James Leslie Starkey

James Leslie Starkey (3 January 1895 – 10 January 1938) was a noted British archaeologist of the ancient Near East and Palestine in the period before the Second World War. The chief excavator of the first archaeological expedition to the important site of Lachish (Tell ed-Duweir) from 1932, Starkey was robbed and killed by Arab bandits near Bayt Jibrin on a track leading from Bayt Jibrin to Hebron. Issa Battat, a rebel commander from the ad-Dhahiriya area who led a rebel unit during the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine against the British, was held responsible by the British authorities for Starkey's killing. Battat was later killed in an ambush by British forces in May 1938. Starkey is buried in Protestant Cemetery on Mount Zion, Jerusalem.