Egypt Exploration Society
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Egypt Exploration Society
3 Doughty Mews. London. WC1N 2PG
phone +44 (0)20 7242 1880
fax +44 (0)20 7404 6118
Website: www.ees.ac.uk
Photograph of the temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el Bahri taken by Howard Carter during the Society's excavations there in the 1890's. ©Egypt Exploration Society.
HISTORY
The Egypt Exploration Society was founded in 1882, as the Egypt Exploration Fund in order to explore, survey, and excavate at ancient sites in Egypt and Sudan, and to publish the results of this work. Today it is one of the leading such archaeological organisations.
Novelist and travel writer Amelia Edwards, together with Reginald Stuart Poole of the Department of Coins and Medals at the British Museum, founded the Egypt Exploration Fund in 1882 in order, as announced at the time in several daily newspapers, ‘to raise a fund for the purpose of conductin
g excavations in the Delta, which up to this time has been very rarely visited by travellers’.
The early emphasis on work in the Nile Delta was intended to attract sponsorship from those interested in finding evidence to support biblical stories concerned with ancient Egypt, and many of the Fund’s early donors were members of the clergy.
THE EES TODAY
EES teams are at present working on a number of major sites and projects:
Memphis - the capital of ancient Egypt for most of its history.
El-Amarna - in Middle Egypt, the short-lived capital of Akhenaten and Nefertiti.
Qasr Ibrim - in Egyptian Nubia, the last surviving site in the region flooded by Lake Nasser.
Sais - in the Delta, capital of Egypt during the 26th Dynasty.
The Delta Survey - this provides an online database of Delta sites enabling scholars worldwide to plan future excavation and conservation work.
In addition the Society also sponsors several smaller projects at sites throughout the country.
EXCAVATION ARCHIVES
The Archives of the Egypt Exploration Society are held at the Society’s premises (3 Doughty Mews, London WC1N 2PG) and contain the records of the Society’s fieldwork in Egypt (occasionally in Sudan) since 1882. The range and quality of material for each excavation varies considerably. Some are well represented with excellent photographic coverage (negatives and prints) and detailed notebooks and plans. Other expeditions have very few surviving records while a few have none at all.
From 1882 to c.1985, the Egyptian antiquities authority (now known as the Supreme Council for Antiquities) allowed foreign expeditions to retain a proportion of non-inscribed and non-unique objects found during excavation, for division to
museums. The EES Archive has lists of the objects divided to the Fund/Society and the museums to which the objects were donated.
The Archive contains correspondence and other papers relating both to fieldwork and to the administration of the Society but, apart from the records of the founding and early years of the Society (then the Egypt Exploration Fund) this part of the Archive is not yet properly organised or listed.
survey of Middle Kingdom tombs at Beni Hasan in the early 1890's. ©Egypt Exploration Society.
LIBRARY
The Ricardo A Caminos Memorial Library forms part of the premises at 2-4 Doughty Mews, London and contains approximately 20,000 books, journals and pamphlets on Egyptology. As such it is one of the best libraries of its kind in the world. The library is for use by EES members only, though anyone with an interest in ancient Egypt is eligible to join the Society, and prospective members are very welcome to come and have a look round, or to contact the librarian for further details (+44 (0)207 242 1903).
STAFF
The Society employs a specialist secretary general and a specialist in charge of the library, archive and outreach.
