Katharine Elizabeth, Lady Woolley (née Menke; June 1888 – 8 November 1945) was a spy, British military nurse and archaeologist who worked principally at the Mesopotamian site of Ur.

[1] On 3 March 1919, she married Lieutenant Colonel Bertram Keeling, the Director-General of the Survey of Egypt and the President of the Cotton Research Board[2][3] but he committed suicide by gunshot at the foot of the Great Pyramid of Giza on 20 September 1919.

Some have suggested that it was during a temporary fit of insanity due to the discovery that Katharine had Androgen insensitivity syndrome and would be unable to have children.

[5][6] Reports mention that after Katharine fell ill one day, the doctor met with Colonel Keeling for 20 minutes, and after this point he committed suicide in the Giza desert.

[6] With androgen insensitivity syndrome, patients do not have uteruses or menstruate, and if untreated may find sexual intercourse quite painful.

"[5] To this Woolley responded, "...I do think that the presence of a lady [Katharine] has a good moral effect on the younger fellows in the camp & keeps them up to standard.

[6] Though this situation must have been acceptable to Leonard for some time, in 1929 he sent his attorney a letter requesting divorce papers for Katharine on the grounds of her refusal to consummate the union.

[5] Her obituary on 12 November 1945 in The Times reads, Katharine Woolley was an archaeologist, like her husband, and shared with him the work of excavation at Ur of the Chaldees, at Al Mina, on the North Syrian coast, and at Atchana (Alalakh), in the Hatay, until the outbreak of war.

In spite of illness, constant pain, and growing weakness, she carried on her work there until two days before her death, which came on November 8.

Men and women of many Eastern European countries, refugees after the last war, have reason to remember her sympathy and her vitality.

In 1924, her work as a nurse brought her to Baghdad, where she stayed with the Director of the Iraq State Railways, Lieutenant Colonel J.R. Tainsch and his wife.

[6] Queen Puabi's headdress was one of the most opulent findings at Ur and has proved crucial to understanding royal life in ancient Mesopotamia.

The unfavourable opinions of her were perhaps due to her role as an authoritative woman, serving as Ur's excavation leader in its final year in 1931.

People have been divided always between disliking her with a fierce and vengeful hatred, and being entranced by her possibly because she switched from one mood to another so easily that you never knew where you were with her.

Of one thing I am quite positive, and that is if one had to choose one woman to be a companion on a desert island, or some place where you would have no one else to entertain you, she would hold your interest as practically no one else could.

[1] However, Mallowan noted that Katharine "...had the power of entrancing those associated with her when she was in the mood or on the contrary of creating a charged poisonous atmosphere; to live with her was to walk on a tightrope.

But an account by author Henrietta McCall notes that Agatha Christie felt that Mallowan was too close with Katharine, and that he had a liking for her.