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The Grand Old Woman of Egyptology

Illustration depicting the three pioneering areas of Margaret Murray's life; as an academic; a suffragette; and a egyptologist

Anglo-Indian Egyptologist, archaeologist, anthropologist, historian and folklorist, Margaret Murray was the Manchester Museum’s first curator of Egyptology, and the first woman in Britain to hold a full-time appointment in the subject.

She directed the unwrapping of the mummies of the Two Brothers – found in the finest non-royal tomb-group of the Middle Kingdom – in the University’s Chemical Theatre, in front of 500 enthusiasts, on 6 May 1908.

The process took one-and-a-half hours, and Murray’s multidisciplinary scientific study of the Two Brothers changed existing attitudes towards the examinationof mummified remains.

She became known as ‘The Grand Old Woman of Egyptology’.

Illustration depicting the three pioneering areas of Margaret Murray's life; as an academic; a suffragette; and a egyptologist

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