In celebration of IAD, ARCE-OC presents a history of archaeology lecture by Dr. Kathleen Sheppard (Missouri S&T) pertaining to women active in the field of Egyptology and archaeology of ancient Egypt.

Women, to paraphrase Virginia Woolf, must have money and a site of her own if she is to do archaeology. Woolf was talking about writing fiction, but the point remains: women must be free from domestic cares, even just for a little while, if they would be professionally productive. The women who worked in archaeology around the turn of the twentieth century understood this situation keenly and some were able to live out their freedom in a variety of ways. In this talk, I will (re)introduce several women in the history of Egyptology who carved out spaces of their own through excavation, patronage, and publication and who shaped the discipline with their expertise.