Winifred Susan Blackman (1872–1950) was a British

egyptologist 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 ...

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

and

anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...

. She was one of the first women to take up anthropology as a profession.

Family and education

Blackman was born in Norwich to Rev. James Henry Blackman and Mary Anne Blackman (née Jacob). She was one of five children, and her brother Aylward M. Blackman also became a noted egyptologist. The Blackwood family later moved to Oxford. Blackman registered to study at the

Pitt Rivers Museum Pitt Rivers Museum is a museum displaying the archaeological and anthropological collections of the University of Oxford in England. The museum is located to the east of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, and can only be accessed t ...

from 1912 to 1915, taking the Diploma in Anthropology at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. She also worked on cataloguing collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum between 1912 and 1920, and donated some objects to the museum.

Academic career

Blackman spent much of the 1920s and 1930s living and working in Egypt. She and her brother Aylward often collaborated. She had a particular interest in "magico-religious" ideas and practices. In 1927 she published ''The

Fellah A fellah ( ar, فَلَّاح ; feminine ; plural ''fellaheen'' or ''fellahin'', , ) is a peasant, usually a farmer or agricultural laborer in the Middle East and North Africa. The word derives from the Arabic word for "ploughman" or "tiller". ...

in of Upper Egypt'', which became a standard work on the

ethnography Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...

of the region. Unusually for the time, she chose to focus on the habits, beliefs and customs of contemporary (rather than ancient) Egyptians. That same year she also began collecting ethnographic objects for the wealthy collector

Sir Henry Wellcome Sir Henry Solomon Wellcome (August 21, 1853 – July 25, 1936) was an Americans, American pharmaceutical entrepreneur. He founded the pharmaceutical company Burroughs Wellcome & Company with his colleague Silas Mainville Burroughs, Jr., Silas ...

. She was forced to accept stringent conditions in return for his support (including a promise not to collect anything for anyone else, including herself). She collected an estimated 4,000 individual items for him between 1926 and 1933. After 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 ...

broke out in 1939, Blackwood returned to Britain. In 1950 she was committed to a mental hospital after suffering a mental and physical breakdown after the death of her younger sister Elsie. She died shortly afterwards, aged 78.

Selected works

* 'The Magical and Ceremonial Uses of Fire' ''Folklore'' Vol. 27, No. 4 (1916), pp. 352–377 * 'The Rosary in Magic and Religion' ''Folklore'' Vol. 29, No. 4 (1918), pp. 255–280 * 'Traces in Couvade (?) in England' ''Folklore'' Vol. 29, No. 4 (1918), pp. 319–321 * 'Some beliefs among the Egyptian peasants with regard to 'afarit'' ''Folklore'' Vol. 35, No. 2 (1924), pp. 176–184 * ''The Fellahin of Upper Egypt: Their Religious, Social and Industrial Life To-Day with Special Reference to Survivals from Ancient Times'' (1927) ater translated into French (1948), and Arabic (1995)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Blackman, Winifred Susan 1872 births 1950 deaths British ethnologists British Egyptologists British anthropologists British women anthropologists British archaeologists British women archaeologists People associated with the Pitt Rivers Museum