Historiography
The publication of Stephen Quirke’s groundbreaking study, Hidden Hands: Egyptian Workforces in Petrie Excavation Archives, 1880–1924, in 2010, sparked a growing focus on archaeological labor in Egypt, the Sudan, and the Middle East. Every year new books, journals, articles, websites, and exhibitions continue to appear, devoted to topics in the history of archaeological labor and a wide range of marginalized professionals in the field, including Egyptian technicians, workers, and especially the archaeological ruyasa-foremen from Quft. In addition to Quirke’s Hidden Hands,the first wave of this research includes the work of Wendy Doyon, Joanne Rowland, and Maximilian Georg—all of which builds on the foundational work of historian Donald Malcolm Reid, the author of Whose Pharaohs? Archaeology, Museums, and Egyptian National Identity from Napoleon to Word War I, and other seminal works in the critical history of Egyptology. Research on the history of archaeological labor and the Quftis has since grown to include an important group of recent and forthcoming studies by scholars including Fatma Keshk, Tina Beck, Wendy Doyon, Eric Cline, Marleen De Meyer, Nora Shalaby, Mostafa Tolba, Felix Relats Montserrat, Ladislav Bareš, Brendan Haug, Maximilian Georg, Allison Mickel, and Sam Holley-Kline.
The starting point for the history of the HU-MFA expedition is Peter Der Manuelian’s new book Walking Among Pharaohs: George Reisner and the Dawn of Modern Egyptology, published by Oxford University Press in 2023. He has also published a short history of the Arabic diaries in relation to the HU-MFA Expedition in the Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, also presented at the ARCE annual meeting, in 2022. From the linguistic perspective, Liesbeth Zack’s work provides important background for reading the Arabic diaries as modern manuscripts of unique interest to historical Arabic dialectology.
Primary sources of interest to this research include Flinders Petrie’s 1904 classic Methods and Aims in Archaeology and George Reisner’s 1942 volume on the History of the Giza Necropolis.
The following bibliography and list of active research projects, below, provide essential context for the development of this growing field of research.
Bibliography
Bareš, Ladislav. “Sixty Years of the el-Kereti Family at Abusir.” In H. Navrátilová, T.L. Gertzen, M. De Meyer, et al. (eds), Addressing Diversity: Inclusive Histories of Egyptology, 305–318. Münster: Zaphon, 2023.
Beck, Tina. Perspektivenwechsel. Eine Reflexion archäologischen Arbeitens in Ägypten: Die lokalen Grabungsarbeiter des Asyut Project. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2016.
Beck, Tina. “A New Perspective on Archaeological Fieldwork in Egypt: The Local Workmen of the Asyut Project.” Forum Kritische Archäologie 10 (2021): 23–43.
Carruthers, William, ed. Histories of Egyptology: Interdisciplinary Measures. New York: Routledge, 2015.
Cline, Eric. “Invisible Excavators: The Quftis of Megiddo, 1925–1939.” Palestine Exploration Quarterly (2022): DOI: 10.1080/00310328.2022.2050085.
Colla, Elliott. Conflicted Antiquities: Egyptology, Egyptomania, Egyptian Modernity. Durham: Duke University Press, 2007.
De Meyer, Marleen, Wouter Claes, Noha M.A. Mahran, Athena Van der Perre, and Aude Gräzer Ohara. “Working with Capart: Quftis and local workmen during the Elkab excavation seasons, 1937–1946.” In H. Navrátilová, Thomas L. Gertzen, Marleen De Meyer, et al. (eds), Addressing Diversity: Inclusive Histories of Egyptology, 343–364. Münster: Zaphon, 2023.
De Meyer, Marleen. “La Campagne de George Andrew Reisner.” In M. De Meyer and K. Cortebeeck (eds), Djehoetihotep. 100 jaar opgravingen in Egypte / Djehoutihotep: 100 ans de fouilles en Égypte, 101–128. Leuven: Peeters, 2015.
Doyon, Wendy. “Was Egyptology Colonial? State, Labor, and Antiquities Management in Nineteenth-century Egypt.” In H. Willems, M. De Meyer, et al. (eds), Pyramids and Progress: Perspectives on the Entanglement of Imperialisms and Early Egyptology. Leuven: Peeters, forthcoming.
Doyon, Wendy. “Quftis: Archaeological Technicians, Reis-ship, and the History of Wage Labor in Egyptian Archaeology.” In S. D’Auria and P. Lacovara (eds), Methods and Aims in Egyptian Archaeology: A Sourcebook. Columbus, GA: Lockwood Press, in press 2024.
Doyon, Wendy. “Xia Nai’s Egypt in the Archaeology of China: Field Workers and Field Methods in Xia Nai’s Diary at Armant, Egypt, 1938.” In H. Navrátilová, T.L. Gertzen, M. De Meyer, et al. (eds), Addressing Diversity: Inclusive Histories of Egyptology, 509–534. Münster: Zaphon, 2023.
Doyon, Wendy. Empire of Dust: Egyptian Archaeology and Archaeological Labor in Nineteenth-century Egypt. PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 2021.
Doyon, Wendy. “The History of Archaeology through the Eyes of Egyptians.” In B. Effros and G. Lai (eds), Unmasking Ideology in Imperial and Colonial Archaeology, 173–200. Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, 2018.
Doyon, Wendy. “On Archaeological Labor in Modern Egypt.” In W. Carruthers (ed.), Histories of Egyptology: Interdisciplinary Measures, 141–156. New York: Routledge, 2015.
Georg, Maximilian. Deutsche Archäologen und ägyptische Arbeiter. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2023.
Georg, Maximilian. “Egyptian Workers in German-led Excavations in Egypt, 1898–1914.” In A. Bednarski, A. Dodson, and S. Ikram (eds), A History of World Egyptology, 244–252. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021.
Georg, Maximilian. “Antiquity Bound to Modernity: The Significance of Egyptian Workers in Modern Archaeology in Egypt.” In G. Miniaci, J.C.M. García, S. Quirke, and A. Stauder (eds), The Arts of Making in Ancient Egypt: Voices, Images, and Objects of Material Producers 2000–1550 BC, 49–66. Leiden: Sidestone Press, 2018.
Haug, Brendan. “Politics, Partage, and Papyri: Excavated Texts Between Cairo and Ann Arbor (1924–1953).” American Journal of Archaeology 125.1 (2021): 143–163.
Holley-Kline, Sam. “Archaeology, Wage Labor, and Kinship in Rural Mexico, 1934–1974.” Ethnohistory 69.2 (2022): 197–221.
Keshk, Fatma, and Ashraquet Bastawrous. “The Archaeological Workers of Saqqara.” Egyptian Archaeology 62 (2023): 14–17.
Manuelian, Peter Der. Walking Among Pharaohs: George Reisner and the Dawn of Modern Egyptology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2023.
Manuelian, Peter Der. “The ‘Lost’ Arabic Excavation Diaries of the Harvard University–Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition.” JARCE 58 (2022): 129–162.
Manuelian, Peter Der. Digital Giza. Visualizing the Pyramids. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017.
Mickel, Allison. Why Those Who Shovel Are Silent: A History of Local Archaeological Knowledge and Labor. Louisville: University Press of Colorado, 2021.
Mickel, Allison. “Essential Excavation Experts: Alienation and Agency in the History of Archaeological Labor.” Archaeologies: Journal of the World Archaeological Congress 15 (2019): 181–205.
Navrátilová, Hana, Thomas L. Gertzen, Marleen De Meyer, Aidan Dodson, and Andrew Bednarski (eds). Addressing Diversity: Inclusive Histories of Egyptology. Münster: Zaphon, 2023.
Petrie, W.M. Flinders. Methods and Aims in Archaeology. London: Macmillan, 1904.
Quirke, Stephen. Hidden Hands: Egyptian Workforces in Petrie Excavation Archives, 1880–1924. London: Duckworth, 2010.
Reid, Donald Malcolm. Contesting Antiquity in Egypt: Archaeologies, Museums, and the Struggle for Identities from World War I to Nasser. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2015.
Reid, Donald Malcolm. Whose Pharaohs? Archaeology, Museums, and Egyptian National Identity from Napoleon to World War I. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.
Reid, Donald Malcolm. “Indigenous Egyptology: The Decolonization of a Profession?” Journal of the American Oriental Society 105 (1985): 233–246.
Reisner, George. A History of the Giza Necropolis, vol. 1. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1942.
Relats Montserrat, Felix. “Les ouvriers de Médamoud: Le fonctionnement d’un chantier français en Égypte au début du 20e siècle.” In H. Navrátilová, T.L. Gertzen, M. De Meyer, et al. (eds), Addressing Diversity: Inclusive Histories of Egyptology, 319–338. Münster: Zaphon, 2023.
Rowland, Joanne. “Documenting the Qufti Archaeological Workforce.” Egyptian Archaeology 44 (2014): 10–12.
Shalaby, Nora, Ayman Damarany, and Jessica Kaiser. “A Nazir and an Effendi: Glimpses from the Abydos Paper Archive.” In H. Navrátilová, T.L. Gertzen, M. De Meyer, et al. (eds), Addressing Diversity: Inclusive Histories of Egyptology, 247–272. Münster: Zaphon, 2023.
Summerer, Karène Sanchez, and Sary Zananiri. “Unsilencing Palestine 1922–1923: Hundred years after the beginning of the British Mandate – the Frank Scholten photographic collection revisited.” Contemporary Levant (2023): DOI: 10.1080/20581831.2023.2281853.
Tolba, Mostafa I. “On the Trail of Ahmed Fakhry: The Legacy of an Egyptian Archaeologist.” In H. Navrátilová, T.L. Gertzen, M. De Meyer, et al. (eds), Addressing Diversity: Inclusive Histories of Egyptology, 273–304. Münster: Zaphon, 2023.
Zack, Liesbeth. “Excerpt from Yusuf al-Magribi’s Daf’ al-Isr‘an Kalam Ahl Misr (1606).” In E.M. Wagner (ed.), A Handbook and Reader of Ottoman Arabic, 209-225. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2021.
Zack, Liesbeth. “Historical Arabic Dialectology: Interpreting the Sources.” In W. Arnold and M. Klimiuk, Arabic Dialectology: Methodology and Field Research, 207-238. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2019.
Zack, Liesbeth and Arie Schippers, eds. Middle Arabic and Mixed Arabic: Diachrony and Synchrony. Leiden: Brill, 2012.
Additional Resources
The Giza Project at Harvard University
Harvard Radcliffe Institute Workshop “Digging for Diversity in Egyptology,” Cambridge, MA (29-30 June 2023)
New book Addressing Diversity: Inclusive Histories of Egyptology (Zaphon 2023)
Special forthcoming issue on histories of labor in the Bulletin of the History of Archaeology
Misr Public Library exhibit “El Reis,” curated by Wesam Mohamed, Luxor, Egypt (21-27 January 2021)
Badè Museum virtual exhibit “Unsilencing the Archives: The Laborers of the Tell en-Nasbeh Excavations (1926-1935),” Berkeley, CA (2021)
Archive Archaeology Project and virtual exhibit “Excavating Archives: Narratives from 20th Century Palmyra,” Aarhus University, Denmark
Crossroads Project and Frank Scholten Legacy at Leiden University, the Netherlands