“My colleague, Miss Murray…”
This is how I first met Margaret Alice Murray (1863-1963), the first university-trained woman Egyptologist in Britain. Her mentor, then colleague, Flinders Petrie, had mentioned her twice in his autobiography.
It turns out, her career lasted 70 years and was so much more than being the Great Man’s colleague.
A Woman’s Work in Archaeology
This was the first time I truly learned that there is so much more behind a footnote, a mention, within a life.
Murray’s own autobiography, My First Hundred Years, devoted an entire chapter to Petrie. Petrie couldn’t even offer her that much respect.
Manchester Mummies
Murray unwrapped the mummy of Khnum Nekht at Manchester Museum in 1908. She is second from the right.