Help transcribe financial lists of donors to Egyptological fieldwork in the late 19th and early 20th century

During visit to Egypt in 1873-4 Amelia Edwards began to develop an interest in the preservation of Egypt’s unique history and by 1882 she founded the Egypt Exploration Fund (now known as the Egypt Exploration Society) with the aid of Samuel Birch of the British Museum. The Fund was set up primarily because Archaeology abroad in Britain was not funded by the government and required funding from individuals and institutes. This Fund would allow excavations to occur in Egypt which would result in artefacts being discovered and brought to museums in Britain and worldwide.

This series of projects will attempt to transcribe the subscription list of the donors to the EEF from 1885-1923. The donor lists are found at the end of the Annual General Meeting of the EEF. This document contains names and amounts donated as well as how the fund used these donations and lectures given on the projects undertaken during that year. The project will allow us to create a digital copy that can be used to easily see patterns in the way people donated.

This individual project looks at the donations made in 1885. Sir Flinders Petrie gave a lecture on Naukratis in 1885 for the EEF which he rediscovered and excavated. Naukratis was a Greek trading post in the Nile Delta of Egypt from the seventh century BC. Petrie described the settlement as “half destroyed annihilated as it had never existed”. However, he had discovered artefacts that suggested the presences of Greek Metallurgy and pottery. Henri Édouard Naville gave a lecture on his excavations of 1885 and on Goshen (the biblical location given to the Hebrews by the Pharaoh of Joseph).

Additionally, Amelia Edwards spoke about the Fowler Fund which was created when Mr William Fowler proposed that he would donate £50 for the excavation mounds of Zoan (Tanis of classical history) which had been the excavation undertaken in 1884 by Petrie. The Fowler Fund was created with the intention of raising £1000 with donation of no less than £50 per individual and once the Fund had reach £950, Mr W. Fowler would donate £50. This was because Mr W. Fowler believed the site had great significance and would require a “full purse to dip into”