 Field Notes by Fierce WomenbyNicki Leone
The best discoveries are by accident. The women in Amanda Adams’ book Ladies of the Field: Early Women Archaeologists and Their Search for Adventure would agree. I discovered Ladies of the Field by accident, while I was digging through a book stack looking for something else. I unearthed it in on a dark shelf at the back of a little bookstore, where it was sitting demurely, exactly the kind of odd little book one might expect to find in a store run by a mother and daughter in a small southern town. On the cover a rather indomitable woman in full Victorian dress smiled into the camera—pet dog in her lap, desert in the background. I picked it up because of the way the woman was smiling—a kind of wry half-grin—and because like many girls I went through my Egypt phase (the same way I went through my horses phase and my dinosaur phase and my fossils phase) and I’ve never truly shook it off. I have this story I tell about exchanging a Christmas gift of jewelry for a dictionary when I was young. What I don’t often add is that the “dictionary” was E. A. Wallis Budge’s An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary (Volumes I and II), reprinted by Dover. So archaeology, anthropology, mythology, Egyptology, paleontology—these were all common terms when I was growing up. I loved “ologies” of almost any kind. What struck me most about Ladies of the Field, however, and the reason why I took it off the bookstore shelf and added it to my stack of purchases on the counter, was that I didn’t recognize the lady on the cover. I would have said I had a decent, if casual, familiarity the field of archaeology (and with Victorian adventuresses), but in this book that introduces seven “early women archaeologists and their search for adventure,” I only knew three of the names. When I flipped open the book, I stumbled on an engraving of a figure in a pith helmet, surrounded by crates, holding off an angry mob of Arabs with a pistol. The caption read “Jane Dieulafoy protecting her crates of precious artifacts against theft.” I didn’t know who Jane Dieulafoy was, but I wanted to. Which pretty much sums up the philosophy of this enticing, if all too brief little book. It is a collection of portraits of seven women that you probably don’t know, but you want to: Amelia Edwards. Jane Dieulafoy. Zelia Nuttall. Gertrude Bell. Harriet Boyd Hawes. Agatha Christie. Dorothy Garrod. All women who defied the conventions of their time and the roles society had dictated for them in order to give free reign to their wanderlust, intellectual curiosity, ambition, and thirst for adventure. And each of whom can be credited with significant contributions to the field of archaeology. Each of whom, that is to say, got her hands dirty digging in the dirt. Women who knew their way around a shovel. Agatha Christie is a household name, of course, but not usually for the fact that during her first season at her husband’s dig in the Khabur valley in Syria she pioneered a new method in artifact processing called “the cold cream wash.” Apparently whatever was in the face cream she used was just as effective on ancient ivory. And Gertrude Bell is equally well known (and sometimes reviled) for her influence as Britain’s unofficial ambassador to the tribes and princedoms of Iraq and Saudia Arabia. Less often discussed is the fact that she was the motivating force behind the Law of Antiquities Act, which prohibited digging up archaeological sites on private lands without a permit—in effect making it illegal to loot a country’s treasures and ship them abroad. It also required that archeological findings be published for the benefit of all scholars—almost overnight turning the field of archaeology from what Amanda Adams calls “a khaki-clad branch of science” little different from looting into a respectable scientific endeavor. But the other names were only vaguely familiar (Amelia Edwards, Dorothy Garrod) or like Dieulafoy, Nuttall and Boyd Hawes, complete mysteries. Amelia Edwards, I discovered, could rightly be called “the mother of Egyptology” because, after a pleasure trip down the Nile—far, far down the Nile—resulted in the wholly fantastic (and accidental) discovery of a new room at Abu Simbel (that’s the great palace of Ramses with the huge colossi) she was appalled when her travelling companions, delighted at the painted walls which had been untouched for several thousand years, duly “scritched” their names into the murals to show they had been there. Sometimes, readers speak of having to put a book down to absorb the full horror. I had my moment of that here. “Scritching” was, apparently, common practice for the khaki-clad branch of looting treasure hunters known as archaeologists, and it fired Edwards to reform the practice and establish an Egypt Exploration Fund that would adhere to genuine scientific inquiry and hold respect for the past as sacred. She used the money she earned as a bestselling romance novelist (of the most florid type) to further Egyptian archaeology along those principles, and eventually maneuvered her favorite protégé, Sir Flinders Petrie, into a position to be appointed to the newly endowed Chair of Egyptology at University College London. Petrie would go on to revolutionize the field of archaeology by recognizing the importance and scientific value of the small, mundane objects found at every dig site—potsherds, tools, the broken detritus of daily life—over the treasure-hunter’s desire for ancient gold and jewels. And so it goes with each succeeding portrait. Jane Dieulafoy, a Frenchwoman who got married right out of convent school and followed her husband into war dressed as a man, rather than be left behind. When later the war was over, she followed him again (still wearing pants) into Persia where his interest in archaeology and engineering led the couple to Susa, and the discovery of the magnificent winter palace of King Darius. Since this was well before Gertrude Bell’s landmark legislation to keep antiquities within their own country, the Dieulafoys shipped literally tons and tons of artifacts back home to Paris—where most of it is still on display. And that engraving with her holding the pistol? Not quite accurate. She isn’t surrounded by enough crates. As one turns the pages, it is impossible not to become ever more delighted and astonished at the stories of these seemingly fearless women, their passion and commitment in the face of hostile natives (and, back home, hostile societal opinions and bureaucracies). Zelia Nuttall, a friend of Franz Boas, who was the first to demonstrate that the bright pictographs of pre-Conquest Mexican Aztec manuscripts were not “picture books” but chronologies of important events. Harriet Boyd Hawes, who learned how to set up an archeological dig from setting up field hospitals for the Red Cross in war zones, and who first identified Crete’s archaeological importance for the Minoan age. The contributions of these women to science have often faded into history much the same way the civilizations they studied have disappeared, evidenced only by a few pieces of painted pottery and the odd crumbling wall. As of this moment, Jane Dieulafoy doesn’t even have a Wikipedia entry of her own despite the fact that it is she who discovered the famous Lion Frieze that still stands on display in the Louvre, and despite the fact that in her later years she was a bestselling novelist and one of the founders of the Prix Femina literary prize, which is still being awarded today. Sometimes their work has been superseded by new theories based on more recent discoveries. Sometimes (quite often, in fact) they have been overwritten out of spite and an unwillingness to give a woman credit for such important archaeological finds. Ladies of the Field sets out to correct the rewritten history and to “rebuild”—the way an archaeologist rebuilds—their place in the field. In this the author (a practicing archaeologist herself) succeeds, for if there is one thing that the book leaves you with, it is the desire to know more. These all too brief portraits of extraordinary women in extraordinary circumstances make it very clear that only the first layer of sand has been cleared away, but there is a season’s worth of artifacts still to be uncovered. (I find myself wanting to go overboard with the archaeological metaphors. I’ll try to reign in that impulse.) Adams, when discussing how she chose which women to include in the book, notes that “archeology’s pioneering women captures [sic] a critical moment in time when a group of women challenged the mode of thinking that confined them. They embody a burst of daring and freedom, as much as they do the birth of a new science.” And it is this sentiment which pervades throughout the book. Adams acknowledges that none of the women were “camel-riding saints” and states her intention not to gloss over their flaws or become overly “romantic.” But to be honest, she is not very successful meeting her vow. It is a powerfully romantic subject, after all—filled with deserts and hardships, exotic lands, strange romances, hidden cities and buried treasures. The prejudices of the age—with all of the ugly results that come with taking on “the white man’s burden”—simply pale before Amelia Edwards’ description of her first sight of Abu Simbel in the moonlight. Or of Zelia Nuttall’s account of brushing away the dirt to reveal the gorgeously-painted feathers of Quetzalcoatl on the island called—with dreadful accuracy—Isla de Sacrificios. The fact that Edwards regarded her Arab crew with little respect, or that Nuttall, when crossed, would not hesitate to use her influence to destroy a man’s career, or that Jane Dieulafoy and her husband were basically large-scale looters of the type archaeology now deplores, all these facts are quickly subsumed under the vivid adventures and impressive accomplishments of these women. As is Adams’ own writing style, which might be described as “competent” and “workman-like” but not inspired. All the inspiration is in her subjects, but the author seems to know this and wisely allows the women and their advocates to speak for themselves. This means the reader is offered tantalizing glimpses not only into extraordinary lives, but into some extraordinary words. Christie wasn’t the only best-selling author in the group. And while most of their publications are out of print or buried in scientific journals, the curious reader can still read about Zelia as the character of Mrs. Norris in D.H. Lawrence’s novel The Plumed Serpent, or follow Amelia Edwards’ journey in her memoir A Thousand Miles Up the Nile, sail with Harriet Boyd Hawes in her daughter’s memoir Born to Rebel, go riding with Gertrude Bell in Janet Wallach’s magnificent biography, Desert Queen. Adams’ seems to be drawn to these women because of the way they were drawn to a desire for freedom. Married or not, from privileged upbringings or more humble origins, young or not-so-young (many began their careers in their forties or even fifties), they each felt the pull to be “out there,” in the field. “As an archaeologist myself,” she writes “I can say that there is a delicious feeling in abandoning ordinary codes of dress and basic expectations like looking nice, being fashionable, feeling pretty. It can be delightful to work a pickaxe until you’ve got biceps like tough little lemons and hair so dirty is stays in a bun sans clip.” “Delightful” is not, perhaps, the word I’d use but it is clear that the women in Ladies of the Field all have this in common: they grasped freedom, and held on. Because they did, as the author notes, “the world is big—big and wonderful” for those of us who come along afterwards. Be they archaeologists, or simply women wandering around a bookstore, dreaming of adventure. Books mentioned in this column:
Nicki Leone showed her proclivities early when as a young child she asked her parents if she could exchange the jewelry a well-meaning relative had given her for Christmas for a dictionary instead. She supported her college career with a part-time job in a bookstore, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that her college career and attending scholarships and financial aid loans supported her predilection for working as a bookseller. She has been in the book business for over twenty years. Currently she works for the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, developing marketing and outreach programs for independent bookstores. Nicki has been a book reviewer for several magazines, her local public radio station and local television stations. She was one of the founders of The Cape Fear Crime Festival, currently serves as President of the Board of Trustees of the North Carolina Writers Network, and as Managing Editor of BiblioBuffet. Plus, she blogs at Will Read for Food. She manages all this by the grace of a very patient partner and the loving support of varying numbers of dogs and cats. Contact Nicki.
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