T. E. Lawrence Correspondence – Page 648

To Florence Meesham Carchemish Dec. 20. 1913 Dear Florence I have not written to you this year yet ... I think it is about time now! We have had a very good season's digging this autumn; began on October 1, and stopped early this month; with about 200 men working. We found a great gateway, with long walls leading up to it, all lined with great carved slabs of black and white stone ... a king and his children; men with drums and trumpets, and men dancing; a goddess at the head of a long procession of priests and priestesses, carrying corn and mirrors and fruit, and gazelles .... then a great base of two lions, holding up on their backs a great statue of a sitting on a stone chair, and holding a club; behind him the gateway, with very long inscriptions in Hittite (which of course we cannot read) and inside the house more sculptures; ... here not cleared inside the house yet; that will be done in the spring. It must be a great temple, or the palace of the king. It seems a good deal bigger than a college. Tomorrow we are leaving here (it is too cold & wet for pleasure) and going South, below Jerusalem, to help some Royal Engineers who are making a map of part of the desert. It will be warm down there, and sunny; which will be pleasant after our snow & frost up here. .N.