Women in the Valley of the Kings is a fascinating and meticulously written history of female Egyptologists during the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Dr. Kathleen Sheppard. Due out 16th July 2024 from Macmillan on their St. Martin's imprint, it's 320 pages and will be available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links throughout which makes finding information easy.
The author does a very good job of pointing out that although *anyone* with a substantial amount of money could insert themselves into the work that was going on at the time, few of them were academics or recognized as authorities. In fact, almost nobody could have been reckoned an expert since the field was still so new. Nevertheless, the contributions many of the women provided were more in the areas of hiring/management/ and support than in actually prospecting likely sites and documenting finds (many were exceptional artists and rendered more detailed and exacting drawings than could be provided by the still-early days and technical limitations of photography.
The book is arranged in chapters with mini-biographies of the women involved: Amelia Edwards & Marianne Brocklehurst, Maggie Benson & Nettie Courlay, Emma Andrews, Margaret Alice Murray, Kate Griffith & Emily Paterson, Myrtle Broome & Amice Calverley, and Caroline Ransom Williams. They were a disparate bunch (most were British), all fascinated by and most of them swept up in the grandeur and excitement of uncovering (and unfortunately often governmental appropriation of) artifacts from the distant past.
Although it's written in layman accessible language, the author has done an impressive job annotating and linking sources, and the chapter notes are full of links for further exploration which readers will find useful and enlightening.
Four stars, it would be a good choice for public or school library acquisition, home use, or gift giving purposes.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes
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