Overview

The history of Egyptology is often told as yet one more grand narrative of powerful men striving to seize the day and the precious artifacts for their competing homelands. But that is only half of the story. During the Golden Age of Exploration, there were women working and exploring before Howard Carter discovered the tomb of King Tut. Before men even conceived of claiming the story for themselves, women were working in Egypt to lay the groundwork for all future exploration. In Women in the Valley of the Kings: The Untold Story of Women Egyptologists in the Gilded Age, Kathleen Sheppard brings the untold stories of these women back into this narrative. Sheppard begins with the earliest European women who ventured to Egypt as travelers: Amelia Edwards, Jenny Lane, and Marianne Brocklehurst. Their travelogues, diaries, and maps chronicled a new world for the curious. In the vast desert, Maggie Benson, the first woman granted permission to excavate in Egypt, met Nettie Gourlay, the woman who became her lifelong companion. They battled issues of oppression and exclusion and, ultimately, are credited with excavating the Temple of Mut. Women in the Valley of the Kings upends the grand male narrative of Egyptian exploration and shows how a group of courageous women charted unknown territory and changed the field of Egyptology forever.

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Kathleen Sheppard was born and raised in the Midwestern United States, where she has now settled after years away. She earned an MA in Egyptian archaeology from University College, London, where she met the memory of Margaret Murray for the first time. She earned an MA and PhD in history of science from the University of Oklahoma, where she realized she wanted to find more women like Murray and has continued doing so ever since. She sits on the board of the Missouri Chapter of the American Research Center in Egypt and is the Chapters' Council VP. She is a professor in the History and Political Science department at Missouri S&T and lives in central Missouri with her husband, son, dog, and cat. Elizabeth Wiley is a seasoned narrator, director, actor, and dialect coach as well as a recipient of an Earphones Award. With over thirty years of acting and voiceover experience, she has traveled the United States performing on and off camera. Born in Minnesota, she currently resides in Williamsburg, Virginia.

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