Theresa Bathsheba Goell (July 17, 1901 – December 18, 1985) was an American archaeologist, best known for directing excavations at Nemrud Dagh in south-eastern Turkey. Born in New York, she earned a BA at Radcliffe College, then graduated from Newnham College, Cambridge, and later studied at New York and Columbia Universities in New York.
Goell travelled to the Middle East in the 1930s, working with archaeologists in Jerusalem and Gerasa, before returning to New York. She returned to the Middle East after the Second World War, and in 1947 visited Nemrud Dagh for the first time; excavations there would become her life's work. Goell was involved in excavations at a number of other Middle Eastern sites over the course of her career, including at Tarsus and Samosata. Goell's work in Turkey "nearly single-handedly opened up ancient Commagene to the world".
Early life and education
Theresa Goell was born in New York, on 17 July 1901. Her parents, Jacob and Mary Samowitz Goell, were middle-class Jews who had emigrated to the US from Russia. Goell was the second of three children; her sister, Eva, would with her husband Philip Godfrey financially support Goell's career, while her brother, Kermit, would go on to work on digs with her.
Goell was raised in Brooklyn and studied at Erasmus High School; after graduation, she studied for two years at Syracuse University before moving to Radcliffe College, where she earned a B.A., majoring in philosophy and social ethics. While at Radcliffe, Goell met and married Cyrus Levinthal. Levinthal was the brother of the Goell family's rabbi and the match had been encouraged by Goell's father. While still studying at Radcliffe, Goell had a son, Jay. Also during her studies she began to lose her hearing due to otosclerosis and learned to lip-read in compensation.
In 1926, Goell and her husband both moved to England and enrolled at Cambridge University; Goell studied art history, architecture, and archaeology at Newnham College, and achieved the equivalent of a B.A. in architecture (it was not until 1948 that women were permitted to become full members of the university and be granted degrees).
Early work
By 1932, Goell and Levinthal had divorced. In the spring of 1933, Goell went to Jerusalem and began to work for the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR), drawing pottery for William F. Albright and Aage Schmidt, and doing general drawing for William Stinespring. She continued to work under ASOR in Jerusalem in 1934, taking on more work from the expedition at Gerasa, including working on the reconstruction of finds from the dig. Goell's work in Palestine also included contemporary architecture, and she was involved in the design of more than 200 buildings in cities such as Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem. Goell's designs featured modernist styles resembling mansions in Brooklyn.
In 1935, Goell returned to New York, and began to study at the New York University School of Fine and Applied Arts, believing that improving her drawing skills was necessary for her continued career in archaeology. For two years she was unable to obtain any further work in the field, and worked as an architectural and window display designer for a department store in New York and New Jersey.
In 1938 she enrolled at the Institute of Fine Arts in New York University, studying for a master's degree with Karl Leo Heinrich Lehmann as her advisor. Her thesis was to be on the relationship between Palmyrene sculpture and the sculpture of the Roman near east. It was while studying there that Lehmann first suggested to Goell that she should explore Nemrud Dagh, the excavations of which were to become her life's work. Goell continued to study at the Institute for Fine Arts and at Columbia until 1945. During the Second World War, she also worked to contribute to the American war effort, working as a draftswoman for various engineering firms under contract to the US Navy, which interrupted her studies.
Nemrud Dagh
After the war, Goell travelled to Tarsus in southern Turkey, having been invited by Hetty Goldman; she spent the next few months working on the excavations there. She continued to work on the excavations at Tarsus until 1953, and due to Goldman's illness, ended up supervising the dig and overseeing the writing up of the results.