The Life of Margaret Alice Murray

A Womans Work in Archaeology

By (author) Kathleen L. Sheppard

Not available to order

Publication date:

01 August 2013

Length of book:

292 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

ISBN-13: 9780739174180

The Life of Margaret Alice Murray: A Woman’s Work in Archaeology is the first book-length biography of Margaret Alice Murray (1863–1963), one of the first women to practice archeology. Despite Murray’s numerous professional successes, her career has received little attention because she has been overshadowed by her mentor, Sir Flinders Petrie. This oversight has obscured the significance of her career including her fieldwork, the students she trained, her administration of the pioneering Egyptology Department at University College London (UCL), and her published works. Rather than focusing on Murray’s involvement in Petrie’s archaeological program, Kathleen L. Sheppard treats Murray as a practicing scientist with theories, ideas, and accomplishments of her own. This book analyzes the life and career of Margaret Alice Murray as a teacher, excavator, scholar, and popularizer of Egyptology, archaeology, anthropology, linguistics, and more. Sheppard also analyzes areas outside of Murray’s archaeology career, including her involvement in the suffrage movement, her work in folklore and witchcraft studies, and her life after her official retirement from UCL.

Introduction. "A Life without a Single Adventure"
Chapter 1. Margaret Murray's India, 1863-1894
Chapter 2. University College, 1894-1902
Chapter 3. In the Field, 1902-1904
Chapter 4. The Classroom at UCL, 1904-1935
Chapter 5. Suffrage and the New Woman, 1904-1928
Chapter 6. The Classroom-at-Large, 1904-1935
Chapter 7. The Witch-Cult Hypothesis and other Adventures on the Lunatic Fringe, 1911-1935
Chapter 8. Malta, Minorca, and other Archaeology, 1914-1939
Chapter 9. "Retirement," 1935-1963
Conclusion

A biography of Margaret Murray has been long overdue. . . .Sheppard. . . .writes with lucidity and purpose; she has the rare gift of being able to engage her reader throughout the 267 densely packed pages. . . .This biography is a meticulously researched work, which it has been very well worth the waiting for, by a writer who has an intrepid capacity for ferreting about in archives and in graveyards.