Alexandra Walsh pays tribute to six pioneering women who gained respect in the male domain of archaeology in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and who inspired her latest novel. They were the ‘godmothers of archaeology’ who worked in Crete, Egypt, Iran, Iraq and Turkey at sites such as Knossos, Babylon and Troy.
The Forgotten Palace is a dual timeline story, set in the present day and 1900. Queen Victoria would die a year later, making this a pivotal moment in history. Not only was it the beginning of new century but change was in the air as the populace realised a new monarch would be soon be on the throne.
My Victorian heroine, Alice Webster, is very much of this changing time. She is a modern, forward-thinking young woman who is traversing the old world and the new. The old order is changing: women are demanding to be taken seriously and for the first time there are opportunities which do not automatically include marriage and children.
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More women are joining the workforce through choice, studying at university and the burgeoning suffragette movement is helping women to understand and fight for their rights.
In The Forgotten Palace, in order to avoid a scandal, Alice has been sent abroad with her aunt and cousins. A chance meeting with the Perrin family on the train to Paris alters their route and they set out for Crete where an archaeological dig run by Arthur Evans is taking place.
Once there, Alice, her brother, Hugo and the enigmatic George Perrin become part of the dig taking place in Knossos. As a Cambridge scholar, Alice is excited by Evans’s scientific exploration of the site and the new methods he is using to reveal the past.
The dig at Knossos was a real event, as was the person of the indominable Arthur Evans who drew the palace of King Minos and the Minotaur from the ancient earth of Crete. Until Howard Carter’s discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in November 1922, Knossos was one of the most famous archaeological digs of the time.
To give realism to Alice, I researched the many courageous women who pioneered, what was then, the new science of archaeology. While many of the men are remembered, particularly Evans and later, Howard Carter, the women are less well known, yet, they were as instrumental as the men in shaping archaeology.
To celebrate and remember these women, here are the brief outlines of a few of their fascinating stories.
Amelia Edwards was known as the Nile’s Grande Dame and often referred to as the godmother of archaeology. Most famous for her book, A Thousand Miles up the Nile, Edwards excavated throughout Egypt with particular interest in Abu Simbel.
In 1882, she was instrumental in forming the Egypt Exploration Society which raised funds for further digs in the Nile delta.
French archaeologist Jane Dieulafoy was best known for working in Iran with her husband, Marcel and for her extensive travel writing.
Jane was bored with the expectations of Victorian society of women and chose to crop her hair short and wear men’s suits. One of her most famous finds, the Lion Frieze of Susa, was displayed in the Louvre.
Zelia Nuttall was born in San Francisco in 1857, yet the majority of her life was spent in Mexico studying Aztec remains. Educated at Bedford College in London, she married Alphonse Louis Pinart in 1880; her daughter, Nadine, was born in 1882. But the marriage was an unhappy one and, in 1884, they separated, eventually leading to divorce in 1888.
During this time, Nuttall set out on her first archaeological endeavour in Mexico accompanied by her mother, brother, sister and daughter and the trip led to the publication of a paper in the American Journal of Archaeology.
Later, Nuttall was appointed Special Assistant in Mexican Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard and was also elected to the American Association for Advancement in Science.
Gertrude Bell was an adventurer, archaeologist, photographer, author, diplomat and political strategist. She was a comrade of T E Lawrence (aka Lawrence of Arabia,) adviser to Winston Churchill, the founder of what later became the Iraq National Museum and author of the country’s first antiquity preservation laws.
A tall and willowy redhead, she was famous for galloping through the deserts of Arabia in a full-length fur coat, her pockets bulging with money and cameras. Both a skilled mountain climber and an Oxford scholar, nothing would stop her reaching her destination.
Sadly, at the age of 50, when she was no longer able to dig in her beloved Persia, with money becoming an issue and after the loss of her lover, Bell was found one morning with an empty bottle of pills beside her. She died as she lived, on her own terms.
Sophia Schliemann was the wife of Heinrich Schliemann and was with him throughout his travels. Their most famous discovery was of what they believed was Troy from the legends.
A famous photographs survives of Sophia wearing some of the golden jewellery they discovered. It was this dig that inspired Arthur Evans in his own searches.
American archaeologist Harriet Boyd Hawes makes a cameo appearance in The Forgotten Palace. While Evans was excavating at Knossos, she was leading her own dig in Gournia, another part of Crete.
Her mother died when she was a child and she was raised in Boston, Massachusetts by her father with four elder brothers. It was a riotous upbringing.
Her closest companion was her brother, Alex. Sadly, he died when Harriet was in her last year at Smith College in Massachusetts. He left her his entire estate and she used this to continue to fund her education.
When she left Smith, inspired by Amelia Edwards, she travelled to Athens and joined the American School of Classical Studies on a fellowship. This was done without a chaperone, which was considered scandalous.
Harriet continued to shock by travelling around Crete looking for a place to dig. Astride a mule she travelled with a man named Pappadhia who wore the traditional Cretan kilt, eventually settling on a site near the village of Kavousi.
In 1906 she married British anthropologist Charles Henry Hawes and despite having two children and running their busy household, she still found time to complete and publish her work on her excavations in Gournia.
These are the briefest of glimpses into these astonishing women.
Each woman challenged their role in society, refusing to let their gender hinder their ambitions. They forged the path that we continue to take and for this we should be grateful for their courage, intelligence and fearlessness.
The Forgotten Palace by Alexandra Walsh is published on 12 April, 2023.
See more about this book.
Read our interview with Alexandra and find out where her inspiration comes from and why she loves writing dual timeline stories. She also has some useful tips for new writers.
You may also enjoy her features The uncanny story behind my novel and The scandalous Seymours.
If you’d like to read more about archaeology and the ancient world, have a look at:
The politics of Tutankhamun’s tomb by Gill Paul
The triumph of Greek myths and the destruction of a civilisation by Hilary Green
Troy: an ancient story for a modern age by Emily Hauser
The Trojan Wars: Men or Myths? by Hilary Green
Women of the Trojan War by Emily Hauser
Images:
- Palace — Gertrude Bell And Arabs Measuring Walls by Gertrude Bell at Ukheidir, Iraq, 1909: Gertrude Bell Archive, Special Collections & Archives, Newcastle University Library (CC BY-SA 4.0)
- Sir Arthur Evans among the Ruins of the Palace of Knossos by William Richmond, 1907: Ashmolean Museum via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
- Amelia B Edwards, 1890: Wikimedia (public domain)
- Zelia Nuttall, c1880s — 1890s: Wikimedia (public domain)
- Sophia Schliemann wearing the ‘Treasures of Priam’: Wikimedia (public domain)
- Harriet Boyd Hawes: Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
