THOMAS EDWARD LAWRENCE

PRESENTED TO
PROFESSOR LEE CASTILLO

FOR

BIBL 471 – B03

BY
REV. JOSEPH T. WHITAKER, III
LU23755920

LIBERTY UNIVERSITY
LYNCHBURG, VA

JUNE 21, 2014 1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2
EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND----------------------------------------------------------------------
ARCHAEOLOGICAL ENDEAVORS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS-----------------------------
THE DEMISE OF THOMAS EDWARD LAWRENCE----------------------------------------------
CONCLUSION----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BIBLIOGRAPHY-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2
Introduction
Thomas Edward Lawrence was born on August 16, 1888. He was born in Tremadog, Caernarfonshire, Wales, United Kingdom. He died on May 19, 1935 at Bovington Camp, Dorset, England, United Kingdom. T. E. Lawrence was a very intriguing and multitalented gifted individual. Was T. E. Lawrence a legitimate archaeologist; and did he make any meaningful contribution to the field of archaeology? Research reveals that in fact T. E. Lawrence was a credentialed and practicing archaeologist that did make various valuable contributions to the scientific field of archaeology.
Educational Background At the age of four, Lawrence could read books and newspapers. He received his basic education at the Oxford High School. He was awarded a Welsh scholarship to Jesus College, Oxford. From 1907 to 1910 Lawrence was a student of History at Jesus College. During the summer of 1909 he embarked on a walking adventure in Syria, Palestine, and a portion of Turkey. Lawrence investigated a total of 36 crusader castles; at which time he was careful to take copious notes. Lawrence tendered a thesis – The Influence of the Crusades on European Architecture – the End of the 12th Century, which work resulted in his graduation from Jesus College, with honors. After his graduation, Lawrence momentarily engaged in postgraduate research, in the area of medieval pottery, by way of his having been awarded a Senior Demy scholarship at Magdalen College, Oxford. While a student at Magdalen, he decided to withdraw from school and embrace 3 the opportunity to become an archaeologist in the Middle East. On assignment in the Middle East, Lawrence studied Arabic, and was considered fluent in Ancient Greek, Arabic, and French.
Archaeological Endeavors and Accomplishments In December 1910, Lawrence traveled to the Middle East and commenced work at the excavations at Carchemish, close to Jerablus in northern Syria. He was employed as an archaeologist under the leadership of D. G. Hogarth, who was a British archaeologist and R. Cambell Thompson, who was also a British archaeologist, assyriologist, and cuneiformist. Lawrence returned to England momentarily, and then, traveled back to Beirut, to resume his work at Carchemish. At this time he was to assist Leonard Woolley, a fellow British archaeologist. However, before engaging in the task at Carchemish, Lawrence worked very briefly at Kafr Ammar in Egypt with Flinders Petrie, who was an English Egyptologist. Lawrence continued to travel to the Middle East, working as a field archaeologist until the commencement of World War I in 1914. As Randall J. Price has indicated in his book, The Stones Cry Out: What Archaeology Reveals About the Truth of the Bible, present day archaeology has its origins in Biblical Archaeology. T. E. Lawrence was certainly classified as a biblical archaeologist. 4
He was a romantic figure, a British scholar – adventurer who walked more than 1,600 kilometers in broiling heat early this century through an area that is now Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. While he is better known as a military advisor to Prince Feisal during the Arab revolt against Turkish rule in the First World War, T. E. Lawrence had been an archaeologist. He helped identify the town some believe was where the ancient Hebrews settled before proceeding to the Promised Land, says Lawrence scholar Stephen Tabachnik of the University of Oklahoma. In an article in Biblical Archaeology Review, Tabachnik traces the brief but fruitful archaeological career of the man…He was a brilliant polymath. He was excellent in many fields…For someone who worked in archaeology for five years of his life, he really left a mark.

Stephen E. Tabachnik greatly helps to shed light on the reality of the value of T. E. Lawrence and his lasting contributions to archaeology.
It is sometimes forgotten that Thomas Edward Laurence…was a very competent Middle Eastern archaeologist…and his archaeological activities and Biblical interests helped shape him…Although pre-war work focused on the Crusaders and on the Hittites, he contributed to the resolution of at least one important issue in Biblical archaeology and touched on several others…Lawrence worked not only with Hogarth but with C. Leonard Woolley, who later discovered Ur of the Chaldees. Here Lawrence served as a foreman of a group of local workers. He copied inscriptions, photographed finds, catalogued discoveries, bought antiquities and used his mechanical ingenuity to solve any small problems that would arise. This dig and the subsequent publication of its results, titled Carchemish: Report on the Excavation at Djerabis on behalf of the British Museum, containing contributions by Lawrence, set the course of future British study of the Hittites. During the dig, Lawrence played a leading role in salvaging many important objects from a cemetery that was being looted, and recognized that some of the graves were from the later Parthian period (C. 250 B.C.E.-250 C.E.). Royal processions, carved in relief, cover the walls of a palace complex at Carchemish, which T. E. Lawrence helped uncover on his first archaeological expedition. As an apprentice at Carchemish, Lawrence increased his knowledge of archaeology and made worthy contributions of his own…Working with his mentor Leonard Woolley (who later excavated Ur), T. E. Lawrence helped draw plans of the Nabatean city Shivta that are still used.

5 An interesting biographical insight into the anatomy of Lawrence’s ability and qualifications as an archaeologist during the genesis of his archaeological adventure is reflected by author Richard Adington: “It is a matter of guess-work to ask why Hogarth selected Lawrence, who, as he himself admitted, was not, like Woolley, a trained archaeologist…but he had shown much amateur interest as well as intellectual tastes and there is a strong presumption that Hogarth hoped to train him up as a successor.” Another interesting fact concerning the archaeological activities of T. E. Lawrence involves a controversy concerning his participating in a misleading archaeological survey that was actually a military endeavor.
January-February 1914: Woolley and Lawrence, under the auspices of the Palestine Exploration Fund, travel to the Sinai Peninsula to join a party of Royal engineers commanded by Stewart Newcombe. Their role is to provide ‘innocent’ archaeological camouflage for a British military survey of a Turkish-controlled area.

Research does unavoidably indicate that Lawrence and other archaeologists were involved to some degree being engaged in covert military intelligence, under the guise of practicing archaeologists. Some sources attempt to paint the picture that T. E. Lawrence was never an authentic archaeologist, but only an individual that played the part of an archaeologist, to mask his true identity and purpose as a covert military intelligence agent. Research has given substance to the reality that T. E. Lawrence was legitimately a practicing archaeologist and British intelligence officer. 6 Several authors have indicated that those that do not recognize the reality that Thomas Edward Lawrence was engaged in espionage for England, while engaged as an archaeologist, are ‘naïve’.
Though a few naïve writers deny his status as a spy, Lawrence’s mentor, David George Hogarth, writing for the 1926 abridged Encyclopedia Britannica, frankly describes Lawrence’s position with British Intelligence.

The author M. Kienholz implicates Lawrence as being a covert spy, while Lawrence participated as an archaeologist at the Carchemish site.
The Carchemish archaeological entourage was made up of intelligence agents. In addition to David George Hogarth…and twenty-two year old T. E. Lawrence…there were Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell…a member of the military intelligence staff…also posing as an archaeologist, and British Intelligence officer Reginald Campbell Thompson, was another archaeologist…

Author Magnus T. Bernhardsson clarifies further:
The most famous example of this intelligence work was that of T. E. Lawrence and Leonard Woolley, who were excavating at Carchemish in Syria prior to World War I. Their archaeological endeavors seem to have been secondary and even perhaps a cover for more covert activities.

Whatever may be said concerning T. E. Lawrence serving as a British intelligence officer while working as an archaeologist at Carchemish, Lawrence was in fact a published archaeologist. 7 Research has revealed that Lawrence was certainly intimately involved in the field of Biblical Archaeology beyond the perimeters of what would seem reasonably necessary to accomplish a covert operation.
Tabachnick, “Lawrence of Arabia as Archaeologist,” p.46. Lawrence and Woolley, to their credit, did publish an archaeological report to the members of Palestine Exploration Fund entitled The Wilderness of Zin (London: Order of the Committee, 1915).

Various authors clearly identify Thomas Edward Lawrence as an educated and credentialed archaeologist.
Lawrence was an Oxford-trained archaeologist, receiving his degree in 1910. By the time he was hired by Palestine Exploration Fund, he had already excavated at Byplos in what is today Lebanon, at Carchemish in what is now northern Syria, and with Petrie in Egypt. In less than two months, Lawrence and his companion Leonard Woolley (who would later go on to fame in his own right as the excavator of Ur in Iraq and be knighted for his efforts) managed to survey and record many of the archaeological remains, from all periods, visible in Negev desert and the Wadi Arabah, all the while ostensibly searching for biblical sites and tracing old caravan routes in an area which the Bible refers to as the “Wilderness of Zin.”

Author Eric H. Cline also certifies the British intelligence connection. Cline does so in a way that reasonably reconciles any overt contradiction.
Unknown to most others, though, was that the archaeological survey was actually a cover for a British military mapping operation, concerned with the overland routes that an invading Ottoman army might take to reach Egypt in the event of war. Military matters aside, Lawrence and Woolley’s report of their archaeological findings, titled The Wilderness of Zin, was published by the PEF in 1915 and is still used by scholars today… 8 Alan Axelrod has written concerning Lawrence being a professional archaeologist and a spy for British intelligence.
He briefly immersed himself in esoteric post graduate work on medieval pottery before returning to the Middle East at the end of 1910 to become, he announced, a professional archaeologist. To all appearances, T. E. Lawrence was just that…he participated in archaeological digs…The young archaeologist took scholarly notes on the antiquities of Mesopotamia even as acting on his own initiative, he took military notes on the Baghdad Railway, which ran near the digs. These he communicated to British authorities in Cairo, who passed them on to military intelligence. By 1914 – the eve of World War I – Lawrence had been formerly recruited by the British military as a spy in the guise of an archaeologist. He thoroughly mapped the territory that soldiers of the Ottoman Empire – allied with Germany – would have to cross to attack British-held Egypt.

The Demise of Thomas Edward Lawrence Public record reveals that while living back home in the United Kingdom, approximately two months after being discharged from his military duty, at the young age of 46, Lawrence died as a result of a terrible motorcycle accident. The accident occurred at Dorset, not far from his home, in the Clouds Hill – Wareham area. The road that he was traveling on, was fashioned in such a way as to prevent a clear view. There were two children riding their bicycles of whom Lawrence was unaware. Suddenly Lawrence came upon them, and in his courageous fashion he lost control of his motorcycle, in an attempt to avoid causing any injury to them. Lawrence suffered many injuries from the accident; especially, critical damage to his unprotected head. He remained in a coma for six days before his death on May 19, 1935. A memorial marker was placed on the side of the road where the accident occurred. 9 With Lawrence’s body shrouded in the Union Flag, his beloved mother had him laid to rest in the Frampton family burial plot at Moreton. Some of the mourners at his funeral were Winston and Clementine Churchill, E. M. Foster, and the youngest brother of Lawrence, Arnold. To honor Thomas Edward Lawrence, a bust of his image was placed in the crypt of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, in London. Also, a stone effigy created by Eric Kennington is still present in the Anglo Saxon church of Saint Martin, Wareham in Dorset.
Conclusion
I believe that the research is sufficient to establish and confirm the thesis that Thomas Edward Lawrence was a legitimate archaeologist; and that he did in fact make a number of recognized professional contributions to the scientific field of Biblical Archaeology. The historical record also reveals that T. E. Lawrence was a British intelligence agent who utilized his profession of archaeology as a guise to accomplish his nation’s military obejectives. The historical record further reflects that Lawrence’s service to his country as a secret agent did not contaminate his sincerity and stated archaeological objectives. Lawrence’s gifted abilities enabled him to maintain the purity of both professions in unison with one another. That Thomas Edward Lawrence was a professional biblical archaeologist, who provided notable contributions in the field of Biblical Archaeology, cannot be refuted. Thomas Edward Lawrence worked under some of the most accomplished and notable professional archaeologists of his day. They confirmed him as a legitimate archaeologist and appreciated his unique contributions. 10
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Aldington, Richard. Lawrence of Arabia: A Biographical Enquiry (London: Collins, 1955), 76, Accessed 21 June 2014 http://www.questa.com/read/59131415
Axelrod, Alen. Little-Known Wars of Great and Lasting Impact: Beverly, MA: Fait Winds Press – Quayside Publishing Group, 2009.
Bernhardsson, Magnus T. Reclaiming A Plundered Past: Archaeology and Nation Building in Modern Iraq: Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2005.
Cline, Eric H. Biblical Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction: New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Kienholz, M. Opium traders and Their Worlds – Volume Two: A Revisonist Expose of the World: Bloomington, IN: iUniverse Incorporated, 2008.
Lawrence of Arabia was Biblical Archaeologist. (1997, Sept 27). Accessed 21 June 2014. Standard Retrieved from http://searchproquest.com/docview/349073210/accountid/12085 www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/archaeology-today/archaeologists-biblical-scholars-works/lawrence-of-arabia-as-archaeologis/ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._E._Lawrence www.telstudies.org/biography/chron_1888-1914shtml Price, Randall J. The Stones Cry Out: What Archaeology Reveals About the Truth of the Bible: Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1997.
Wilson, Jeremy. Lawrence of Arabia: The Authorized Biography of T. E. Lawrence: United Kingdom England: Publisher William Heinemann, 1989.

--------------------------------------------
[ 1 ]. En.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._E._Lawrence
[ 2 ]. Jeremy Wilson. Lawrence of Arabia: The Authorized Biography of T. E. Lawrence: United Kingdom England: Publisher William Heinemann, 1989
[ 3 ]. En.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._E._Lawrence
[ 4 ]. Randall J. Price. The Stones Cry Out: What Archaeology Reveals About the Truth of the Bible: Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1997, 25
[ 5 ]. Lawrence of Arabia was biblical archaeologist. (1997, Sep 27). Accessed 21 June 2014. Standard Retrieved from http://searchproquest.com/docview/349073210/accountid=12085
[ 6 ]. www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/archaeology-today/archaeologists-biblical-scholars-works/lawrence-of-arabia-as-archaeologist/
[ 7 ]. Richard Aldington, Lawrence of Arabia: A Biographical Enquiry (London: Collins, 1955), 76, Accessed 21 June 2014 http://www.questa.com/read/59131415
[ 8 ]. www.telstudies.org/biography/chron_1888-1914shtml
[ 9 ]. M. Kienholz. Opium Traders and Their Worlds – Volume Two: A Revisionist Expose of the World: Bloomington, IN: iUniverse Incorporated, 2008, Chapter 30
[ 10 ]. Ibid.
[ 11 ]. Magnus T. Bernhardsson. Reclaiming A Plundered Past: Archaeology and Nation Building in Modern Iraq: Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2005, 238 (Notes to page 52-54 – Note #152)
[ 12 ]. Ibid., 245 (Notes to page 70-73 – Note #67
[ 13 ]. Eric H. Cline. Biblical Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction: New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2009, 29
[ 14 ]. Ibid.
[ 15 ]. Alan Axelrod. Little-Known Wars of Great and Lasting Impact: Beverly, MA: Fair Winds Press – Quayside Publishing Group, 2009, 238