Hammoudi ibn Ibrahim

Hammoudi ibn Ibrahim was an Arab archaeological foreman who managed workers at major excavations in the Middle East during the first three decades of the twentieth century. He worked closely with noted British archaeologists T.E. Lawrence, Leonard Woolley, Katharine Woolley, and Max Mallowan. Mallowan's wife, Agatha Christie, also participated in excavations and wrote about Hammoudi in her memoirs. Among the sites he managed, coordinating workforces of dozens or even hundreds of local workers, are Carchemish, on the border of Turkey and Syria; Ur, in southern Iraq; Tell Atchana, the site of a Bronze Age city state called Alalakh, in the Hatay province of Turkey; and Chagar Bazar and Tell Brak in Syria. In the 1940s, Sheikh Hammoudi became an elected member of the Syrian Parliament. For his service to British interests during World War II, Hammoudi in 1949 won the King's Medal for Service in the Cause of Freedom (KMS).