Barbara Adams (Egyptologist)
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Barbara Georgina Adams,
FRSA The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, commonly known as the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), is a learned society that champions innovation and progress across a multitude of sectors by fostering creativity, s ...
(19 February 1945 – 26 June 2002) was a British
Egyptologist Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , ''-logia''; ) is the scientific study of ancient Egypt. The topics studied include ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end ...
, archaeologist, and academic, who was a specialist in
Prehistoric Egypt Prehistoric Egypt and Predynastic Egypt was the period of time starting at the first human settlement and ending at the First Dynasty of Egypt around 3100 BC. At the end of prehistory, "Predynastic Egypt" is traditionally defined as the period ...
. She worked for many years at
Hierakonpolis Nekhen (, ), also known as Hierakonpolis (; , meaning City of Hawks or City of Falcons, a reference to Horus; ) was the religious and political capital of Upper Egypt at the end of prehistoric Egypt ( 3200–3100 BC) and probably also during th ...
, where she was the co-director of the expedition. She worked at the
Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology The Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology in London is part of University College London Museums and Collections. The museum contains over 80,000 objects, making it one of the world's largest collections of Egyptian and Sudanese ma ...
in London, latterly as curator (1984–2001), and also worked on excavations across Britain.


Early career and the Petrie museum

Barbara Bishop was born in
Hammersmith Hospital Hammersmith Hospital, formerly the Military Orthopaedic Hospital, and later the Special Surgical Hospital, is a major teaching hospital in White City, London, White City, West London. It is part of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust in the ...
in London to Charles and Ellaline Bishop. Her parents had unskilled jobs but she gained a scholarship to
Godolphin and Latymer School The Godolphin and Latymer School is a private day school for girls in Hammersmith, West London. The school motto is an ancient Cornish phrase, ''Francha Leale Toge'', which translates as "free and loyal art thou". The school crest includes a ...
but her finances did not run to study after sixteen. After leaving school she continued to study at night-school. At seventeen, she became an apprentice at the natural history museum. She worked and studied in her own time and in 1962, she became an assistant at the
Natural History Museum A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history scientific collection, collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, Fungus, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleo ...
. She specialised in
entomology Entomology (from Ancient Greek ἔντομον (''éntomon''), meaning "insect", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study") is the branch of zoology that focuses on insects. Those who study entomology are known as entomologists. In ...
at the museum and she became an assistant of R.B. Benson. She transferred to Dr K.P. Oakley's anthropology department in 1964 where she became acquainted with tool-artefacts and gained a knowledge of human skeletal anatomy.Barbara Adams, 1945-2002
by Renée Friedman and Barbara Lesko, Brow.edu, Retrieved 11 October 2016
In 1964 she won the ''Miss Hammersmith'' beauty contest and a book of her poetry ''Bones in my Soul'' was published. Adams became a museum assistant at the
Petrie Museum The Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology in London is part of University College London Museums and Collections. The museum contains over 80,000 objects, making it one of the world's largest collections of Egyptian and Sudanese ma ...
of Egyptian Archaeology, at
University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...
in 1965.H. S. Smith, 'Adams, Barbara Georgina (1945–2002)', ''
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from History of the British Isles, British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') ...
'', Oxford University Press, Jan 2006; online edn, Jan 200
accessed 11 Oct 2016
/ref> Her employment with Professor Harry Smith, Edward Chair in Egyptian Archaeology of the University College, helped her career.Barbara Adams
Brown.edu, Retrieved 11 October 2016
She was promoted to assistant curator and academic staff in 1975, and made curator of the Petrie Museum in 1984. She would head the museum until her cancer diagnosis in 2001. Her first practical experience in 1965 was an excavation in
Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ) is an area of Northern England which was History of Yorkshire, historically a county. Despite no longer being used for administration, Yorkshire retains a strong regional identity. The county was named after its county town, the ...
by the
University of Leeds The University of Leeds is a public research university in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was established in 1874 as the Yorkshire College of Science. In 1884, it merged with the Leeds School of Medicine (established 1831) and was renamed Y ...
. Later the same year she assisted in cemetery digs in
Winchester Winchester (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs N ...
and elsewhere within England. Contacts with artifacts from the Romano-British site at Dragonby in Lincolnshire) in excavations of 1966 were followed by a seminal encounter in the same year with Hierakonpolis artefacts. In 1967 she married a civil servant named Rob Adams, moved to Enfield and also gained a distinction for her
London University The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degr ...
diploma in archaeology. She travelled to Egypt during 1969 and studied field techniques for archaeology at the university of Cambridge. Her 1974 text on the subject of ancient Hierakonpolis showed the catalogued findings of
James Quibell James Edward Quibell (11 November 1867 – 5 June 1935) was a British Egyptologist. Life Quibell was born in Newport, Shropshire. He married the Scottish artist and archaeologist Annie Abernethie Pirie in 1900.Bierbrier, M. L. 2012. ''Who Was W ...
and Frederick W. Green and was complemented by a lauded explication of Green's field notes. She turned her literary attention intermittently in the proceeding years to archived documents held in museums of the United Kingdom. In Liverpool museum she was able to find unpublished material gathered by
John Garstang John Garstang (5 May 1876 – 12 September 1956) was a British archaeologist of the Ancient Near East, especially Egypt, Sudan, Anatolia and the southern Levant. He was the younger brother of Professor Walter Garstang, FRS, a marine biol ...
. Over many years she documented his work in three publications, ''The Fort Cemetery At Hierakonpolis'' in 1984 and ''Ancient Nekhen'' in 1990 and 1995.


Hierakonpolis and onward

Her work with Garstang's excavations paid off when she was chosen as the pottery and objects expert for Michael A. Hoffman's re-established excavations of Hierakonpolis in 1979–80. She assisted at a cemetery of a predynastic elite group and she worked on the site until 1986. She had worked as an assistant to
Walter Fairservis Walter Ashlin Fairservis Jr. (1921 – 1994) was an American archaeologist who excavated in Afghanistan, Hierakonpolis, and in the Indus Valley of Pakistan. He worked in the American Museum of Natural History for over thirty years and was direct ...
in 1981 at Nekhan and again in 1984.Obituary
Harry Smith, ''The Guardian'', 13 July 2002, Retrieved 11 October 2016
After Hoffmann's death in 1990, Adams and
Renée Friedman Renée Friedman is an American Egyptologist, primarily known for her work at Nekhen (Hierakonpolis). Life Friedman received her BA from the University of California at Berkeley, where her thesis was on the predynastic Egyptian cemetery at Naga ...
became co-directors of the Hierakonpolis excavation which continued until 1996. She has been credited with the discovery of previously unknown funeral-masks and a life-size statue. She was editor of the Shire Egyptology Series (numbering 25 books in total). Her final work was based upon vase fragments from a cemetery at Abydos. Adams died from cancer in 2002.


Honors

* 1994, '95, '96: Gertrude Caton-Thompson (q.v.) Egyptology Department grants,
University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...
* 2000: Member of
German Archaeological Institute The German Archaeological Institute (, ''DAI'') is a research institute in the field of archaeology (and other related fields). The DAI is a "federal agency" under the Federal Foreign Office, Federal Foreign Office of Germany. Status, tasks and ...
* January 2002: Honorary fellow of
University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...


Bibliography

* Barbara Adams, ''Excavations in the Locality 6 cemetery at Hierakonpolis: 1979 - 1985'', Oxford: Archaeopress, 2000, * Barbara Adams, ''Ancient Nekhen - Garstang in the city of Hierakonpolis'', New Malden: Shire Publications, 1990, * Barbara Adams, ''Predynastic Egypt'', Aylesbury Shire Publications, 1988 * Barbara Adams, ''The Fort cemetery at Hierakonpolis: excavated by John Gerstang'', London: KPI, 1987, * Barbara Adams, ''Sculptured Pottery from Koptos in the Petrie Collection'', Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1986, * Barbara Adams, ''Egyptian Mummies'', Aylesbury Shire Publications,


References


External links


Cincinnati and Brown
{{DEFAULTSORT:Adams, Barbara 1945 births 2002 deaths British Egyptologists Deaths from cancer in England People from Hammersmith People associated with the UCL Institute of Archaeology British women archaeologists British women historians Fellows of the Royal Society of Arts