Nationality British Died 8 November 1945 | Occupation Archaeologist | |
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Katharine Woolley, née Menke (June 1888 - 8 November 1945) was a British archaeologist who worked principally at the Mesopotamian site of Ur. She was married to archaeologist Sir Charles Leonard Woolley.
She was born in England in June 1888 to German parents. Her father was called Carl Menke. She read Modern History at Somerville College in Oxford, but did not complete her education there due to health issues.
She joined the Red Cross in 1915, and was posted first to Alexandria and then to Poland.
She married Lieutenant Colonel Bertram Francis Eardley Keeling OBE, MC, RE on 3 March 1919. They went out to Cairo, since he was Director-General of the Survey of Egypt and President of the Cotton Research Board. He committed suicide on 20 September 1919.
In 1924 she went to Baghdad and saw Ur for the first time. She was offered a position on site by Charles Leonard Woolley and began work in 1925 as an artist. She continued working there until 1934, by which time she was the primary assistant on site. Her drawings of the site were an important contribution and her work was featured in the Illustrated London News. She also helped restore a queen's headdress from the site. She and her husband also excavated at Alalakh and Al-Mina. Although published under his name, she was jointly responsible with him for the publication of the Archaeological Survey of India (link) in 1939.
On 11 April 1927 she and Leonard Woolley were married, largely in order to maintain respectability when working on site with a group of men. Their marriage was not consummated.
In 1929 she published a romantic adventure novel, Adventure Calls, set in the contemporary Middle East.
She was the inspiration for the murder victim in the novel Murder in Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie; Christie's second marriage in 1930 was to Max Mallowan, Sir Leonard Woolley's assistant at Ur.
During World War II, her husband was involved with monitoring Nazi looting of museums, galleries and archives; she assisted with this work.
She died of multiple sclerosis on 8 November 1945.