Correspondence between Schaeffer and Braidwood on the visit to Schaeffer's excavation of Robert Dyson, a student of BraidwoodClaude Frédéric-Armand Schaeffer and Robert J Braidwood

Printed: THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

Printed: CHICAGO 37, ILLINOIS

Printed: THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE

Printed: 1155 EAST FIFTY-SEVENTH STREET

December 17, 1952

M. Claude F.-A. Schaeffer La Rue Tornot-le-Bethel Blanc St.-Germain-en-Laye, S. et O. France

Dear Schaeffer:

This is on behalf of Mr. Robert Dyson, a graduate student in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University with advanced standing in Near Eastern archaeology. I first met Dyson as a young undergraduate during my lectureship at Harvard in 1949, and I have watched his development with considerable interest since that time.

At present Dyson holds a fellowship in the Harvard Society of Fellows, which is for broad pre-doctoral training, and he plans to utilize the second year of this fellowship for travel and sojourn ability in the Near East, beginning July 1, 1953. His travel and individual expenses will be borne by the Society of Fellows.

What I am anxious to help Dyson arrange is a succession of one-month to six-week residences on the excavations of the various colleagues who will be at work in the Near East during the 1953-54 season. Dyson could come to you--at his own expense--and would be most willing to undertake any sort of work you might need for a period of 1 month to six weeks. In return, he would expect only that his food and lodging be provided by you.

Dyson has had a fair field training in archaeology only in the New World, and a short ethnological-archaeological survey done in the Balkans desert in 1951. On the other hand, this training in Near Eastern archaeology at Harvard has been well-directed and complete, and I have seen one of his classes (on the chronological development of major cultural traits in the Near East, 9000-2500 B.C., and on the Stone occurrences of animal remains and plants) which are most useful and encyclopaedic in scope. He is personally very pleasant, and I'm convinced he would make a good useful addition to any expedition.

If you are interested in this further experiment in a sort of residence internship in Near Eastern field archaeology, which was first tried on an international basis in 1950-51 with Mr. Cornelius Hillen of Rotterdam, please let me know--or write directly to Mr. Robert Dyson, Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge 38, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

Sincerely yours,

Handwritten: signature

Robert J. Braidwood