Hammoudi ibn Ibrahim

Hammoudi ibn Ibrahim. Photograph by Leon Legrain. Courtesy of the Penn Museum, image no. 244643Hammoudi ibn Ibrahim (c. 1875–1953 He worked closely with noted British archaeologists T. E. Lawrence, Leonard Woolley, Katharine Woolley, and Max Mallowan. Mallowan's wife, Agatha Christie, also participated in excavations and wrote about Hammoudi in her memoirs. Among the sites he managed, coordinating workforces of dozens or even hundreds of local workers, are Carchemish, on the border of Turkey and Syria; Ur, in southern Iraq; Tell Atchana, the site of a Bronze Age city state called Alalakh, in the Hatay province of Turkey; and Chagar Bazar and Tell Brak in Syria. In June 1913, Lawrence and Leonard Woolley brought Hammoudi to England and they visited Oxford together. Three sons of Hammoudi Ibrahim, named Yahya, Ibrahim (d. 1932), and Alawi, chronicled these excavations and later became foremen, too. Yahya, in particular, had responsibilities for on-site photography from as early as 1925. Among the scenes that Yahya photographed were skeletons unearthed at the Royal Cemetery of Ur, also known as the "Great Death Pit", which contained about 2,000 burials in addition to that of the queen identified as Puabi. Max Mallowan also included images of Hammoudi in his memoirs, while confirming, as did Agatha Christie in her memoirs, that Hammoudi socialized with the British archaeologists, eating meals with them and sharing rooms while on excursions.