Stark first visited the Hadhramaut, on the southeastern coast of Arabia, in 1935, and returned in 1937-8 with Gertrude Caton-Thompson for an archaeological expedition sponsored by the RGS and Lord Wakefield. According to her ODNB entry, “While others worked diligently Stark mostly stayed in bed, and the partnership ended acrimoniously. Stark returned on her own, riding a camel through the desert”. The results of the expedition appeared in the RGS, but Stark was invited to lecture on the subject at the Royal Asiatic Society, and she chose as her topic the ancient inscriptions discovered in the Hadhramaut.