Personal Information for Theresa Goell




	Personal Information for Theresa Goell Life span: 1901 - 1985 Occupations: Educators, Historians, Scholars, Social Scientists Subjects: Science, Zionism, Archaeology, Education Biographical Information: Theresa Goell, an archaeologist best known for her work as the the director of the Nemrud Dagh excavations in southeastern Turkey. was born in New York City on July 17, 1901. She grew up in Brooklyn and spend summers at the family's house in the Catskills Mountains. After graduating from Erasmus High School in Brooklyn, Goell entered Syracuse University; she later transferred to Radcliffe College, from there she graduated, Phi Beta Kappa, in 1923. While at Radcliffe, she experienced permanent hearing loss, diagnosed as otosclerosis. She initially overcame this handicap by learning lip reading; as technology developed, she took to wearing hearing aids. During her junior year at Radcliffe she married Cyrus Levinthal; after her graduation, they both studied at Cambridge University. They had one son, Jay, and were divorced in the late 1930s or early 1940s.Having earned the equivalent standard B.A. in architecture from Cambridge in 1933-35, Goell began doing archaeological field work in Jerusalem and Gerasa, Trans-Jordan, under the auspices of the American School of Oriental Research. In Jerusalem she made drawings of ceramics and restored terra-cottas, and worked as an architectural assistant.Theresa returned to New York in the late 1930s. She did interior architectural design and display work at department stores in the Bronx and in Newark, New Jersey. During World War II she did drafting for Naval Contractors in New York City and Brooklyn. While working, she took courses in prehistoric and European art at Columbia University, 1944-45. It was Professor Hartley Lehman at New York University who suggested that she look into the heretofore little studied contents at Mt. Nimrud on the Anatolian plateau of southeastern Turkey. Her own NYU Research from this period led to her life long pursuit to excavate this site, now known as Nemrud Dagh.Goell undertook her first professional archaeological field work during 1946 to 1953; it included a position at Tarsus as the architectural and archaeological assistant the the professor of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University and work with other archaeological expeditions in Palestine, Jordan and Turkey. An active Zionist, Goell worked on numerous buildings in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.Goell's first arduous journey to Mt. Nimrud was in 1947; she returned for a second visit in 1951. Little was known about this site before she began excavations there in 1953. The Bollingen Foundation and the National Geographic Society supported the excavation; in March 1961 The National Geographic published an article about Nemrud Dagh and later the National Geographic Society produced a film about it. Goell became the Director of Excavations at Samosata, the city of Antiochus I of Commagene.In 1973, on the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Turkish Republic, the Cultural Ministry of Turkey awarded Goell in recognition of her contributions to Anatolian culture and art.She died in New York City in 1985, after a long illness. Related Collections (2) Related Resources (1) Related Collections Theresa Goell Papers Oral History Collection of Columbia University Related Resources Oral Histories Oral History Collection of Columbia University - Reminiscences of Theresa Goell How to Cite This Page For a bibliography: Jewish Women's Archive. "Personal Information for Theresa Goell." <http://jwa.org/archive/jsp/perInfo.jsp?personID=694>. For a footnote: Jewish Women's Archive, "Personal Information for Theresa Goell," <http://jwa.org/archive/jsp/perInfo.jsp?personID=694>.