Margaret Stefana Drower

MBE Mbe may refer to: * Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo * Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria * Mbe language, a language of Nigeria * Mbe' language, language of Cameroon * ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language Molal ...

(1911–2012) was a historian of Ancient Near Eastern History and Egyptology. She was awarded the MBE and elected a Fellow of the

Society of Antiquaries of London A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Societ ...

. She wrote the definitive biography of

Flinders Petrie Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie ( – ), commonly known as simply Flinders Petrie, was a British Egyptologist and a pioneer of systematic methodology in archaeology and the preservation of artefacts. He held the first chair of Egypt ...

Early life

Drower was the daughter of Edwin Drower, a British diplomat, and

Ethel Stefana Drower Ethel Stefana Drower ( Stevens; full name: Ethel May Stefana Drower; 1 December 1879 – 27 January 1972) was a British people, British cultural anthropologist, orientalist and novelist who studied the Middle East and its cultures.Christa Mülle ...

, an anthropologist, specialist on the

Mandaeans Mandaeans ( ar, المندائيون ), also known as Mandaean Sabians ( ) or simply as Sabians ( ), are an ethnoreligious group who are followers of Mandaeism. They believe that John the Baptist was the final and most important prophet. They ...

and (under the name E. S. Stevens) a well-published author of romantic novels. She was a student of Flinders Petrie,

Margaret Murray Margaret Alice Murray (13 July 1863 – 13 November 1963) was an Anglo-Indian Egyptology, Egyptologist, archaeology, archaeologist, anthropology, anthropologist, historian, and folkloristics, folklorist. The first woman to be appointed as a l ...

and

Stephen Glanville Stephen Ranulph Kingdon Glanville, (26 April 1900 – 26 April 1956) was an English historian and egyptologist. He was Edwards Professor of Egyptology at University College London from 1935 to 1946. He was then Sir Herbert Thompson Professor o ...

, and become one of the first Egyptology graduates from

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

(UCL).

Career

Drower's excavations included

Armant Armant ( ar, أرْمَنْت; egy, jwn.w-n-mnṯ.w or ''jwn.w-šmꜥ.w''; Bohairic: ; Sahidic: ), also known as Hermonthis ( grc, Ἕρμωνθις), is a town located about south of Thebes. It was an important Middle Kingdom town, which was ...

with O. H. Myers,

Robert Mond Sir Robert Ludwig Mond, FRS, FRSE (9 September 1867 – 22 October 1938) was a British chemist and archaeologist. Early life and education Mond was born at Farnworth, Widnes, Lancashire, the elder son of Ludwig Mond, a chemist and industrialis ...

and Ali Suefi, and at

Amarna Amarna (; ar, العمارنة, al-ʿamārnah) is an extensive Egyptian archaeological site containing the remains of what was the capital city of the late Eighteenth Dynasty. The city was established in 1346 BC, built at the direction of the Ph ...

with

John Pendlebury John Devitt Stringfellow Pendlebury (12 October 1904 – 22 May 1941) was a British archaeologist who worked for British intelligence during World War II. He was captured and Summary execution, summarily executed by German troops during the ...

recommended her for a post in the History department at UCL. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

she worked with

Freya Stark Dame Freya Madeline Stark (31 January 18939 May 1993), was a British-Italian explorer and travel writer. She wrote more than two dozen books on her travels in the Middle East and Afghanistan as well as several autobiographical works and essays ...

at the Baghdad Ministry of Information, using her skill as an Arabic speaker. After the war she returned to UCL to become a Reader in Ancient History and developed the Ancient History/

Egyptology Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , '' -logia''; ar, علم المصريات) is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious ...

degree. After her retirement she became a Fellow of UCL and a visiting professor at the Institute of Archaeology. She contributed to many books, especially the ''

Cambridge Ancient History ''The Cambridge Ancient History'' is a multi-volume work of ancient history from Prehistory to Late Antiquity, published by Cambridge University Press. The first series, consisting of 12 volumes, was planned in 1919 by Irish historian J. B. Bury ...

'' series, and documentary programmes on the

ancient Middle East The ancient Near East was the home of early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia (modern Iraq, southeast Turkey, southwest Iran and northeastern Syria), ancient Egypt, ancient Iran (Elam, Me ...

. Her key work was on the life and correspondence of

Bibliography

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Drower, Margaret Stefana 1911 births 2012 deaths British women archaeologists Academics of University College London British centenarians Members of the Order of the British Empire British Egyptologists Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London Alumni of University College London Women centenarians Place of death missing Place of birth missing Date of death missing Date of birth missing 21st-century British historians 20th-century British historians British women historians