T. E. Lawrence Correspondence – Page 437

To Hogarth Carchemish April 5. (1912) Got yours of March 15 a few days back, & was very relieved to hear that you approved of the scarabs. I don't suppose you will be equally pleased when you get my following letter, asking for cash in hand, since I have paid up to your limit for the things you quote as good. As a matter of fact, for two of the cylinders I made even that you would have (the Chigedeccer, & the one of the seated goddess with horned figure presenting amnufis): I liked the big one, & the black one I thought the best (bar the lionated) that I had seen OP flight nerts. I hadn't any way with me, so I don't really know how the detail works out, but I know I felt it impossible to let it go. The price was absurd, thanks to Madame Koch, & Marco.oli, but I hoped to bring it down to a reasonable average by later purchases: naturally some of these were also rather dear, and so I ran out of capital: I'm still fairly short, though not bad, thanks to Woolley's taking my Deve Huyuk stuff at post price, & giving me, and I haven't yet enough, enough to give you (yet, deleted) a fair £20 worth. The red steatite bead from Abu Gel..., on its way when I last wrote, within the man's legs and other signs, is a first class lump (and cost £2, which is cheap), as Canara now runs (and I have in hand there yet another "bulla head", with the eagle god, arrow, etc. signs, in black steatite (at 6 ..aided) which is quite tolerable: so that you will not be so badly ròoked when we square up at the end of the season. You will be interested in Deve Huyuk: the mass of stuff we have from there is defective quite (about 700 worth): 50-70 bronze bowls, fibulae in (hundreds, deleted) dozens, glazed and painted pottery, iron weapons, stone bowls, beads..... Woolley means to let the big fair figs, & you second...and even so you will be fairly satisfied, though the h. with take the 2 or 3 first class things there are. Most of the goods are quite tolerable, and in splendid condition: heaps of variety too. The latest development there is what takes me more. They have dug out the old cemetry, and tumbled on another, of cremated burials. To date they have dug out about 1200 urns, all plain & rough, containing charred bones, & about 1 in 10 a lead. The last rough bulla (the one still here) came from one of these pots, and I've also two cylinders from there.... and have get a boy agree to buy up anything he can find cheap as it is found. If the other cylinders "found" I have seen 9 or 4, for which they were asking about a pound each: and as they were very poor ones I passed them over. There is a perfect rage just now amongst the Aleppines for Antikms. There are numbers of people touring the villages buying up all they can, & running the prices