TEPE GAWEA SPEISER 419 



to induce a systematic excavation ? To be sure, the mound bid f air 

 to settle some difllcult problems of relative chronology. But its 

 very antiquity seemed to preclude the possibility of discovering writ- 

 ten documents. By the same token, the chances of finding enough 

 display objects to make the work worthwhile for a museum appeared 

 hopelessly remote. Institutions wdiich must depend for their funds 

 on the enthusiasm of donors are naturally reluctant to undertake a 

 task that promises no adequate return in tangible results. Museum 

 directors get little praise for announcements that this or that expedi- 

 tion has met with pronounced " scientific success " ; and they rarely 

 control endowments ample enough to liberate them from a measure 

 of sensitiveness to popular response. This happens to be the sad 

 truth in the majority of instances. 



Before sending my report to the sponsoring institutions at home 

 I inquired about Gawra in the nearby village of Fadhiliyah. Had 

 rains ever washed up anything besides sherds and flints? No; the 

 mound was a total loss, containing no " treasures " of any sort and 

 being much too steep for cultivation. This reply was of course incor- 

 porated in my recommendation to excavate Gawra for the sake of the 

 information which it contained. 



At that time the American Schools had not been favored as yet 

 with a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation which was shortly 

 to enlarge considerably the scope of their work in the East; nor 

 was the Dropsie College in a position to undertake larger archeologi- 

 cal tasks. Wlien I was informed, therefore, a few weeks later that 

 a small sum had been set aside for a trial dig at Tepe Gawra, I could 

 appreciate the effort behind this minor financial operation. The rest 

 was more or less a matter of routine. A permit to excavate was 

 promptly granted by the Iraq Department of Antiquities. The owner 

 of the land, a venerable scion of an old Arab family, generously 

 ceded the mound to the expedition. Our staff included an architect, 

 who worked for a practically nominal salary, and a volunteer re- 

 corder. A small gang of workmen was organized, and in October 

 of the same year we were ready for the dig. The funds were of 

 course exhausted before the end of the month, but by that time the 

 future of the excavation had been assured. For our two trial trenches 

 not only confirmed our original estimate that the mound would 

 prove to be a mine of information, but they also uncovered important 

 architectural remains which included a prehistoric shrine, and a fine 

 collection of valuable and instructive objects. The results were 

 published in the Annual of the American Schools of Oriental 

 Research.* 



* In vol. 9 (1929) Tinder tho title " Prcllminnry excavations at Tcpe Gawra." 

 72774 — 35 28 



