Ingholt’s excavation diaries are a rich resource on the Palmyrene funerary sphere. At the same time, they offer a unique insight into the daily life during fieldwork in Palmyra in the 1920s. Ingholt did not strictly distinguish between archaeological discoveries and his descriptions of daily life or his thoughts on events at the site. Instead, the diaries offer an interesting view on both the conducted fieldwork and Ingholt’s relationships with the workers and people visiting the site. The diaries also contain anecdotes that reflect Ingholt as a western scholar who was deeply involved in the local situation.
Little is mentioned about the actual excavation techniques applied in Ingholt’s fieldwork, and there is no comprehensive overview of each day’s workload or the involved workforce. Instead, single individuals and the graves they worked in are mentioned regularly. The men mentioned are most likely the foremen who supervised the work of other workers in each grave, as it was common then. None of the fieldwork conducted would have been possible without the locals hired to excavate, and it is important to acknowledge that there is little to no credit given to the locals, which reflects the colonialist background of the western scholars involved in such digs.
A list of participating workers can be found at the end of the diary from 1924, but it is not clear if this is a complete list or whether Ingholt kept other documentation of the workers. It is thus unknown how many people were employed each year or whether people were rehired in the next season. The issue gets even trickier because we only have data from the diaries and there are no names assigned to the photographs there that would allow us to identify the workers. Furthermore, there are names that appear throughout the diaries but which are spelled differently each time. The question remains whether these are different individuals or whether Ingholt changed the spelling of their names, which is something he often did, as it is evident from his notes on his archive sheets as well. This issue is further complicated by the difficulties in transcribing Ingholt’s handwriting: a form of interpretation in itself which might influence the spelling of names and their comparability.
The above-mentioned account lists the workers’ pay in piasters, the currency used in Syria during this time. From the list and payment information, it seems that the workers were paid nine piasters per day, because most of the amounts mentioned can be multiplied by nine. The payment was sometimes higher if the workers unearthed objects. It is unclear how long a workday was, but an early start can be assumed, as he mentions people starting to excavate at 6 am and 6.30 am in diary 2 (1925).
As was common practice at excavations in the Near East around that time, Ingholt paid his workers for finds they would unearth and bring to him. This was done in order to prevent the workers from selling the objects elsewhere; the prices Ingholt offered must thus have been as high as or higher than what an art dealer would have paid. He also paid people for finds that did not necessarily stem from the excavation. Smaller objects, like the tesserae (small clay tokens), he bought on the streets of Palmyra. Occasionally, he also mentions the purchase of larger objects, for example a loculus relief of a young woman with a Roman hairstyle that he purchased on 13 April 1924. The relief is today in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen.
Ingholt describes his relationships with the local workers as very deep. One example is the rather detailed scene about a boy who was brought to the excavation by his father, one of Ingholt’s workers. The boy then ‘played excavation next to his father’ (diary from 1925) and Ingholt gave him a biscuit. In the diary from 1925, he mentions that one of his foremen asked him to marry his daughter and bring his parents to Syria, so he would never leave. He, in his own words, was even threatened to be shot if he considered leaving Palmyra.
Disputes were not uncommon, whether they were verbalized in person or not. The latter is often the case when Ingholt had to show tourists or military officials around the site. ‘Lord have mercy. Dragged tourists round the place’, he wrote on 6 May 1924. He was particularly upset whenever people did not thank him for his efforts. Disputes between his workers were also mentioned. In one instance, two workers fought because one of them wanted to marry the other’s sister. As the girl was only 15 years old, the request was denied, and the man got angry and asked Ingholt to fire his co-worker.
