With video and photographs.
There have been many great women in the times and study of Ancient Egypt - Hatshepsut and Nefertiti are two great examples. Yet in the era of discovery; the time in which great explorers pioneered the excavation of Egypt's greatest treasures, one woman sticks out louder than Liberace in a dole queue. Cue Amelia Edwards, a Victorian writer and adventurer who bucked the conservative traditions of her time to help found one of London's greatest museums.
We meet Petrie Museum curator Stephen Quirke at 10am on a bleak British morning, drizzling rain just about getting our umbrellas out in the heart of Bloomsbury, just yards from the British Museum. The public won't be here for another three hours; we've got carte blanche to investigate the museum's myriad cases, displays and exhibits with their current custodian.
It's clear from the outset that Dr Quirke, a much-respected auteur on the language and culture of Ancient Egypt, holds a huge amount of respect for Amelia Edwards (1831 - 1892).
2 comments:
Nice to see other fans of Amelia B. Edwards out there. I was so taken by her travel book, "A Thousand Miles up the Nile," that I republished it!
She also translated Maspero's Egyptology textbook and wrote one of her own. Her contributions to Egyptology seem endless.
Robert Plamondon
Norton Creek Press
Hi Robert
I'm glad that you decdied to republish "A thousand Miles". I've been enjoying several republished but lesser known classics recently, mostly about the Sahara, and it never ceases to delight that so many of them are so well written.
Andie
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