A Swiss Egyptologist on Her Majesty’s Service

Egypt Exploration Society

With photos.

From the time of his first contact with A.B. Edwards and R.S. Poole until the end of his excavations in Lower Egypt (1880-1892), Edouard Naville wrote approximately 200 letters to the joint honorary secretaries of the EEF, which are now kept in the Society’s Lucy Gura Archive. Writing in a fine and fast hand and in perfect classical English (a skill inherited during 1862-1863 when he attended King’s College, London), Naville mentions his researches at major sites in the Delta such as Tell el-Maskhuta, Saft el Hinna, the famous site of Bubastis (Tell Basta) and Tell el Yahudieh.

This scientific correspondence contains precious details about his everyday life as an Egyptologist, how the hard work was divided between Naville and the engineers Achille Jaillon and the Count Riamo d’Hulst and eventually about the editing of the final publications, in which his wife, Marguerite (née de Pourtalès), played a great part thanks to her skill in drawing.