This week’s blog is written by Graeme McArthur, from our conservation team.

Our museum of Egyptology may be named after Flinders Petrie but it owes a large debt of gratitude to Amelia Edwards. She travelled to Egypt in 1873 for some winter sun and returned a dedicated campaigner for the preservation of Egyptian heritage. On her death in 1892 she left her own collection to UCL and left an endowment for a Chair in Egyptian Archaeology and Philology. The wording all but ensured that the job would go to Petrie. He also gave his collection to UCL in 1915 and the museum was born.

A bust of Amelia Edwards was sculpted by Percival Ball in around 1873 and is held by the National Portrait Gallery (NPG 929). A plaster copy was made for the Department of Egyptology at UCL by the British Museum in 1961 and thus ended up in the Petrie’s collection (LDUCE-UC80677).

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