Tea on the Terrace: Egyptology Travel & Colonialism

Professor Kathleen Sheppard in conversation with Dr Campbell Price

3pm - 4pm September 24, 2024

Kanaris Lecture Theatre, Manchester Museum, M13 9PL

Western archaeology in Egypt relied on various colonial systems. Away from field sites and museums, the use of hotels and house boats by explorers, dealers and collectors has often been over-looked.

Arriving in Alexandria, travellers moved on to Cairo before heading south for Luxor, the site of the Ancient Egyptian city of Thebes. The book Tea on the Terrace (out now in paperback and available from the Museum Shop) follows a cast that includes Theodore Davis, Emma Andrews, James Breasted, Wallis Budge, Maggie Benson and Howard Carter, examining their interactions with each other, and with Egypt and its people. Hotels in particular became crucial spaces for launching careers, building and strengthening scientific networks and generating new ideas.

Combining archaeological tourism with the history of Egyptology, and drawing on a wealth of archival materials, Tea on the Terrace takes the reader behind the scenes of many familiar stories, showing Egyptologists’ activities in a whole new light.

Professor Kathleen Sheppard is a historian of science and teaches at a regional university in Missouri, in the United States. Her research focuses on histories of Egyptology. Her book Tea on the Terrace. Hotels and Egyptologists’ social networks, 1885–1925 (Manchester University Press) is out now in paperback.

Dr Campbell Price is Curator of Egypt and Sudan at Manchester Museum and author of Golden Mummies of Egypt: Interpreting Identities from the Graeco-Roman Period (Manchester University Press, 2023).