Editing T. E. Lawrence (section)

==Travels, antiquities, and archaeology==
[[File:Woolley & Lawrence at Carchemish.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|[[Leonard Woolley]] (''left'') and Lawrence at the excavation of [[Carchemish]], {{circa|1912}}]]

At the age of 15, Lawrence cycled with his schoolfriend [[Cyril Beeson]] around [[Berkshire]], [[Buckinghamshire]], and [[Oxfordshire]], visiting almost every village's parish church, studying their monuments and antiquities, and making [[Brass rubbing|rubbings]] of their [[monumental brasses]].{{sfn|Beeson|1989|p=3}} Lawrence and Beeson monitored building sites in Oxford and presented the [[Ashmolean Museum]] with anything that they found.{{sfn|Beeson|1989|p=3}} The Ashmolean's ''Annual Report'' for 1906 said that the two teenage boys "by incessant watchfulness secured everything of antiquarian value which has been found."{{sfn|Beeson|1989|p=3}} In the summers of 1906 and 1907, Lawrence toured France by bicycle, sometimes with Beeson, collecting photographs, drawings, and measurements of medieval castles.{{sfn|Beeson|1989|p=3}} In August 1907, Lawrence wrote home: "The Chaignons & the [[Lamballe]] people complimented me on my wonderful French: I have been asked twice since I arrived what part of France I came from".{{sfn|Tabachnick|1984|p=222}}

From 1907 to 1910, Lawrence read history at [[Jesus College, Oxford]].{{sfn|Wilson|1989|p=42}} In July and August 1908, he cycled {{Convert|2200|mi|km|abbr=out}} solo through France to the Mediterranean and back, researching French castles.{{sfn|Wilson|1989|pp=45–51}}{{sfn|Penaud|2007}} In the summer of 1909, he set out alone on a three-month walking tour of [[List of Crusader castles|crusader castles]] in [[Ottoman Syria]], during which he travelled {{convert|1000|mi|km|abbr=out}} on foot.{{sfn|Wilson|1989|pp=57–61}} While at Jesus he was a keen member of the [[University Officers' Training Corps]] (OTC).{{sfn|Mack|1976|p=58}} He graduated with First Class Honours after submitting a thesis titled ''The Influence of the Crusades on European Military Architecture—to the End of the 12th Century'',{{sfn|Wilson|1989|p=67}} partly based on his field research with Beeson in France,{{sfn|Beeson|1989|p=3}} and his solo research in France and the Middle East.{{sfn|Allen|1991|p=29}} Lawrence was fascinated by the Middle Ages. His brother [[A. W. Lawrence|Arnold]] wrote in 1937 that "medieval researches" were a "dream way of escape from bourgeois England".{{sfn|Tabachnick|1984|p=53}}

In 1910, Lawrence was offered the opportunity to become a practising archaeologist at [[Carchemish]], in the expedition that [[David George Hogarth|D. G. Hogarth]] was setting up on behalf of the [[British Museum]].{{sfn|Wilson|1989|p=70}} Hogarth arranged a "Senior [[Demyship]]", a form of scholarship, for Lawrence at [[Magdalen College, Oxford]], to fund his work at £100 a year.{{sfn|Wilson|1989|p=73}} In December 1910, he sailed for [[Beirut]], and went to [[Byblos]] in Lebanon, where he studied Arabic.{{sfn|Wilson|1989|pp=76–77}} He then went to work on the excavations at Carchemish, near [[Jerablus]] in northern Syria, where he worked under Hogarth, [[Reginald Campbell Thompson|R. Campbell Thompson]] of the British Museum, and [[Leonard Woolley]] until 1914.{{sfn|Wilson|1989|pp=76–134}} He later stated that everything that he had accomplished, he owed to Hogarth.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://telawrence.net/telawrencenet/letters/1927/271207_d_knowles.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120211151322/http://telawrence.net/telawrencenet/letters/1927/271207_d_knowles.htm|url-status=dead|title=T. E. Lawrence letters, 1927<!-- Bot generated title -->|archive-date=11 February 2012}}</ref> Lawrence met [[Gertrude Bell]] while excavating at Carchemish.{{sfn|Wilson|1989|p=88}} In 1912, he worked briefly with [[Flinders Petrie]] at [[Tarkhan (Egypt)|Kafr Ammar]] in Egypt.{{sfn|Wilson|1989|pp=99–100}}

At Carchemish, Lawrence was involved in a high-tension relationship with a German-led team working nearby on the [[Baghdad Railway]] at Jerablus. While there was never open combat, there was regular conflict over access to land and treatment of the local workforce. Lawrence gained experience in Middle Eastern leadership practices and conflict resolution.{{sfn|Woolley|1954|pp=85-95}}

In January 1914, Woolley and Lawrence were co-opted by the British military as an archaeological smokescreen for a British military survey of the [[Negev]] desert.{{sfn|Wilson|1989|p=136|ps=: Lawrence wrote to his parents, "We are obviously only meant as red herrings to give an archaeological colour to a political job."}} They were funded by the [[Palestine Exploration Fund]] to search for an area referred to in the Bible as the [[Zin Desert|Wilderness of Zin]],{{sfn|Wilson|1989|p=153}} and they made an archaeological survey of the Negev desert along the way. The Negev was strategically important because an [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman]] army attacking Egypt would have to cross it. Woolley and Lawrence published a report of the expedition's archaeological findings,<ref>{{cite web |date=18 October 2006 |title=The Re-publication of The Wilderness of Zin |url=http://www.pef.org.uk/Pages/WildZin.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061018191000/http://www.pef.org.uk/Pages/WildZin.htm |archive-date=18 October 2006 |access-date=9 September 2012 |website=[[Palestine Exploration Fund]]}}</ref> but a more important result was their updated mapping of the area, with special attention to features of military relevance such as water sources. Lawrence also visited [[Aqaba]] and Shobek, not far from [[Petra]].<ref>{{cite web |last=Richardson |first=Nigel |date=24 October 2016 |title=Adventure in the desert on the trail of Lawrence of Arabia |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/middle-east/articles/jordan-lawrence-of-arabia-adventure/ |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220111/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/middle-east/articles/jordan-lawrence-of-arabia-adventure/ |archive-date=11 January 2022 |access-date=19 January 2020 |website=[[The Daily Telegraph|The Telegraph]]}}{{cbignore}}</ref>