covering the sins of failing to publish promptly; assigning material to staff members unqualified to do the work; excavating too slowly; ignoring the wishes of the director of the institute; hiring and then defending Wilensky; and proposing to the director of antiquities that Solomon’s Stables be made a national monument, without having previously consulted with the Breasteds about this. They ended with specific instructions for what he was to do in terms of vacating his position as field director, right down to removing any of his belongings that might be in the dig house and turning over the checkbooks and bank statements to Parker, following which the Breasteds intended to have certified public accountants examine all of the books for possible financial irregularities.141
And with that, Guy’s tenure as the field director of the Megiddo expedition ended after seven tumultuous years. However, having learned a valuable lesson from the Wilensky lawsuit of a few months earlier, the Breasteds did not sever ties with Guy completely. They allowed him to finish out his five-year period of employment, which ended one year later, at the end of June 1935, and continued to pay his salary throughout, although it was contingent upon their receiving the remaining parts of his manuscript on the tombs, which was still lacking several crucial pieces.142
We do not have to worry about Guy, however, for he was promptly appointed director of the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem, a position that he filled from 1935 to 1939. After World War II, he operated a stud farm (for horses) near Akko and then, in 1948, was appointed director of excavations and surveys in the newly established Israel Department of Antiquities and Museums. He served in that position until his death in 1952.143
May also survived the episode. He went on to have a long and successful career as a professor at Oberlin and an internationally respected biblical scholar, until he was killed in a car crash in Florida in 1977. Moreover, he apparently got his revenge against Guy, through a pointed academic snub. In the preface to May’s book, The Material Remains of the Megiddo Cult, which is dated almost exactly one year later, 15 June 1935, May thanks by name everyone—absolutely everyone—at Megiddo, in Jerusalem, and even in Chicago for all of their assistance, with the sole exception of Guy, whom he does not once ever mention or thank, despite the fact that he was the field director of the expedition.144
In fact, May does not appear to have been alone in this. A quick perusal of the three other volumes that documented work done during the years when Guy served as field director, written together or separately by Engberg, Shipton, and Lamon, shows that they all thank each other and May, as well as Lind, but not one of them thanks Guy by name either.145
In contrast, the preface to Guy’s volume on the Megiddo tombs, which finally appeared in 1938, thanks virtually everyone by name and contains the most comprehensive list of the team members found in any volume published by the Oriental Institute. One would never have suspected that there was any animosity between any of the team members or even that Guy had parted ways with the expedition four years previously.146 But since we know of this now, and also know the effort expended by Engberg in terms of completing the volume for Guy (on which see more below), we must take the image of a warmly collegial Guy with a grain of salt: it seems highly unlikely that it was he who wrote the final version of the preface to his volume.