Dahoum

Who was Dahoum?

Selim Ahmed also called "Dahoum", meaning "little dark one", was a Syrian Arab boy who worked with T. E. Lawrence at a pre-war archaeological dig at Carchemish. They met when Ahmed was twelve while Lawrence was working as an archaeologist at Carchemish, where Ahmed had been hired as a water boy. Lawrence employed Dahoum as an assistant, sending him to investigate Deve Huyuk, a village between Carchemish and Aleppo, where an early grave site had been discovered. Ahmed learned English and mathematics from Lawrence, and taught him Arabic in exchange. In June 1914, Lawrence left Dahoum as custodian at the Carchemish site to return to England and participate in the war effort. Upon his return to Syria in 1918, he discovered Dahoum had succumbed to typhus in 1916.