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‘Expert investigators’ and export permits: Uncovering unacknowledged 19th century Egyptian heritage contributions
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Wednesday, 22 May 2025
13.00-14.00 BST – Zoom Webinar (Register via Eventbrite here)
‘Expert investigators’ and export permits: Uncovering unacknowledged 19th century Egyptian heritage contributions
Dr Margaret Maitland Principal Curator of the Ancient Mediterranean and Head of the Mediterranean, Africa, Americas, and Oceania Section
National Museums Scotland
Historically, narratives about early Egyptology have been framed in terms of the heroic efforts of adventurous collectors and brilliant scholars, few of whom acknowledged the debt they owed to the Egyptians upon whose knowledge and labour they relied. Similarly, early excavating and collecting in Egypt has been characterized as largely unregulated – ‘a free-for-all’ – with Europeans serving as the only defenders of Egypt’s antiquities, despite Egypt’s 1835 ban on the export of antiquities (the second oldest heritage law in the world).
An ongoing project at National Museums Scotland challenges these accepted narratives, using the archives of Alexander Henry Rhind (1833–1863), an oft-overlooked forerunner in archaeological and museological practice in both Scotland and Egypt. This lecture will present select aspects of this research, using Rhind’s archives as a case study for understanding the changing landscape of excavating and collecting in mid-19th century Egypt.
To date, there has been limited research into the circumstances in which excavators and collectors operated in Egypt following the antiquities export ban. I will explore how the ad hoc issuing of khedival permissions developed into a more formal system of excavation and export permits through the 19th century, as well as the evidence for actual enforcement.
These excavations relied on Egypt labour, in particular the Qurnawi of the West Bank of Luxor, who became excavation specialists, acknowledged by Rhind as ‘experienced and expert investigators’. Over time, they were increasingly discredited and vilified as ‘tomb robbers’, however, it is possible to determine specific and significant contributions that they made towards Egyptological knowledge production. Reading against the grain in the Rhind archives, this research has important implications for reassessing Egypt’s 19th century contributions to the understanding and management of its own heritage.
Dr Margaret Maitland is Principal Curator of the Ancient Mediterranean and Head of the Mediterranean, Africa, Americas, and Oceania Section at National Museums Scotland. She was lead curator for the Museum’s ‘Ancient Egypt Rediscovered’ gallery which opened in 2019, and the 2017 exhibition ‘The Tomb: Ancient Egyptian Burial’. In 2019, she was awarded an Art Fund Headley Fellowship for her research project on pioneering Scottish archaeologist A.H. Rhind’s work in mid-19th century Egypt, which she is currently preparing for publication. She has been a partner on various research projects including the AHRC-funded UCL-led project ‘Egypt’s Dispersed Heritage’ (2019-2022) and CNRS-funded project ‘Analytical study of Bronze Age Egyptian gold jewellery’ (2012-2014). She was previously a trainee curator at the British Museum where she co-curated the touring exhibition ‘Pharaoh: King of Egypt’. She completed her doctorate on ancient Egyptian social hierarchy at the University of Oxford, where she currently sits on the Griffith Institute Management Committee. She also leads the Scottish Egyptian Collections Network and is a member of the Institute of Classical Studies Advisory Council.
