Oppenheim’s excavations at Tell Halaf and the scholarly articles and books to which they gave rise—along with the massive and influential study he initiated of the numerous Bedouin tribes, their individual histories, their laws and customs, their internal social organization, and their interconnections—
while not unrelated to his demonstrated patriotism, do show him in a somewhat different light from his activity as the “Kaiser’s spy.” It is only fair, therefore, to devote a section of this study to what was, after all, a significant aspect of the persona he saw himself as and wanted others to see him as. Our main focus in this study is on history and politics, and on the situation and outlook of a German with a part-Jewish family background who was dedicated to the aggrandizement of Germany, even under National Socialism; however, it is not possible to do justice to the complexity of the man or take the measure of his motivations without considering his no less enduring commitment to the archaeology and ethnography of the Middle East and in particular to his excavations at Tell Halaf.
That many archaeologists working in the Middle East at the time also served intermittently as agents of their governments is a well established fact. One need think only of T.E. Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”) and his teacher, the Oxford archaeologist D.G. Hogarth. As it happens, both men were working at Carchemish in Northern Syria at the same time that Oppenheim was excavating at Tell Halaf, less than 200 kilometres away. In fact Oppenheim and Lawrence, who came to play similar roles in their country’s politics—Oppenheim by trying to foment Muslim uprisings against the British, French and Russians, and Lawrence by successfully fomenting Arab revolts against the Ottoman ally of the Germans—did meet and spend several hours together two
years before the outbreak of war.1 Nevertheless, the archaeologists were not simply political agents in disguise. They were scholars keenly and genuinely interested in the objects of their investigations and most of them also had an interest in the present-day inhabitants of the ancient sites. Though he had had no formal training, Oppenheim, the amateur archaeologist and ethnographer, was clearly moved by indefatigable and respectful curiosity about the ancient cultures and peoples of the Middle East, by sensitivity to the forms and meanings of the artefacts uncovered by his excavations, and by a desire to share his discoveries with others by means of patient, detailed descriptions, excellent photographic images, and informed and serious, if sometimes controversial, scholarly analyses and speculations. There was also no doubt here, as in the other areas of his activity, a strong interest in making himself known and establishing a reputation for himself, in this instance as “the discoverer of Tell Halaf.”
As with other similarly dedicated explorers of earlier cultures, interest in the past was often accompanied in Oppenheim by an admiring or, at times, patronizing attitude toward the present-day inhabitants of the ancient sites. His respect for and empathy with the peoples of the Middle East and North Africa is manifested in the numerous beautiful photographs of individuals and groups with which he illustrated his books, beginning with the impressively informative, straightforwardly narrated Vom Mittelmeer zum Persischen Golf durch den Haurān, die Syrische Wüste und Mesopotamien of 1899–1900 and culminating forty years later in Die Beduinen.2 Though a
1 The Home Letters of T.E. Lawrence and his Brothers (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1954), p. 225.
2 2 vols. (Leipzig: Otto Harrassowitz, 1939, 1943) and 2 posthumous volumes (Wiesbaden:
Otto Harrassowitz, 1952, 1967–1968). These four volumes constitute a substantial work of scholarship, each one running to nearly 500 pages with very large, well designed fold-out maps in a pocket of the binding. The first two volumes, devoted to the Bedouin tribes of Mesopotamia and Syria and to those of Palestine, Transjordan, the Sinai and the Hijaz respectively, carried on the title page the notice “Unter Mitbearbeitung von Erich Bräunlich and Werner Caskel” [with the collaboration of Erich Bräunlich and Werner Caskel]. Volume 3, published posthumously in 1952, and dealing with the Bedouins of the northern and central parts of the Arabian peninsula still carried Oppenheim’s name as author and, on the title-page, “Bearbeitet und herausgegeben von Werner Caskel” [prepared and edited by Werner Caskel]. (Bräunlich had died in 1945 in a prisoner of war camp in Yugoslavia.) Oppenheim also figured as the author of a fourth volume (1952), which was divided into two parts, the first devoted to Iran and the second containing an index and bibliography for all four volumes. Caskel’s name again appeared alone as the editor. Oppenheim’s collaborators, Bräunlich and Caskel, were in fact responsible for much of the work even on the volumes published during Oppenheim’s lifetime, but Oppenheim was the instigator and guiding spirit behind the entire project, and he provided much of the data.
relatively early work, the two-volume Vom Mittelmeer zum Persischen Golf already demonstrates not only the author’s considerable literary talent, both narrative and descriptive, but his ability to combine a highly personal account of the territories he has travelled through and of their inhabitants with an impressively comprehensive picture of them embracing geography, history, customs and mores, current politics and administration, economy and commerce, art and architecture, as well as biographical portraits of individuals.3
Empathy, however, did not exclude from time to time, as was to be expected of a conservative upper-class German and loyal subject of the Kaiser, recommending stringent measures to deal with disorderly situations. In an earlier account, for instance, of part of the 1893 journey through the Syrian desert and Mesopotamia, Oppenheim deplores the
“Räuberunwesen der Beduiner” [monstrous plundering way of life of the Bedouins] and proposes, if only as a last resort, the forceful removal of the entire Bedouin population from Mesopotamia into the Arabian desert.4 Likewise, in his dealings not with statesmen and powerful chiefs but with ordinary “natives” [“Eingeborene”], empathy does not erase a
3 In the Foreword to volume 1, dated Cairo, March, 1899, Oppenheim writes that it was not his intention to provide a simple travel account but “to portray land and people in their historical development and in their ethnographic and religious particularity. In doing so,” he goes on, “I considered myself obligated to quote, in each case, from the rich literature that deals with the history and geography of Syria and Mesopotamia and that includes, along with the works of classical Graeco-Roman and Arabic writers and modern Arab chroniclers, a whole series of older European travel accounts and numerous new scholarly works—these last scattered in not easily accessible journals.” (p. v) The names of individuals and places were given in Arabic script as well as in German. This added a touch of couleur locale—while also serving as a signal of the writer’s authority.
4 Describing the efforts of the Ottoman administration to pacify the Bedouins and get them to settle, he notes that those who do are soon preyed upon by their former friends and relatives until they resume their old ways and resort again to plunder as a way of life. “In my opinion, only one thing will work in dealing with the Bedouins,”
he writes, “and that is the deployment of force—strong garrisons manned by good regiments of men mounted on mules, camels, or horses to hold the Bedouins in check, pursue them relentlessly and punish them energetically when they exact tribute from the peasants or plunder them; and if all else fails, driving the entire Bedouin population out of Mesopotamia into the desert lands of Arabia” (Dr. Max Freiherr von Oppenheim, “Bericht über seine Reise durch die Syrische Wüste nach Mosul,” Offprint from Verhandlungen der Gesellschaft für Erdkunde zu Berlin, 1894, no. 4 [Berlin: Druck von W. Pormetter, 1894], 18 pp. [p. 12]). A version of this well written text was also published soon afterwards, in the oldest German geographical journal, Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen. Five years later, material from it was incorporated—but without the suggestions for reining in the Bedouins—into the two-volume Vom Mittelmeer zum Persischen Golf durch den Haurān und die Syrische Wüste.
certain condescension, even toward people for whose services he was genuinely grateful and of whom he seems to have been truly fond. In the monograph on Tell Halaf that he published in 1931, for instance, he pays generous tribute to his two devoted Lebanese servants, the cousins Tannus and Elias Maluf. The former, a strong, powerfully built man, was illiterate but took care of the Baron’s personal security, as well as that of the caravans and the camp, served as an invaluable intermediary and negotiator with the Bedouins, and tended his master loyally whenever the latter fell sick. Elias, a village teacher, spoke French, had a scholar’s knowledge of the Arabic language, and served as Oppenheim’s secretary in all matters concerning Arabic, providing him with meticulous records in Arabic script of place names and proper names, along with accurate European transcriptions. Yet even in Oppenheim’s touchingly affectionate portraits of the two men it is impossible not to detect a patronizing tone.5 As for the Bedouin workers he employed at the Tell Halaf site, he declared:
“So far as I possibly could, I helped the workmen and their families, and they looked on me as a father. […] They were like children and were treated as such.”6
* * *
In 1899 Oppenheim had spent “three days only” (or perhaps even only a day and a half)7 at the Tell Halaf site, partly, as he explained later, because
“we had neither the proper outfit, the time, nor any permit to carry out more detailed investigations”8 and partly also, no doubt, because he felt impelled to continue his covert prospecting for the Baghdad railway.
He was greatly excited by what he had discovered, however. It marked, in his own words, “a turning-point in my life”9 and, passing through Constantinople on his return from Syria, he sought official permission to excavate the site. The discovery and excavation of Tell Halaf was indeed to be the crowning achievement of Oppenheim’s career and one of the great achievements of modern archaeology. Two relatively short accounts of the preliminary 1899 excavations were published: the already mentioned “Bericht über eine im Jahre 1899 ausgeführte Forschungsreise
5 Tell Halaf. A New Culture in Oldest Mesopotamia (see above, ch. 6, note 6), pp. 9–10.
6 Ibid., p. 17.
7 See ch. 6, note 9 above.
8 Tell Halaf. A New Culture in Oldest Mesopotamia, p. 8.
9 Ibid., p. 7.
in der Asiatischen Türkei” [“Report on a journey of exploration in Asiatic Turkey in 1899”], which appeared in the Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Erdkunde zu Berlin [Journal of the Berlin Geographical Society] in 1901,10 and a 43-page essay Der Tell Halaf und die verschleierte Göttin [Tell Halaf and the Veiled Goddess], which appeared in 1908 in a series put out by the Berlin Vorderasiatische Gesellschaft [Near Eastern Society].11
Nevertheless, ten years elapsed after the initial discovery before Oppenheim took advantage of the authorization he had obtained from the head of the Ottoman Imperial Museums. No doubt he was fully taken up by his activities as Legationsrat [legation counsellor] in Cairo.
In 1909, however, he was advised by the Turkish government that he must act immediately on his right to excavate or forfeit it, since English and American scholars were now soliciting permission to explore the neglected site. In addition, he had received a letter, signed by eleven German colleagues in the field of Oriental studies, urging him to begin serious work at the site: “None of us can forget your lecture at the Congress of Orientalists in Copenhagen and your study of ‘Der Tell Halaf’
in the Publications of the Vorderasiatische Gesellschaft,” the letter ran. “The whole scholarly world very much hopes that you will crown the work you began a decade ago with a full-scale excavation of the site.” Oppenheim, the letter continued, was clearly the man for the job, being one of the few scholars with the means to undertake it. “The resources of the State in Germany are entirely devoted to the Babylonian excavations. The study of Hittite and Islamic culture has thus been left entirely to the initiative of private individuals. At the same time, what an honourable opportunity there is here for a person who can undertake such a project at his own expense. And the time to do so is now, for your publications have long drawn the attention of others to the riches of this site.”12 In other words,
10 Vol. 36, no. 2 (1901): 69–99.
11 Der Alte Orient, vol. 10, no. 1 (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs’sche Buchhandlung, 1908).
12 Cit. G. Teichmann, “Grenzgänger zwischen Orient und Okzident. Max von Oppenheim 1860–1946,” p. 53. The signatories included several of the most eminent scholars of the Middle East in Germany and Central Europe, e.g. C. H. Becker, Ignaz Goldziher, and Ernst Herzfeld. The letter is dated 1919 by Ludmila Hanisch (Die Nachfolger der Exegeten.
Deutschsprachige Erforschung des Vorderen Orients in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts, p. 129). However, it is unlikely that “the work begun a decade ago” refers to the extensive excavations of 1911–1913 (less than a decade before 1919), rather than the preliminary excavation of 1899, and the study referred to is clearly that of 1908. The International Congress of Orientalists also met in Copenhagen in 1908 and would thus in 1909 have been fresh in the memory of the letter-signers.
if Oppenheim does not act immediately, the glory of developing the site will almost certainly be lost to German scholarship.
Disappointment at his failure to make headway at the Auswärtiges Amt may well have combined with the pressure from the Turkish authorities and from his Orientalist colleagues to persuade Oppenheim that he should return to the work of research and exploration that had always engaged him. He himself later claimed that he did so at some sacrifice to his career, since he had been appointed to an ambassadorial position, but it is not at all clear what this position might have been. It is also possible that he was still, officially or unofficially, serving German national interests.
A report in the New York Times from the paper’s special correspondent in Cairo refers to Oppenheim’s passing through Constantinople in 1910 on an “enigmatical journey to the Khabur River and the Urfa region,”
ostensibly “to exhume the statue of a Hittite goddess on the banks of the Khabur.” The report goes on to claim that “according to Syrian advices, the real object of the Baron’s visit was to purchase the support of Arab and Kurdish tribal chiefs in the Khabur region for the Baghdad Railway Company.”13 It is equally possible, however, that this report, written after the start of the First World War and several years after the event referred to in it, simply reflects the general suspicion with which Oppenheim was regarded by the British and the French and those sympathetic to their cause.
What is certain is that on 1 November 1910, Oppenheim resigned his position at the Auswärtiges Amt and prepared to begin a thorough excavation of the site he had discovered a decade earlier. It was a very expensive operation. Oppenheim wanted his expedition to be on a par with that of Robert Koldewey at Babylon and to use the methods elaborated by Koldewey. That meant hiring architects experienced in archaeological work, transporting all the required supplies and every piece of equipment to Tell Halaf, and staying on site for an extended period of time.
“Tell Halaf is many days’ journey from the nearest towns, Der es Zor, Mardin, and Ourfa,” he related later in the substantial, well illustrated book on Tell Halaf, which Brockhaus of Leipzig brought out in 1931, and in which he gave an account of the 1911 excavation. Moreover, even these
13 New York Times, “German Intrigue in Egypt. Attempts to Weaken British Power. The Activities of Baron von Oppenheim,” 6 January 1915; report dated Cairo, 19 December 1914, p. 7.
places were capable at that time of meeting only the needs of the local Arabs:
I had to bring nearly everything needed for the excavating and for life on Tell Halaf on camel-back from Aleppo: the heavy expeditionary baggage brought with me from Europe, the scientific apparatus, the tools for digging, a field railway with twelve tip-waggons, and nearly all the materials for building the house for the expedition. […] Taken altogether, nearly 1000 camels were used for our transport from Aleppo to Tell Halaf, and for safety’s sake a road was used that needed almost twenty days for the journey.14
Finding workers was also not easy. The excavation was begun on 5 August 1911 with “a gang of ten men made up of my own servants and of Arabs.” As the local Bedouins, intimidated by the Chechens in the region and by other more powerful Bedouin tribes, were afraid to work for Oppenheim, two hundred Christian Armenians had to be hired from a nearby community, and “supplies and flour for their bread [had to be brought in] at our own cost from the villages.” They turned out to be difficult workers, especially after, “in spite of every precaution taken, the dried up walls in one of our deep trial trenches fell in, with the result that several workmen were buried and one young man was killed.” Fortunately for Oppenheim, it was possible to replace the restive Armenians with Bedouins from a nomadic tribe “not dependent on the Chechens.” “In the end we had an average of 550 Bedouins working for us.” The pay was not great and care was taken to ensure that there was no slacking off. Still, the total wages bill must have been substantial.
To each twenty workmen or so there were two foremen with pickaxes, either kinsmen of the Sheikh or especially good workers; also four or five men using mattocks, who put the earth into baskets, when it was taken away by the rest of the gang—youths, boys or girls. The workers with iron tools earned about 80 pfennig [approx. $4.00–$6.00 in 2011 currency], the other men about 60, and the boys and girls 40 pfennig a day, and had to find their own food. For these wages they had to work ten hours daily. The payment of wages for work done regularly every ten days without any deduction and in good coin had never before happened in those parts. […] In the work of excavation the men with the pickaxes first loosen up the ground, whether the object is to dig trial trenches or to lay bare a definite layer. Then come the mattock men and take it into the baskets of the women and older boys, who carry them away under the arm, on the shoulder, or on the head, and empty 14 Tell Halaf. A New Culture in Oldest Mesopotamia, p. 11.
them where they are told. […] It is then the overseer’s duty to see that the bearers do not get too little soil put in their baskets through politeness being shown to the ladies or for some like reason.15
Besides the workers, Oppenheim had engaged a team of highly skilled German professionals to accompany him on the mission. These included,
Besides the workers, Oppenheim had engaged a team of highly skilled German professionals to accompany him on the mission. These included,