82 years ago on 10 January 1938, the archaeologist James Starkey was killed in an ambush by Arab rebels while he was on his way to Jerusalem for the opening ceremony of the new Museum of Archaeology known today as Museum Rockefeller. At the start of his career, he had assisted the archaeologist Flinders Petrie in several digs in Egypt and later moved to Palestine in 1926 for the PEF (Palestine Exploration Fund).
In 1932, he obtained his first dig as a director, at Tell ed-Duweir, identified with the Biblical Lachish. He led the excavations there until his death in 1936.