Women in the Valley of the Kings

The Untold Story of Women Egyptologists in the Gilded Age

By: Kathleen Sheppard

Narrated by: Elizabeth Wiley

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.

©2024 Kathleen Sheppard (P)2024 Tantor

Women behind the scenes

Did not like the narrator. I just couldn’t get past the voice. The book had such good historical facts.

Underrated Legends

A fascinating book for anyone interested in women’s studies and/or Egyptology. Also if you are a fan of Elizabeth Peter’s Amelia Peabody books you will see the women and men you met in Ms Shepherd’s book woven through her stories. Excellent read!!

Terrible Narrator Disappointing Book

The author could have done so much with this very deserving topic but we never get to know these women beyond the most shallow details. The book is read like someone’s cheery grandmother reading a fairy tale which jangled terribly. I couldn’t finish it.

A wonderful look at some forgotten women

5 stars - I loved it!

In Women in the Valley of the Kings, Sheppard tells the untold story of eleven women who changed the landscape of Egyptology in different ways. This book covers the life and careers of Amelia Edwards, Marianne Brocklehurst, Maggie Benson, Nettie Gourley, Emma Andrews, Margaret Alice Murray, Kate Griffith, Emily Paterson, Myrtle Broome, Amice Calverley, and Caroline Ransom Williams. These women challenged expectations of the time and went on to make great strides in Egyptology for women and in uncovering history. Also quite a few of these women were queer, which was a great surprise when reading this book.

I could talk about these remarkable women for a while, but I won’t. I am just going to highlight their lives and what they accomplished. Amelia Edwards was a novelist and Egyptologist who wrote the bestseller book, A Thousand Miles Up the Nile. She co-created the Egypt Exploration Fund (now called the Egypt Exploration Society) and left her vast collection and funds to the University College London to create an Egyptology department. This woman kickstarted everything for future women in this career, including the rest of the women in the book.

Marianne Brocklehurst and her partner Mary Booth were collectors and funded many excavations in Egypt and contributed to the Egypt Exploration Fund. Before her death she funded the West Park museum and donated her Egyptian collection for display and education. Marianne may not have been an Egyptologist, but she provided a way to educate the public on Egyptian culture and funded expeditions to gather that history.

Maggie Benson and Janet “Nettie” Gourley were partners and Egyptologists who worked together to excavate at the Precinct of Mut. They led the first all-female excavation in Egypt and discovered all kinds of statues, goods, and discovered how parts of the Precinct were built. Maggie and Nettie were a couple that challenged male Egyptologists' belief that women couldn’t run an excavation or do this kind of work. I really enjoyed learning about this lesbian couple who made so many fascinating finds at the Precinct of Mut.

Emma Andrews helped fund excavations in Egypt and helped document her lover, Theodore M. Davis, excavations. Margaret Alice Murray was a student at the new Egyptology department at the University College London, the department that was created by Amelia Edwards. She started teaching Egyptology students at Sir Flinders Petrie’s request and was the first woman to be appointed lecturer in archeology in the UK. Some more fascinating facts about Margaret was that she was the first woman to publicly unwrap a mummy and was involved in the first-wave feminist movement. She was a trailblazer. I would have loved to hear her lecture on Egypt and all the other fascinating things she researched.

Kate Griffith was Amelia Edwards former companion and was executor of her will. She and Emily Paterson, the general secretary of the Egypt Excavation Fund, were the main administrators and ran everything while the men were out excavating. These two women were the main touching points for all the Egyptologists working for the Fund and had an extensive network of well known people. These two women were the backbone of this society and because of them so many excavations were able to be funded.

Myrtle Broome and Amice Calverley were Egyptologists and illustrators who worked at copying relief walls at Abydos. They published four detailed and colorful volumes of their drawings that continue to be used today. I highly recommend looking at their drawings and seeing how detailed they are. Caroline Ransom Williams was the first American woman to be professionally trained as an Egyptologist. She had a long career of being a curator for museums, mainly the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MMA). She was the one who oversaw the Tomb of Perneb being mailed and reassembled at the MMA. She took a few trips to Egypt and worked in the field but her main accomplishments were in the museums in the states building their collections.

This was a fascinating look at some remarkable women. I love that these women keep journals of their travels because it’s now the only way we really know about them and what they accomplished. Reading this just makes me want to have a travel journal for my next trip so I don’t forget all the little details in the future.

Overall, this was a great book of forgotten women. It was cool to see how all of their lives seemed to be intertwined and built off what Amelia Edwards started. Also, I just loved learning about more queer historical figures who broke barriers and followed their dreams.

TW: Misogyny; death of family, lovers and children; grooming; internalized homomisia; racism; colonization;