CHAPTER XI
“A Rude Awakening”
Having finally fired Guy in late August 1934, the Breasteds were faced with two immediate dilemmas. Who should replace Guy as field director at Megiddo? And what should they do about the upcoming fall season, which was fast approaching? Just as they were getting down to the levels for which Breasted had been waiting, it seemed that a rather large monkey wrench had been thrown into the works.
In the end, they decided it would be best to finally adopt the suggestions that Guy had been repeatedly making, and to devote the fall season to getting their publications ready. The excavation season would be postponed until the spring of 1935. But who would be in charge?
Choosing a new field director turned out to be more difficult than they had thought, though they had already been grappling with this since well before they fired Guy. For reasons that are not completely clear, their attention was first drawn to a little-known archaeologist named Lieutenant Commander Noel F. Wheeler, who is mentioned in internal memos exchanged between the Breasteds in mid-August. In these, they proposed putting Wheeler in charge and then—if he did well—promoting him to “acting Field Director” and eventually to field director. They would offer him six hundred pounds as salary for the first year, have him begin 1 October, and allow him the first six months to get up to speed with everything at the site before starting to excavate in April 1935.1
So who was Wheeler? He was not related, as one might initially assume, to the more famous archaeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler, despite their sharing a surname. In fact, he had dug with both Petrie and Reisner in Egypt during the 1920s and had since been working in Cyprus.2 It is uncertain how, or even whether, the Breasteds knew him personally at the time, but there are letters exchanged between Breasted and Wheeler about six months later, from March through May 1935. These are primarily concerned with a positive review that Wheeler had written for the journal Antiquity of Breasted’s recent volume The Oriental Institute, as well as an article on the pyramids that Wheeler had published in the same issue.3 The letters give no hint that the two men had ever met prior to this correspondence in 1935 or that the Breasteds had been thinking of offering him the directorship at Megiddo six months earlier, so it clearly didn’t come to pass.
Instead, the Breasteds eventually turned to Gordon Loud, their trusted field director at Khorsabad, the Oriental Institute’s site in Iraq. Loud, who appears in photographs from this time as a pleasant and well-dressed man, with hair usually parted in the middle and a mustache, was yet another archaeologist who had originally been trained as an architect. Born in Au Sable, Michigan, in 1900, he was the youngest of four children; his brother Harold, older by five years, was killed in France in late September 1918, during the Meuse-Argonne offensive of World War I.4
Loud’s real first name was apparently Kenneth, but he went by his middle name, Gordon, at all times. He attended the University of Michigan as an undergraduate, graduating in 1922. He then enrolled at Harvard Business School, but after a year transferred into the School of Architecture and received a graduate degree in architecture a few years later, in 1928. Immediately upon graduating from Harvard, he worked as the architect on the University of Michigan’s Fayoum expedition in Egypt and then joined the Oriental Institute’s excavation at Khorsabad in 1929, eventually being appointed field director of the project in 1932.
It is not completely clear at what point the Breasteds spoke with Loud about transferring him from Khorsabad to Megiddo, but it was before he left the United States in the fall of 1934.5 Loud later told Breasted that “rumors” about his impending move had already reached the Near East before he arrived. The rumors were correct, and by February 1935 everything had been set in place; Loud would move from Khorsabad to Megiddo and begin work there as field director for the fall 1935 season.6 He continued in that position through the final season in 1939.
In addition, the Breasteds also turned to Parker, putting everything into his hands except the actual digging. He was now in charge of the bank accounts and all of the finances. He also assumed the role, more than ever, as the manager who kept the day-to-day operations going—maintaining the physical structure of the dig house, keeping the cars running, planning the meals, ordering the supplies, and taking charge of the serving staff—thereby allowing the team members to concentrate on the archaeology and the publications. Up to this point, we could count on one hand the number of letters exchanged with Parker since 1927. Now, it seemed that the two Breasteds were writing to him every week, sometimes multiple times.7
FIG. 37. Gordon Loud ca. 1930 in the courtyard of the expedition house at Khorsabad (courtesy of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago)
As for the archaeological activities, in the interim they decided to put Lamon in charge until Loud could take over.8 At the beginning of September 1934, therefore, Charles Breasted sent Lamon a letter informing him that Guy had been fired, and that they were placing him “in temporary charge of the scientific work of the Expedition.” He was also to serve as the institute’s official representative in any and all matters related to the excavations but would be acting “without title” for the duration.9
However, the Breasteds were clearly not completely happy with this decision, for in the same letter Charles then wrote, “We wish to make absolutely clear that the foregoing assignment of temporary responsibilities means precisely what it says, and is not to be construed as in the slightest degree vesting you with the authority of Field Director. Your position is actually without authority.” Without mincing words, he noted further that Lamon’s time at Megiddo had been fraught with difficulties over the years, “largely due to your own conduct and apparent immaturity.” However, while they had “greatly deplored” some of his past conduct, they had also never lost sight of his “efficient and faithful service” and so had never punished him even when it would have been merited. Therefore, Charles concluded, “The Director considers that you are now in a sense on probation and that the opportunity has presented itself for demonstrating your ability to deal tactfully and efficiently with a situation in which you are not vested with authority.”10
Later in September, Breasted followed up with detailed letters to Lamon, Shipton, and Lind.11 He told Lamon and Shipton that they would be the only “scientific staff” at the dig during the fall. He told Lind that, rather than coming to Megiddo, he and his wife, Astrid, would be joining Loud’s excavations at Khorsabad in November, where they were to be part of a very small staff consisting of the two of them and Loud, plus Charles and Alice Altman. The Altmans were a young couple, both about thirty years old at the time and both from New York. They had been married for about five years at this point. Charley, as he was usually called, was a trained architect who ended up coauthoring part of the final Khorsabad report with Loud; Alice was the recorder for the expedition.12
In the letters to Lamon and Shipton, Breasted also outlined his hopes for the publication program during the fall, including Lamon’s own work on the water system volume and the beginning of work by both Lamon and Shipton on the volume dealing with the stratigraphic results on the mound (which would be the Megiddo I volume). He ended on a more positive note than Charles had done previously, saying that he was counting on Lamon and Shipton for a successful season, and that their “loyal service … will be of great value to science and to the Institute.”13
As an aside, Charles Breasted’s references to Lamon’s past conduct seem to invoke those earlier incidents that involved Lamon and alcohol, some of which had been mentioned in a few letters exchanged with Guy over the years. We should also remember, as the Breasteds may or may not have, that Lamon had been only twenty-two years old when he first came over to Megiddo in 1928 and was taking a break from college. Now, six years later, he was still just twenty-eight, but was freshly married.
To his credit, Lamon took the not-so-veiled insults from Charles Breasted in stride. First replying to Breasted’s more recent letter, he said that he appreciated being entrusted with the assignment he had been given, even though it was temporary. He would do his best to “deal tactfully and efficiently with the situation” even though he had no titular authority. Fortunately, as he pointed out, the few of them who were now left at Megiddo, including him and his wife, were “perfectly congenial,” and they probably wouldn’t even notice that there was no field director present.14
He replied to Charles a few days after that, restraining himself in simply remarking, “You have made several rather uncomplimentary statements.” He presented a concise defense of himself, which consisted principally of copping to an incident that he called “that disgraceful show in Haifa some four years ago” (an incident, by the way, that is not mentioned in any of the letters from 1930, when the episode apparently took place). Although he admitted that it—whatever it was—had been “a very serious offence,” apparently destined never to be forgotten, he pointed out that it had happened only once, with no repetition. He also noted that he knew well “the difficulties encountered by a group of people with widely varying personalities living and working together in close proximity for long periods of time at a stretch.” He concluded by saying, “I honestly believe that you have got me quite wrong and that at least the strength of your criticism is entirely unjustified.”15 And with that, he let the matter drop. In turn, Charles Breasted replied a month later, reassuring Lamon that “the attitude toward you of the Institute’s administration is entirely friendly and that as implied in my letter of September 1, we hope you will find the new regime at Megiddo a spur to exceptional achievement, in which we wish you every success.”16
A few days after he had written to the Breasteds, near mid-October, Lamon went down to Jerusalem and paid a visit to the Department of Antiquities, to report on the changes at Megiddo. A memo from that meeting, probably transcribed by the department’s director, Richmond, records the following:
Mr. Lamon called on 12.10.34 and stated that—
1. Mr. Guy is not coming back.
2. He (Mr. Lamon) is taking charge of the work (confined to records, etc.) as representative of the Institute in Palestine (but not as Field Director) and that any communications are to be made to him.
3. No digging is going on.
I informed Mr. Lamon that the Department only knows (1) the Institute and (2) Mr. Guy, and that it can take no official action on his verbal communication. We must have a formal delegation from the Institute. Mr. Lamon said he had written to request the Institute to communicate with the Department.17
As a result, Breasted wrote to Richmond in early November, informing him that they had reorganized the field staff at Megiddo, that they were focused on publications at the moment, and that Guy would be “superseded as Field Director at Megiddo by another incumbent from the present staff of the Institute elsewhere.” After additional letters back and forth, and a confirmation by Breasted that Lamon would be temporarily in charge of the excavation and thus acting field director for all intents and purposes, they were issued a license to continue at the site for 1935, but only to work on the publications and do “local archaeological clearances” if absolutely necessary.18
Meanwhile, back at Megiddo, the fall 1934 season was taken up with publication activities, as had been decided back in August.19 Lamon was very mindful of the trust that they had put in him, and wrote frequently, sending a number of long letters back to Breasted. By the first day, 1 October, he reported that Shipton was busy registering and drawing the pottery and other objects, while Lind—who had not yet left for Khorsabad—was taking new photographs and cataloging the older ones. He himself was finishing up the volume on the water system, Lamon said, and was working half days up on the mound, where he was completing the surveying that needed to be done, and drawing and inking various plans and sections. Although Concannon had returned to Jerusalem and the Department of Public Works, Lamon was hoping that he could persuade him to continue drawing reconstructions of various buildings and areas, such as the Stable Compound, as he called it, on the weekends at Megiddo, in return for room and board.20
However, within two weeks, Lamon also asked Breasted whether they could rehire Beaumont, suggesting that he (Beaumont) could take Lind’s place as the dig photographer while Lind was away at Khorsabad, and also help him (Lamon) with the surveying. Breasted saw the logic in this and agreed, so that Beaumont became a staff member once again, as of the first week in November.21
Overall, Lamon’s first priority was working on the volume dealing with the water system, which he completed and sent to Chicago at the end of October.22 He also had to quickly write up the annual report for the Department of Antiquities, which he did that same month.23 He and Shipton then began work on the stratigraphic volume. In it, they made the decision to eliminate “the confusing terms Sub-II and III-IV” that both Fisher and Guy had been using. They also began noticing problems involving the stratigraphy, with instances of a particular locus (findspot) upon occasion listed as belonging to “as many as four different strata,” even though by definition a locus can be in only one stratum (layer). They also found other instances where a locus would be listed under one stratum in the Object section but a different stratum in the Pottery section. As he told Breasted: “The confusion in stratification is being put right, and all the cross-references carefully checked.… The indefinite headings such as ‘Strata II to IV’ have been eliminated and the objects put under their proper strata.”24
They also began to redo many of the photographic plates for the volume, because of the changes that they had made to the various loci and strata. Finally, they decided to remap all of the areas on the mound, so that all the plans would be at the same scale of 1:1000, suitable for publication, and would indicate the various strata that appeared in each area.25 It was while doing all of this that they discovered an egregious error that needed to be fixed immediately. We will return to this in a moment, for they also tried to save May from publishing related stratigraphic errors in his forthcoming book.
Meanwhile, in London, Guy was slowly finishing the missing sections for his tombs volume, which he finally mailed to Chicago by the third week in November, after a fair amount of additional prodding. Even then, the volume still required much work, for Engberg, Lamon, and others had persuaded Breasted to add in as many as sixty of the tombs that Fisher had found but not published. Engberg was charged with seeing these additional tombs added into the book and through to publication.26
Alert readers will notice that Irwin has not yet been mentioned at all with regard to this season, even though he was definitely at Megiddo. This is because, unfortunately for him and through no fault of his own, he was ill for the entire time, with one thing leading to another. The beginning of the season, on 1 October, found him laid up in a Jerusalem hospital, with “gippy tummy,” as Parker described it; he had already been there for nearly two weeks by that point. The more technical term was “dysentery,” as Lamon put it. Irwin was released from the hospital on 4 October and drove himself up to Megiddo two days later.27
That turned out to be a bad idea, for Irwin took a turn for the worse while en route to the site and within just a few days had to be admitted to the hospital in Haifa, ostensibly with “influenza.” By that time, his sister had arrived in the country and was able to stay with him. This was fortunate, for he remained in the hospital for four weeks after the diagnosis was changed to “rheumatic fever.”28 According to the Mayo Clinic, rheumatic fever occurs when strep throat or scarlet fever is inadequately treated, or not treated at all.29 It is rare in the United States today but is still common in “developing nations”—which certainly describes British Mandate Palestine in the 1930s. Antibiotics are effective in treating it, but since Alexander Fleming had discovered penicillin only six years earlier, in 1928, they were not in widespread use yet.
Thus when Irwin was finally discharged from the hospital and returned to Megiddo during the first week of November, he was extremely weak and unable even to make it to the table for most meals. His sister, therefore, booked passage for them to return to the United States just ten days later, and on 18 November they departed.30 Happily, he subsequently recovered and in March 1935 officially apologized to Breasted for not having been able to do more during the fall season.31
Irwin eventually lived to the age of eighty-two, with a full career of teaching at the University of Chicago and Southern Methodist University.32 In retrospect, his most important contribution to the Megiddo expedition was the eyewitness account that he sent to Breasted on 20 June, reporting on the May affair, for he was the only one of the Megiddo staff members to do so, out of all those who had been present. The second lasting contribution was probably his observations, along with May, about the destruction of Stratum VIA, which he attributed to an earthquake, as mentioned in the previous chapter.
Immediately after the New Year, Parker reported back to Chicago that all was going well. Everyone was working full-time on the Megiddo I publication, he said, and it was proceeding quite rapidly though they had a lot of work still ahead of them. It was a good thing that they weren’t digging, he added, because they had already had thirteen inches of rain and would not have been able to work on the mound since about the time of Irwin’s departure, back in mid-November.33
Lamon sent his first full report of the year to Chicago a month later, at the beginning of February. It was extremely long, as were most of his letters during these months; it was almost as if he were trying to prove something to the Breasteds. Lamon said that they were almost finished with the sections on the pottery and objects in the stratigraphy volume and were about to start pulling together the architectural material. It was going fairly quickly, now that they had dealt with a number of initial minor problems, but he estimated that it would take them at least two more months. Therefore, he thought, perhaps they should not dig during the spring season either, so that they could finish all their work on the publication in a timely manner.34
Besides which, Lamon said, he had somehow injured his knee and now had some loose cartilage that needed to be removed—he was seriously gimpy and his leg would “go out” on him from time to time. He was trying to decide when to go in for the operation, but, regardless, it would make going up on the mound difficult.35
If they did decide to dig, though, Lamon had a few ideas about where they should do so. For one thing, he wanted to uncover more of the stables, since he thought they were “buried only by a foot or two of debris” in one area. They had also uncovered some anomalies in the plans that could bear a bit of investigating, including areas by the city wall, where he now thought they could detect the remains of an earlier wall. However, he was most interested in areas that had earlier produced what he described as “the very fragmentary remains of thin rubble walled private houses.” Guy had started to find these during the spring 1934 season but had essentially ignored them. Lamon now suggested that these all belonged to a “Stratum V” that seemed to extend over the entire mound and was worth additional investigation.36
Lamon wrote again five weeks later, this time much more frantically and in great detail. His frenzy was merited, for what had been a fairly dull and unremarkable stint up to that point, consisting of month after month of working on material and preparing it for publication, had suddenly turned into a crucial appraisal and reassessment of much of their previous work at the mound. He also sent a cable that presented the situation starkly and concisely. It read: “FISHER MATERIAL REVEALS SERIOUS STRATIGRAPHIC ERROR INVOLVING MAYS PUBLICATION LETTER FOLLOWS LAMON.”37
He and Shipton, in preparing new plans for the Megiddo I volume, had asked for material from the years that Fisher was in charge to be sent to them from Chicago. In going through those record cards and files, they realized that there were significant problems that had begun with Fisher and continued through Guy’s seasons. Fixing the errors would involve “a drastic change in stratigraphy,” as Lamon put it. It would also mean having to contradict details that had already been published in both Fisher’s and Guy’s preliminary reports from 1929 and 1931, as well as portions of May’s forthcoming book. However, he and Shipton felt that it had to be done: “The only other alternative, which does not seem to be quite honest, is to suppress the contradictory evidence.”38
First of all, he said, because of the stratigraphic errors, they needed to combine Guy’s Strata III and IV into simply Stratum IV, but then they also needed to split that newly combined stratum back into two parts: an earlier and shorter phase (IVB), which was found only in Area CC, and a later and longer phase (IV), which was found all across the site.39
More importantly, though, he said that previously they had all thought that Guy’s “Solomonic city,” with the stables, had been built immediately on top of the “burnt mud-brick city.” However, when they began removing the “Solomonic” buildings in the southern area, it became clear that there was a level in between, namely, the one with the “scrappy” ruins noted above that Guy had basically ignored, but which Lamon and Shipton now said they needed to acknowledge and label as Stratum V. It was these remains that he had just suggested to Breasted in his previous letter that they should investigate further.40
In other words, Lamon said, he and Shipton had concluded that Fisher and Guy had missed an entire layer and had left a whole city—and time period—out of their occupation sequence. They now needed to re-create it and put it back together on paper, trying to figure out which of the buildings that they had assigned to other layers actually belonged to this one. Lamon didn’t hold back in his letter, in an effort to emphasize the magnitude of the problem to those back in Chicago:
Fisher’s material, which arrived yesterday, shows conclusively that my suspicions, based on purely stratigraphic evidence, are definitely borne out by the pottery evidence. A site photo of Room 6 of the “Store-house” … shows typical V pottery in situ and other photos and drawings show that all the pottery from that building and from the building 1A is Stratum V material. With a very sickening feeling I realized that Fisher had published this very site photo and a plate of pottery from the “Store-house” which he describes as his “Stratum III (800–600) pottery”! Of course, during Fisher’s time at Megiddo, no pottery of this period had hithertofore been excavated—he was not to know.41
So, Lamon said, Fisher had completely misidentified these Stratum V remains, and this was but one instance among many. He provided another flagrant example to make his point: “The two buildings 10 and 1A along with the other radial rooms must … be erased from the IV plan and if they are to be published at all, they should be assigned to V.”42
It was imperative to go back through everything again, he said—all of the old plans needed to be redrawn, everything needed to be rechecked, and the various buildings and artifacts needed to be reassessed and reassigned to the proper stratigraphic levels. For instance, in terms of improper attributions and identifications, he pointed out that “the pottery shrine and horned altars which Fisher attributed to the ‘Astarte Temple’—according to the note cards just received—were really found in the region of the ‘Store-house.’ Practically all the cult material from the ‘Sacred Area’ which May published as IV is therefore really V and none of it has anything to do with the large building which he describes and illustrates as the ‘Temple.’ ”43
Lamon wrapped up his letter by stating that he hoped it was not too late to partially correct May’s manuscript that was currently in press, or at least to add a note of explanation so that the reader could be warned about the stratigraphic errors. He concluded in a remarkably understated manner, confiding to Breasted, “Naturally this situation is causing us considerable consternation and we should very much appreciate your help and instructions in the matter.”44
Breasted eventually sent a reply, but it was to Lamon’s letter of early February, rather than his more frantic letters and cable of March. Those latter issues were already being dealt with by the Editorial Department, which came up with the solution for May to acknowledge in his preface that Lamon and Shipton would clarify the stratigraphy and some of the other relevant details in their forthcoming volume, as indeed they did.45
Breasted said that Lamon’s knee injury, as well as the need to continue working on the publications, had convinced him that they should not dig in the spring, but rather should wait until October. He also mentioned, almost in passing, that they were expecting to appoint Gordon Loud as the new field director. This was the first time that Breasted had put this news in writing to Lamon, since they had only just finalized it, but it was probably not a surprise to him. Undoubtedly, “Who will be the new Field Director at Megiddo?” was a question that had been gossiped about in Jerusalem and elsewhere in the small world of Near Eastern archaeology for months by this point. Breasted said that Lamon should show Loud around the site and point out where he thought they might profitably dig, when Loud stopped by later in the spring while returning home from Khorsabad.46
So when Loud came through in mid-May, Lamon showed him around the mound in person, pointing out the areas where he thought they should begin digging in the fall.47 In the meantime, later that month, Breasted also wrote to the Antiquities Department, to request a real permit. He needed them to grant him a full concession to renew the excavations on the mound under Loud’s direction, rather than the limited version that had been issued for Lamon. By late June, the full license had been granted and preparations for the fall season were soon under way.48
Unfortunately, Loud had unintentionally created some problems as a result of comments that he made during his visit to Megiddo in mid-May. For one thing, he announced that the Altmans would be coming with him, because the dig at Khorsabad was shutting down. It made sense to shift the Altmans to Megiddo at the same time as Loud moved there, since they worked well together and since Megiddo was so understaffed at the moment. Charley could help Lamon with the surveying and plans, while Alice could assist Shipton with the recording and drawing.
This was actually Charles Breasted’s idea,49 but he had neglected to inform Lamon about any of this. As a result, when Loud casually announced that the Altmans would be coming with him for the fall season, assuming that Lamon and the others already knew about this, it caused a bit of an uproar. In the end, everything was made right, and we have a note from Lamon several months later, in November 1935, in which he says that he “finds them [the Altmans] delightful and very easy to get along with.”50
As for the house staff, Loud also announced during his stop at Megiddo, in no uncertain terms, that he intended to bring his own staff with him from Khorsabad, including his chauffeur, his cook, and his “personal man,” so that they could continue serving him at Megiddo. In theory this sounded fine, but it meant replacing Serge Tchoub, the longtime chauffeur, as well as a local villager named Said who had recently been promoted to cook (after working his way up over the years) and two other local villagers—the houseboy and one of the maids—who had also been with the expedition for years by this point.51
Parker went to bat with the Breasteds for all of them, arguing in particular that it would be a very bad show of faith to fire the local villagers in favor of people brought in to replace them. As he put it, “I fear we are treading on very dangerous ground when we sack competent and satisfactory men of the country, and furthermore of the village in the immediate vicinity, in order to replace them with men from another country.” And, on an extremely practical note, he pointed out that it would be very expensive to bring the men all the way from Khorsabad, and that the Palestine Mandate Government might well refuse to let them remain in the country after their initial three-month visas expired. Parker also said that it would be especially bad to fire Tchoub and his wife, who had “served the Institute honestly and faithfully for the past nine years.”52
In the end, everyone agreed with Parker’s arguments, and so the Breasteds persuaded Loud to change his plans somewhat. Tchoub would remain as chauffeur, and his wife’s position would also remain secure; the Khorsabad cook would come in and take over, while Said would return to his former duties in the kitchen rather than being fired; and Loud’s “personal man” would replace the current Egyptian waiter and one of the local houseboys, but both of those would be given new duties instead of being let go.53
However, Charles Breasted took the occasion to write a stern letter to Parker. Never mind that Parker had been doing a marvelous job in the year since they had fired Guy, including taking care of all of the finances and the supplies in addition to planting two hundred more trees around the dig house and the ancient mound,54 many of which can still be seen there today. In his letter to Parker, written before he had received Parker’s long letter presenting the arguments for maintaining the current house staff, Charles unloaded what seems to have been years of frustration regarding the dig as a whole and the previous administration—Guy, in particular.
“In terms of time and money expended, the record of Megiddo is far and away the lowest of any of the Oriental Institute’s excavational undertakings,” Charles wrote. “The history of the Megiddo Expedition has been one of which we have had only intermittent occasion to be proud. Under its previous administration, it was loaded down with a plethora of forms, routine, petty habit, inhibition, and all the impediments of a bureaucratic mind, to an incredible degree which retarded all productivity.” Now, he said, changes were coming. Loud had been given instructions to transform the situation immediately. For those on the staff who had become “unduly wedded to the old regime, the reorganization of the entire setup at Megiddo will come as a rude awakening.”55