In the so-called Golden Age of Egyptology, it was men who were known world-wide as the archeologists and academics who wrestled the secrets of Ancient Egypt from the desert, carrying away much of what they found. In this book, Sheppard turns the spotlight on female Egyptologists, who had less recognition but were equally instrumental in the early days of the discipline.
I’m not very familiar with Egyptology in the Gilded Age beyond Howard Carter’s famous “Yes, wonderful things!” and a vague understanding of how the colonial presence in Egypt allowed many artifacts to be carted off willy-nilly to other countries never to be repatriated. But when I thought of people out digging in the Valley of the Kings, I definitely always thought of men in khakis and pith helmets. This book does a great job of busting that misconception.
Sheppard highlights the work of half a dozen women who were in one way or another involved with Egyptology, even if they never called themselves such. She does a great job of showing how these women’s efforts made the development of the discipline possible, as well as how their efforts were built upon by the generations of women who came afterward. Men might have dug for artifacts, but it was women who promoted their work, raised money for it, received and studied and disseminated information about what was discovered, and much more. It was interesting too to learn about what life was like on dig sites – the incredibly informal nature of it in the early years, how the visiting Egyptologists used and impacted the Egyptians who lived around them, and more.
However, I did feel that the style of the book was drier than I expected – while Sheppard tells us plenty about the women, she does not really explore their interior worlds – not why they were driven to the study, not how they felt being shafted and sidelined in a discipline they were often were more skilled in that their male counterparts, not what they thought of their time in Egypt and the native peoples they worked with there. Without any of this, the women remain frustratingly out of reach no matter how much we learn about their accomplishments.
Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley. This is my honest and voluntary review.