Archaeological ProspectionArchaeol. Prospect. 9, 43–44 (2002)Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/arp.178

Obituary

Professor Edward Hall

Professor Edward (Teddy) Hall, who died on11 August 2001, was one of the pioneers inthe establishment of the practice of archaeom-etry—the application of the physical sciences toproblems of archaeology. The name Archaeome-try also became identified with the house journalof the Oxford University Research Laboratoryfor Archaeology and the History of Art foundedby Professor Hall in collaboration with ProfessorMartin Aitken.

All aspects of physics applied to archaeologyfell within Hall’s orbit of interests. Educated atEton and New College, Oxford, he specializedin science and took a PhD in X-ray fluorescencespectroscopy, an aspect of analysis that provedfruitful to him over many years in the study of awide range of artefacts. Early in his scientificcareer he contributed to the proof that thePiltdown skull was a forgery. Much later, in 1988,following his campaign for an accelerator 14Cdating laboratory at Oxford, he joined perhaps themost famous dating controversy, that of the Turinshroud. Hall produced a date no earlier than themid-thirteenth century AD for linen specimensfrom the shroud, thus adding to the mystery ofits origin.

Although Teddy Hall’s role in the activitiesof the dating Laboratory became less prominentover the years, he remained a linchpin in itsprogress and, through his manufacturing com-pany, Littlemore Scientific Engineering, made‘firsts’ of a range of analytical and, significantly,geophysical equipment. It is in this second cat-egory of advance that his name will live on inarchaeological prospection.

In January 1958 Teddy Hall and Martin Aitkenvisited the Signals Research and DevelopmentEstablishment in Hampshire, UK, to discuss thephenomenon of proton free-precession, whichhad been examined by the military as a means of

detection of mines and other buried objects. Ontheir return to Oxford they set about building aprototype magnetometer for use in archaeologyand, after eight weeks, undertook their firstsurvey at a Roman city site near Water Newton,UK. After some set-backs, including freezing ofthe water used in the sensor, the team successfullylocated a pottery kiln at a depth of 40 inches givinga signal of a 100 gamma (nT). This was the first ofvery many successful such surveys in the yearsthat followed. Hall carried out an investigationto find the most appropriate fluid for sensorsand manufactured several versions of the ELSECproton magnetometer for aerial, terrestrial andunderwater use. The last of these instrumentsprompted him to develop an associated sonarposition-fixing instrument.

The Littlemore fluxgate gradiometer had itsorigins in tests carried out in 1961 by MichaelTite, now Director of the Oxford Laboratory,of a ‘military’ instrument on an archaeologicalsite. Its promise led to a prototype demonstratedby another Oxford student, John Aldred, andthen the Hall-inspired Littlemore instrumentdeveloped by Geoff Bartington. This gradiometer,with 1-m sensor separation, arguably inspiredgenerations of such instruments.

The concept of a pulsed induction electro-magnetic detector (PIM) for archaeological useappeared in papers by Collani and Aitken in1966. Once again Hall promoted the develop-ment, by Eric Foster, of the commercial produc-tion of the DECCO field system, for either landor underwater use, utilizing the full capabilityof magnetic or conductive sensing with strikingresults.

It may justifiably be stated that Teddy Hall wasin at the birth of the most significant advancesin magnetic and electromagnetic geophysicaldetection methods for archaeology and in thiscontext alone his contribution to archaeometryis memorable. His qualities have not gone

Copyright 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

44 Obituary

unrecognized. He was a trustee of the BritishMuseum and the Science Museum and advisorto the Science Research Council and EnglishHeritage. He became a Fellow of the BritishAcademy in 1984 and appointed a CBE in1988. There is now an Edward Hall Chair in

Archaeological Science at Oxford. This cheerful,generous, but extremely shrewd man of highscientific prowess will long be remembered by allwho had the privilege of knowing him.

Arnold Aspinall

Copyright 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Archaeol. Prospect. 9, 43–44 (2002)