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In the 1800s, three women forever changed the study and understanding of ancient Egypt, so why has their legacy continued to be overlooked?
In 1864, British travel writer Lucy Duff Gordon stood in her home atop the Temple of Luxor, gazing out the window across the Libyan mountains on the west bank of the Nile. She basked in the sunlight as she listened to the din of brooding camels, neighing donkeys, and barking dogs below. She missed her family, whom she had left behind at home in London while she recuperated in Egypt’s hot desert climate to ease her tuberculosis symptoms. She lived in the Maison de France (House of France), built by a military contingent in the area around 1815. She loved her self-described “Palace of Thebes” and wrote to her family almost daily from its balcony.
The book, Letters from Egypt, detailed her life in Egypt and was published a year later. With its vivid portrayal of Egyptian politics, religious practices, and Duff Gordon’s relationships with her Egyptian neighbors, the book stood out as social and cultural commentary at a time when most women writers wrote fiction. Duff Gordon’s example of traveling and living alone in Egypt as an Englishwoman soon inspired other women travelers to do the same.
A little over a decade later, novelist Amelia Edwards was inspired by Lucy Duff Gordon’s experiences and visited Egypt, where she published her bestselling travel book, A Thousand Leagues Up the Nile. Edwards’ work attracted the interest of wealthy American traveller Emma Andrews, who furthered Egyptian archaeology in the early 20th century, funding the excavation of dozens of tombs, many of which are still actively studied today.
Though these three women initially visited Egypt as tourists, each had a profound impact on Egyptology (the scientific study of ancient Egypt) and, in the process, shaped not only our view of one of the ancient world’s most important civilizations, but also the way tourists traveled to Egypt in the early 20th century.
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Edwards’ moving writing and vivid illustrations have attracted countless tourists to Egypt (Credit: Alamy)
In March of that year, the women stayed in Luxor for a few weeks. Edwards was drawn to Duff-Gordon’s former home, but when she looked up at the bricks piled atop the temple, she was shocked by its condition. Duff-Gordon’s beloved “Theban palace” had barely survived years of Nile flooding and was now barely habitable. Edwards went inside and went to a window, looking out over the river and the Theban plain on the other side. Seeing what Duff-Gordon saw, Edwards wrote that the view “adorned the room and made its poverty magnificent.” She dreamed of living there. “I wish that that wonderful view, with its infinite beauty of light and color and space, and history and mystery, was always before my window.”
Although this was Edwards’ only trip to Egypt, her poetic travelogue attracted countless women travelers to the country. Published in 1877, A Thousand Leagues Up the Nile became one of the best-selling travel books of all time. Interweaving travelogue and meticulously researched history, Edwards’s story vividly describes the sights along the Nile. But unlike Malay’s guides, Edwards not only encouraged people to stop to see these monuments and ruins, she advocated for their preservation for future generations. The popularity of her book made the Pyramids of Giza, the Valley of the Kings, and other now-famous tombs essential destinations for travelers to Egypt for the next 50 years, but more importantly, the book’s widespread popularity among scholars has shaped the study and reception of these sites to this day.
The success of Edwards’s book led her to co-found the Egyptian Exploration Society (EES) in 1882. Inspired by Edwards’ goal of exploration with the aim of preserving Egyptian ruins, the EES raised funds for excavations through its subscribers. Subscribers, mostly middle-class British people, received annual reports of excavations and sites. These reports, including maps, lists, drawings, and new research findings, have enlightened and informed public perception of ancient Egypt for nearly 150 years.
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Edwards’ book also helped promote package holidays and all-inclusive trips to Egypt (Credit: Alamy)
Voyage of the Nile both stimulated and benefited from the rise of package tours with an archaeological theme. Starting in 1855, British industrialist Thomas Cook’s travel company of the same name began offering all-inclusive trips across Europe. Popular with the upper-middle classes and aristocracy, these package tours encouraged people to travel to destinations like Athens and Rome to not only explore modern culture, but also to see ancient ruins and learn about their historical importance. The argument went that if people were spending big money on holidays, they should also learn from them and support the local economy.
Cook’s company expanded to Egypt in 1869, offering archaeological tourism in North Africa to the general public, as well as to women who wanted to travel safely alone. By the late 1880s, Cook’s company was taking over 5,000 people up the Nile each year, closely following Edwards’ own itinerary. Due to the popularity of the holiday, the company was managing Nile boat trips for all visitors.
In 1889, 15 years after Edwards left Egypt, Andrews and his partner Theodore Davis, two American millionaires and archaeological collectors, arrived in Egypt with Edwards’ book and several of Cook’s pamphlets. The couple were members of the American chapter of the EES, which had spread to America only a few years after its founding. Inspired by Edwards’ travel writings, the pair quickly rented and outfitted a private houseboat and set off on their first trip up the river.
The couple relied on Cook’s pamphlets to guide them as they sailed up and down the Nile. They stopped at all the places Edwards (later Cook) recommended. Like Duff-Gordon and Edwards before them, the couple quickly fell in love with Egypt. They made annual trips up the Nile for the next 25 years. They were typical archaeological tourists: upper-class people who wanted to learn about the ancient sites they came across while enjoying their holidays. They bought ancient artifacts and accumulated a large collection for themselves. Andrews was influenced by both his own travels and the exhortation in Edwards’ travels that “we are always learning, there is always more to learn; we are always seeking, there is always more to find.” From 1900 until they left Egypt in 1914, Andrews and Davis paid for and personally excavated 25-30 tombs in the Valley of the Kings. This was one of the most influential archaeological expeditions in Egypt.
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Andrews and her partners covered the costs of excavating 25 to 30 tombs in the Valley of the Kings, including the tombs of Yuya and Tuya (Credit: Alamy)
Egyptian excavation laws at the time stipulated that most artifacts were to be donated to the Cairo Museum, with copies remaining privately owned by patrons and archaeologists. In 1905, the pair and their team discovered tomb number 46, the tomb of Yuya and Tuya, the parents of Queen Tiye (wife of Pharaoh Amenhotep III) and great-grandparents of Tutankhamun. At the time, the tomb was the best-preserved tomb ever discovered in Egypt, with most of the grave goods still inside. Their magnificent coffin masks are still on display in Cairo, and just behind them is the second chariot ever discovered, still intact.
While the artifacts are important, Andrews’ diary is crucial to understanding the site. Her records provide a detailed record of her and Davis’ activities over a quarter of a century. She meticulously documented the excavations, complete with maps and daily records of visitors and artifacts found. Davis used many of Andrews’ diaries in his site reports, but did not fully acknowledge her work. Importantly, Andrews included Egyptian laborers, antique dealers, ship captains and sailors, who were often ignored by many male authors. Her perspective is fundamental to understanding centuries of Egyptian history.
Andrews’ legacy lives on at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. She and Davis each donated large portions of their collections (over 1,600 Egyptian artifacts) and estates to the Met. Millions of visitors each year view artifacts such as the controversial canopic jars from Tomb KV55. Due to Davis’ sloppy excavation methods, archaeologists are still undecided as to whose mummy was buried inside. There is also a restored decorated water bottle from King Tut’s funeral procession, one of the few Tutankhamun artifacts outside Egypt. Andrews’ work has made fragments of ancient Egyptian life and death available to scholars and schoolchildren alike, giving the West a rare glimpse into how ancient Egyptians honored their dead.
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Edwards donated much of her collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but her work never received the recognition it deserved (Credit: Alamy)
Our modern interest in and understanding of ancient Egypt is indebted to these three forgotten women. Like their men, their work was controversial; they were relatively well-off and profited professionally from traveling to Egypt, living there, and extracting ancient artefacts from their historical homeland. Yet while their legacy has often been ignored, they laid the foundations of modern Egyptology and influenced our understanding of the ancient world from the very beginning.
