Egyptology through women's eyes: a new book by Kathleen Sheppard

 Women in the Valley of the Kings

By Kathleen Sheppard

This history will delight not only women interested in Egyptology or Victorian women travelers, but those in favour of women's emancipation, anyone examining Victorian-era same-sex relationships, and fans of the Amelia Peabody novels by Elizabeth Peters. That last group already know the series’ heroine was named for, and inspired by, Amelia B. Edwards, whose early impact on the study and preservation of Egyptian antiquities cannot be overstated. Amelia P even sails the Nile in a dahabiyeh named for the one rented by Amelia B a few decades earlier (The Philae).

The book will also infuriate many with its detailed account of myriad ways in which the female fore-sisters of modern Egyptology were overlooked, silenced, ignored, and written out of the official records even when their record-keeping was used as primary sources by male Egyptologists and their wealthy patrons for fame, acclaim, published excavation reports, and academic treatises. The free-spirited and wealthy American, Emma Andrews, long remembered only as the mistress of the Egyptophilic archaeological patron Theodore Davis, not only jointly funded excavations with him but was rigorous in her daily recording of activities at their dig sites. Her journals, maps, and drawings were sometimes the only source of information about significant finds credited to Davies or his hired archaeologists, yet she never received credit in her lifetime and there is no known surviving photograph of her. And none of the women in this book are mentioned in the most recent Wikipedia page on the Valley of the Kings (as of July 2024).

The history of Egyptology is inescapably tied to European colonialism, from Napoleon’s first visit in 1798 through to Queen Victoria’s great-grandchildren and the ultimate discovery of King Tut’s tomb in 1922. For all those years, wealthy white Europeans and Americans ran rampant over the cultural heritage of Egypt, and over its people. The author does not gloss over or excuse the participation of her early Egyptophile women in such depredations: they were, at least initially, as interested in bringing home curiosities for their personal collections as any other travelers of that era.

A central point, though, is that the early English women travelers profiled in these pages quickly came to approach Egyptology not from a competitive standpoint like male Egyptologists did—ever vying for golden statues, academic and public acclaim, and especially wealthy patrons— but collaboratively, to study monuments, to gather artefacts of everyday life, and to record for posterity those antiquities that, once freed from their sandy overburden, could not be saved from air, water, wind, and the depredations of every passerby with the means to pry off a souvenir or a chunk of frieze for resale.

Sketch Map of East Valley of the Kings. Original version taken from Egyptian Antiquities in The Nile Valley, published in 1932, by James Baikie (1866-1931). Taken from the English Wikipedia [1] Modified to show location of KV63. Topographgic lines added For the correct locations of all graves on the map please see de:Template:Tal der Könige (Ost)

 

 

 

 

When they returned to England, or America, these women founded institutions that could broaden their individual efforts to preserve artefacts and monuments, and to formalize the training of future archaeologists. In 1882, Amelia B. Edwards roped in Marianne Brocklehurst & Mary Booth (often referred to as the Bagstone Ladies or MBs), who she’d met on the steamer to Egypt 9 years earlier), and then Emily Paterson and Kate Bradbury, with a couple of male Egyptologists for credibility, to start the Delta Exploration Fund (later the Egypt Exploration Fund), and hired a young archeologist, Flinders Petrie, to excavate and focus on small, everyday items under their auspices. Their work, and especially Amelia’s copious writings on Egypt both in popular travel memoir and in more scholarly articles, attracted Theodore Davis and Emma Andrews to Egyptology; both went on to be board members of the Fund’s American branch, and Emma later became the first woman to independently fund an excavation.

The MBs returned to Egypt for many winters, eventually establishing a public museum in Macclesfield to house their collection of antiquities, and nurtured young women with interests in Egyptology, including Margaret Benson and Mary Broderick. Margaret (Maggie) went on to become the first woman granted an excavation permit in her own name.

After Amelia’s death in 1892, it was left to Emily and Kate, as the youngest and healthiest members of that early cohort, to launch her lifelong dream: the first official Department of Egyptology, founded at University College London and opening its doors to female as well as male students. Among its earliest students were Margaret Alice Murray, who came to Abydos with Petrie’s 1902-03 season, and Janet Gourlay (known as Nettie), who partnered with Maggie Benson both professionally and personally, and excavated the Temple of Mut with her for three winters. Women in Egyptology had early learned they were stronger together than apart; their collaboration and mentoring made possible advances that women in other spheres could only imagine.

This is not a dry academic book, but a readily readable series of interconnected profiles of the women who reshaped Egyptian excavation from a disorganized, disrespectful race for personal glory into a scholarly, rigorous discipline, along the way advancing not only academic understanding of ancient Egyptian society but also women’s educational opportunities and their professional standing in several formerly male-dominated arenas.

Back around to the fans of the Amelia Peabody series of historical mystery novels by Elizabeth Peters: this book is a feast for any of you who thrilled to each significant KV tomb found during Amelia P’s adventures, or the temple of Queen Hatshepsut, or the mummies of Yuya and Thuya, whose daughter Tiye became the chief wife of Amenhotep III. So many familiar references lend their life and substance to the fictional discoveries by Amelia Peabody and her husband Emerson, their son Ramses and his wife Nefret. It's an excellent accompaniment to that fictional family, and a really good read as a standalone book on early women archaeologists.

For those whose first introduction to Victorian lady Egyptologists is this fine volume, or those who yearn for more photographic evidence on which to feed their eyes and imaginations, an enjoyable companion volume would be Amelia Peabody's Egypt: A Compendium by Elizabeth Peters and Kristen Whitbread