By Wendy Slaninka (Granddaughter of James Leslie Starkey & Marjorie Starkey by their daughter Mary)
The Lachish Emblem. Image: W. Slaninka.
Caitlin O’Grady’s post ‘Sticking, Mending and Restoring: the conservator’s role in archaeology’, has inspired me to write a few more words. I refer particularly to the footage of the lady repairing pots which Caitlin believes may be my Great Aunt Olive Starkey. I am grateful to her for creating Auntie’s first ‘outing’ and for showing her contributions to archaeology.
On looking at the footage I too believe it may be her, although as Caitlin says, all we see is a pair of hands (wearing a pretty bracelet) but they do look like her arms! Olive never went to Lachich (Tell Duweir) - with my detective hat on I believe this sequence may have been filmed in London. One of the photos below shows Olive wearing an overall and working on an object in a box next to a window – very similar to the footage which also shows what look like overall sleeves rolled up.
I would love to believe it is her, and thought the following additional personal and family information about her and her work may also be of interest as an addition to Caitlin’s post and film clip.
Caitlin refers to women "helping out" in the background of archaeology and I am glad to write this tribute to Olive as she was certainly one of the unsung Ladies of Lachish.
On looking at the footage I too believe it may be her, although as Caitlin says, all we see is a pair of hands (wearing a pretty bracelet) but they do look like her arms! Olive never went to Lachich (Tell Duweir) - with my detective hat on I believe this sequence may have been filmed in London. One of the photos below shows Olive wearing an overall and working on an object in a box next to a window – very similar to the footage which also shows what look like overall sleeves rolled up.
I would love to believe it is her, and thought the following additional personal and family information about her and her work may also be of interest as an addition to Caitlin’s post and film clip.
Caitlin refers to women "helping out" in the background of archaeology and I am glad to write this tribute to Olive as she was certainly one of the unsung Ladies of Lachish.
Leslie Starkey, standing next to his Father. Olive is sitting on her Mother’s lap, and eldest stepsister Louie behind. Image: W. Slaninka.
Olive Norah Starkey – my great Aunt - was born in Stoke Newington, Hackney, London in January 1896, younger sister of James Leslie Starkey, archaeologist, and Director of Lachish 1931-1938.
Her father was an Architect and Surveyor (James Starkey of St. Luke’s and Highbury), The Starkeys hailed from London and the family tree dates back to Roger Starkey, Mercer of London, who was granted a coat of arms in 1543 under the reign of King Henry VIII.
Her father was an Architect and Surveyor (James Starkey of St. Luke’s and Highbury), The Starkeys hailed from London and the family tree dates back to Roger Starkey, Mercer of London, who was granted a coat of arms in 1543 under the reign of King Henry VIII.
Homo proponit, sed Deus disponit Man Proposes, but God Disposes. Image: W. Slaninka.
According to Auntie Olive’s family tree, it is also strongly believed that our ancestor Edward Hoare, born 1760, Hever Castle, is a descendant of the famous Hoare family, including Sir Richard Colt Hoare, distinguished archaeologist in Wiltshire, who excavated Stonehenge.
Olive and Leslie were children by their father’s second marriage in 1894 to the widow Louisa Brown (nee Pike) of Holloway. Their elder halfsisters, Louie and Eva Brown, were their Mother’s children from her first marriage Mr. Starkey had no children with his first wife Isabella who died in 1892.
Olive and Leslie were children by their father’s second marriage in 1894 to the widow Louisa Brown (nee Pike) of Holloway. Their elder halfsisters, Louie and Eva Brown, were their Mother’s children from her first marriage Mr. Starkey had no children with his first wife Isabella who died in 1892.
Olive with her brother Leslie. Image: W. Slaninka.
By the time she left school her father was quite elderly, and her mother unwell and she devoted her time to caring for them both until she was 30. She was a homebody and was a loving and loyal daughter, subsequently spending much of her life at home, and sadly never married.
Olive is the first lady on the right – far left is Madge, her brother Leslie’s fiancée. I think they are holding a kitten or two – Olive loved cats (the Starkey family clock is still on our mantelpiece). Image: W. Slaninka.
She was a refined, happy, kind, affectionate and gentle lady, and very individual with a sense of fun. She was very sociable and her nephew John (Leslie’s son) remembers her hosting sumptious tea parties with guests from her wide and interesting circle of friends. (There are many wonderful old photos of people in her collection – some undoubtedly family, but most unfortunately unknown to us.) I too remember, as a young teenager on visits in the late 60s - mid 70s, her entertaining us with intriguing parlour games and reading our tealeaves!
She unfortunately needed corrective glasses for a ‘wonky eye’ (strabismus) – but this never held her back or interfered with her ability to carry out fine work, and indeed she helped her brother-in-law (husband of her halfsister Eva) in his jewellery business carrying out repairs (we have a work-box with all her instruments, and full of beads, semi-precious stones, amethyst beads, seed pearls, etc. etc. and all sorts of accoutrements of the trade, and it is likely she also worked on the beautiful Lachish necklaces. Eventually she moved to a house in Grosvenor Gardens, London which she shared with some other ladies.
She was intensely proud of her brother Leslie and wholeheartedly supported his work by painstakingly repairing, reconstructing and restoring the pots and decorated vessels which formed the collection from Lachish and had been sent back to the UK.
The pot being mended in Caitlin’s clip is definitely from Lachish; the finished article was a polychrome vase of about 1550 BC with figures of an ibex and fish one side and an ibex and bird the other side which was part of the expedition exhibitions of the 1930s and is now in the British Museum.
She was intensely proud of her brother Leslie and wholeheartedly supported his work by painstakingly repairing, reconstructing and restoring the pots and decorated vessels which formed the collection from Lachish and had been sent back to the UK.
The pot being mended in Caitlin’s clip is definitely from Lachish; the finished article was a polychrome vase of about 1550 BC with figures of an ibex and fish one side and an ibex and bird the other side which was part of the expedition exhibitions of the 1930s and is now in the British Museum.
Much of this work was done at the Institute of Archaeology in Regent’s Park, where later she also taught students how to conserve the artefacts from Lachish and other sites.
Institute of Archaeology, Regent’s Park (the front of their printed Christmas card which she sent to the family at that time). Image: W. Slaninka.
Many of the Lachish pots can be seen at the British Museum in their Levant Section, Gallery 57, which also houses the Lachish Ewer, the pot which inspired the Lachish Emblem, and the above pot shown in the clip.
In March 2007, an exhibition called A Future for the Past was organised by the Institute of Archaeology in London on Sir Flinders Petrie and his work in Palestine. This naturally included finds by Starkey and we recognised Olive’s distinctive handwriting on the description cards in the displays.
Olive (right) at the Institute of Archaeology. Image: W. Slaninka.
However Olive was also renowned for her fine work in embroidery and needlework, winning competitions for Fancy Needlework Illustrated and The Needlewoman, and she belonged to various Ladies Societies, including The Ladies Work Society. I have a letter from a lady she made a lace tray cloth for saying "it is the most magnificent cloth I have ever seen" and also a template Olive had prepared for a lace collar very much like the one her stepsister Louie is wearing in the first photo above.
When the Emblem for Lachish was picked she made the Lachish Banner which was flown in the camp in Palestine. John had kept the Banner with him for over fifty years at his home in Canada and at the memorial service held in Jerusalem for his father in 1988 he presented it to Prof. David Ussishkin.
When the Emblem for Lachish was picked she made the Lachish Banner which was flown in the camp in Palestine. John had kept the Banner with him for over fifty years at his home in Canada and at the memorial service held in Jerusalem for his father in 1988 he presented it to Prof. David Ussishkin.
Olive’s embroidered banner. The background is fawn in colour with dark brown threads for the embroidery, 32” wide. Image: W. Slaninka.
It now resides in the Megiddo Museum at Tel Aviv University. Ussishkin adopted the Lachish emblem too for the covers of his renewed excavation reports on Lachish.
The design for the Lachish emblem was based on a painted potsherd - The Lachish Ewer – chosen by Sir Henry Wellcome himself. Olga Tuffnell told Mary (Leslie’s daughter) that she did many drafts before Sir Henry was satisfied with the result and It became the emblem of the expedition, appearing on all notepaper and allied paperwork, advertising and publications.
The design for the Lachish emblem was based on a painted potsherd - The Lachish Ewer – chosen by Sir Henry Wellcome himself. Olga Tuffnell told Mary (Leslie’s daughter) that she did many drafts before Sir Henry was satisfied with the result and It became the emblem of the expedition, appearing on all notepaper and allied paperwork, advertising and publications.
It shows rams or ibexes stretching up to a palm tree (the tree of life), together with a suckling animal, and was inspired from a drawing on the Ewer - the original inscription on the ewer is roughly translated as ‘gift to my lady (goddess)’.
Olive also crocheted a lace tray mat as a gift to her brother based on the same design – both the Mat and its detailed template which she made are now with me.
Olive’s lace tray mat, 20” wide. Note my error: the mat is back to front! Image: W. Slaninka.
Tragically Leslie was senselessly murdered in Palestine on 10th January 1938 on the Hebron Road travelling to Jerusalem for the grand opening of the Rockefeller Museum which was also going to showcase his work at Lachish. He was buried on Mount Zion the next day. Olive accompanied Leslie's wife Madge and son John to his memorial service on 18th January at St. Margaret’s Church, Westminster (nestled next to Westminster Cathedral) – there were over 550 people in attendance!
Olive was deeply affected by his death, but her love for her brother was such that she was determined to bring his work to fruition.
She tirelessly worked with Olga Tufnell after the war to bring the Lachish Books II, III and IV to completion - in between her A.R.P. work!* An article on Olive and Olga's work appeared in The Evening Standard in June 1940 entitled ‘‘Palestine Excavation Goes on – Two women direct it from London".
Olga always thanked Olive in the Lachish acknowledgements. For example, in Book II she wrote:
"Miss Olive Starkey has been at work on the repair and reconstruction of pottery since 1933 and has built up from sherds several hundred pots, including many fine decorated vessels which now make worthy additions to the museum collection. She has continued this task all year round and through her perseverance and skill has surmounted many technical difficulties."
In Book III Olga stated: "... and it is due to her great care and technical ability that the vessels are now fully restored". And in the final volume, Olga highlighted Olive's ‘deep and personal interest in the repair and reconstruction of several hundred pots’. Olive worked unstintingly with Olga until the final production of the last volume (in 1954). She had dedicated at least 21 years to this end.
I don’t know the origins of how she got into the business of sticking pots together (though we believe Leslie may have procured the job at the Institute for her when he became Director of Lachish) but I feel she must have been doing it before this even when Leslie worked for Petrie as her handwriting is on description cards in the Petrie collection too. She obviously had an eye for fine detail, and it also meant she was a godsend to the family when they had chinaware disasters! - her repairs were almost impossible to detect.
Olive’s eyesight had begun to deteriorate and she eventually retired to a Hotel in Folkestone for gentle folks – aptly named St. Olave’s!
Olive was deeply affected by his death, but her love for her brother was such that she was determined to bring his work to fruition.
She tirelessly worked with Olga Tufnell after the war to bring the Lachish Books II, III and IV to completion - in between her A.R.P. work!* An article on Olive and Olga's work appeared in The Evening Standard in June 1940 entitled ‘‘Palestine Excavation Goes on – Two women direct it from London".
Olga always thanked Olive in the Lachish acknowledgements. For example, in Book II she wrote:
"Miss Olive Starkey has been at work on the repair and reconstruction of pottery since 1933 and has built up from sherds several hundred pots, including many fine decorated vessels which now make worthy additions to the museum collection. She has continued this task all year round and through her perseverance and skill has surmounted many technical difficulties."
In Book III Olga stated: "... and it is due to her great care and technical ability that the vessels are now fully restored". And in the final volume, Olga highlighted Olive's ‘deep and personal interest in the repair and reconstruction of several hundred pots’. Olive worked unstintingly with Olga until the final production of the last volume (in 1954). She had dedicated at least 21 years to this end.
I don’t know the origins of how she got into the business of sticking pots together (though we believe Leslie may have procured the job at the Institute for her when he became Director of Lachish) but I feel she must have been doing it before this even when Leslie worked for Petrie as her handwriting is on description cards in the Petrie collection too. She obviously had an eye for fine detail, and it also meant she was a godsend to the family when they had chinaware disasters! - her repairs were almost impossible to detect.
Olive’s eyesight had begun to deteriorate and she eventually retired to a Hotel in Folkestone for gentle folks – aptly named St. Olave’s!
Olive in Folkestone (looking a little like The Queen!) Image: W. Slaninka.
I remember visiting her there and she proudly showing me her pristine set of the Lachish Books in the bookcase of the guest lounge.
She passed away December 1977, aged 81.
And ending on a more amusing note:
She passed away December 1977, aged 81.
And ending on a more amusing note:
One of Olive’s beloved cats in a pot! Image: W. Slaninka.
*Air Raid Precautions – Civil Defence Service which encompassed a variety of roles
RSS Feed
