Bertha Porter (1852-1941) was an English biographer and bibliographer known for her editorial role in the compilation of the ''Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Reliefs, and Paintings''.

Early life

Bertha Porter was born in 1852 to Frederick William Porter, an architect of Irish birth and from 1860 surveyor to the

Worshipful Company of Clothworkers The Worshipful Company of Clothworkers was incorporated by Royal Charter in 1528, formed by the amalgamation of its two predecessor companies, the Fullers (incorporated 1480) and the Shearmen (incorporated 1508). It succeeded to the position of t ...

, and his wife Sarah Moyle; little is known of Bertha's life, other than that she moved in literary circles. Her parents owned property in London and Hythe.

Writing

Porter was engaged by

Sidney Lee Sir Sidney Lee (5 December 1859 – 3 March 1926) was an English biographer, writer, and critic. Biography Lee was born Solomon Lazarus Lee in 1859 at 12 Keppel Street, Bloomsbury, London. He was educated at the City of London School , ...

to write for the

Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...

, completing 156 biographies by the time she left.

Francis Llewellyn Griffith Francis Llewellyn Griffith (27 May 1862 – 14 March 1934) was an eminent British Egyptologist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Early life and education F. Ll. Griffith was born in Brighton on 27 May 1862 where his father, Rev. Dr. ...

, whilst working at the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

(he left in 1896), established funding and direction for the compilation of a ''Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Reliefs, and Paintings'', with the purpose of establishing the location and content of texts found on ancient monuments in

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

and later

Sudan Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic t ...

. Porter was engaged to lead the compilation of the bibliography, a task which occupied her until her retirement from the project in 1929, a greater than 30-year span. Porter studied

hieroglyph A hieroglyph ( Greek for "sacred carvings") was a character of the ancient Egyptian writing system. Logographic scripts that are pictographic in form in a way reminiscent of ancient Egyptian are also sometimes called "hieroglyphs". In Neoplatoni ...

s in London under Griffith and also under

Kurt Sethe Kurt Heinrich Sethe (30 September 1869 – 6 July 1934) was a noted German Egyptologist and philologist from Berlin. He was a student of Adolf Erman. Sethe collected numerous texts from Egypt during his visits there and edited the ''Urkunden ...

at the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded ...

. Her work was entirely London-based; she never travelled to Egypt. Instead, from 1924, she relied on

Rosalind Moss Rosalind Louisa Beaufort Moss, FSA (21 September 1890 – 22 April 1990) was a British Egyptologist and bibliographer, noted for her work on ''The Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Reliefs and Paintings''. Biogr ...

to do field-work; Moss took over Porter's responsibilities upon her retirement. The bibliography is commonly referred to as Porter & Moss.

References

External links

List of DNB biographies by Porter
{{DEFAULTSORT:Porter, Bertha 1852 births 1941 deaths English biographers Women biographers English bibliographers Women bibliographers British Egyptologists Hieroglyphists