Sent J.L. Starkey to K. Pearson, 27th Aug. 1933.
27 Aug 1933
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‘Dear Professor,

Thank you very much for your kind letter of last February, I am pleased to tell you that we have arranged for the Department of Antiquities here to loan us the whole series of cranial material for study in London.

I hope to be back in London early next month, and will take an early opportunity of calling on you, when we can discuss what ought to be done with the season’s material.

We closed down work a fortnight ago, and feel we have had a most satisfactory season. We hope to have an exhibition and shall look forward to showing you something of our results during the summer.

With renewed thanks,

Yours very sincerely,

J.L. Starkey.’

Sent J.L. Starkey to K. Pearson, 7th Feb. 1933.
7 Feb 1933
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[from ‘Tell Duweir, Wellcome Historical Museum Expedition, c/o Post Office, Hebron, Palestine.’]

‘Dear Professor,

I am sorry that I did not have the opportunity to see you before I left London at rather short notice last autumn so as to tell you that I am no longer working with Mr Flinders, but am carrying out excavations at Tell Duweir, some 25 miles S.W. of Jerusalem, under the auspices of Sir Henry Wellcome in conjunction with other British backers. We equate the site with ancient Lachish, the strongest of the defenced cities of the Shephelah border, now represented by an imposing mound over 18 acres in extent.

This year we are devoting out main efforts to the investigation of the encircling fortifications of the city and a small section of the necropolis on the lower slopes of the mound. In the course of this work, we have discovered several large rock-cut chambers, from which we have been able to preserve a fairly good series of human crania of the late Iron Age, about 600-800 B.C. At the present moment we have over 200 skulls prepared for transport, but I regret that very few of them are complete with their jaws. This is due to the fat that a large proportion are from a chamber which had been used as a depository for human remains, the result of salvage operations after one of the great conflagrations which destroyed the city at this late phase in its history. Some of these skulls show burnt areas, as though burning timber had fallen on the prone corpses, and it would seem that a considerable time elapsed before these remains were removed and deposited in the chamber, which was done by throwing the skulls and bones down a central shaft in its roof.

As I am hoping to get this series to London, and knowing the amount of work Dr. Morant had put in on the skulls of the Wadi Ghuzzeh district, I was wondering whether your laboratories would like to handle a portion of this material if I can make the necessary arrangements. The skulls are all undistorted, and in very much better condition than any I have dealt with in the south country in the past. They have all been waxed and swathed in cotton bandages, the earth having been removed from inside.

Yours very sincerely,

J.L. Starkey.’