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REVIEW BY CAROLINE ARBUCKLE MACLEOD
As a professional female Egyptologist and archaeologist, I have learned more than perhaps necessary about the so-called ‘Fathers of Egyptology’, including their discoveries, biases, and eating habits. Their stories are of great adventurers, braving the desert and excavating whole cities or thousands of tombs in a single season. In Kathleen Sheppard’s book, we are introduced, instead, to the women working during the ‘Gilded Age of Egyptology’. These are the ladies who frequently dug in the shadows of the great men, or worked in back offices, museums, and classrooms. They were equally responsible for building up the disciplines of Egyptology and archaeology, though they are frequently omitted from the histories of these branches of academia.
Each of the seven chapters focuses on a woman, or group of women, from Britain or the US, living, working, and discovering during different phases of early Egyptological exploration. Some of these stories do include grand adventures: Amelia Edwards’ journey to sites aboard her dahabeeyah boat, the Philae; Maggie Benson’s discovery of a cache of Sekhmet statues at Karnak as the first woman to receive official permission to excavate in Egypt. Most stories, however, include struggles behind the scenes. These women teach in the classroom, take care of administration, and catalogue in museums. They look after the less romanticised elements of archaeology, as well as their families and local communities, so that their male colleagues can find wonderful things in the deserts and valleys of Egypt.
Sheppard’s detailed and well-researched examination of these women is frank and honest. She describes their triumphs, their failures, and their ethically dubious practices. She discusses the difficulties of these women and their efforts to circumvent their expected gender roles as they attempt to follow the academic pursuits that so enthralled them. Sheppard shows how these women frequently leaned on their relationships with each other to gain the freedom to study and explore. These relationships often developed into passionate friendships or romances, spoken of in poetry, and hinted at in reference to burned correspondence. Each one helped to tear down barriers for their successors, making it clear that the lives and careers of these women are interwoven and as complicated as their paths to success.
Occasionally it is difficult to keep track of the number of people with whom the main figures interacted, though this helps to demonstrate the elaborate social networks characterising this period of exploration. Also, the introduction to each woman begins with a narrative anecdote. This means that the chapters do not all progress entirely chronologically, and a few assumptions are made in describing what these women were doing or thinking. This is slightly jarring in some areas, but provides these figures with more humanity than would otherwise be possible based on the fragmentary and often administrative evidence we have for their lives.
In total, this book is a significant addition to the discipline, and an important step towards uncovering the many diverse and obscured figures who have shaped Egyptology and Egyptian archaeology, and who have made it possible for women like me to attain careers in this discipline.
Women in the Valley of the Kings: The untold story of women Egyptologists in the Gilded Age
Kathleen Sheppard
St Martin's Press, £24.99
ISBN 978-1250284358
