Invisible Excavators: The Quftis of Megiddo, 1925–1939 Eric H. Cline Department of Classical and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, George Washington University, Washington DC, USA ABSTRACT The staff members from the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago who oversaw the excavations at Megiddo relied upon skilled Egyptian workmen (Quftis) as well as local labourers during their excavations from 1925–1939. However, although there were more than fifty of these Egyptian workmen in all, only a few are mentioned in the preliminary and final publications produced by the project. They are what Stephen Quirke has called ‘hidden hands’ on excavations; an example of ‘invisible labor’, as discussed by anthropologists and sociologists. In any effort to reconstruct the lives and labours of these men, we are now at the mercy of what can be found in various archival sources. Data must be gleaned from, for example, requests for half-price railway vouchers for travel between Kantara and Haifa for specific workmen each season; field diary entries; black and white photographs; and occasional mentions in budgets or in passing within letters sent back and forth between Megiddo and Chicago. Still, from this fragmentary information, we can piece together a picture of these unsung members of the expedition, some of whom were present at Megiddo for more seasons than the ever-rotating members of the Chicago staff themselves. KEYWORDS Megiddo; Quftis; British Mandate Palestine; excavations; Oriental Institute Introduction In a letter to James Henry Breasted, Director of the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, dated 29 May 1926, Clarence S. Fisher wrote, I have been overwhelmed with the mass of pottery coming in and am about a week behind in getting them recorded. Ali has been working hard at washing and fitting them together and three local boys are in training as helps [sic] to him. Our courtyard is now filled with labelled baskets waiting their turn to be sorted out and repaired. 1 Fisher and his small team of American excavators were at the site of Megiddo (Tell el- Mutesellim), perhaps better known to the general populace as biblical Armageddon, located in what was then British Mandate Palestine. They were the second of the four expeditions that have excavated at the site: Gottlieb Schumacher had dug there from 1903–1905; the Chicago team was there from 1925–1939; Yigael Yadin excavated for a few seasons in the 1960s and 1970s; and the Tel Aviv University Consortium has been digging at the site since 1994, with an initial trial season in 1992. © Palestine Exploration Fund 2022 CONTACT Eric H. Cline ehcline@gwu.edu PALESTINE EXPLORATION QUARTERLY https://doi.org/10.1080/00310328.2022.2050085 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 YPEQ2050085 Techset Composition India (P) Ltd., Bangalore and Chennai, India 3/4/2022