The female travellers who shaped the ancient world

 

In the 1800s, a trio of women forever changed the study and understanding of ancient Egypt. So why have their legacies remained overlooks.

 

In 1864, English travel writer Lucie Duff Gordon stood in her house atop Luxor Temple, looking out the window across the River Nile's west bank towards the Libyan mountains. Her face basked in the sun while she listened to the cacophony of camels lowing, donkeys braying and dogs barking below. She missed her family, whom she had left at home in London while she convalesced in Egypt's hot desert climate to ease her tuberculosis symptoms. She lived in the Maison de France, or French House, built by a military contingent in the area around 1815. She loved her self-proclaimed "Theban palace" and wrote letters to her family from its balcony almost daily.

 

These Letters from Egypt, which richly detailed her time in the country, were published a year later as a book. By vividly detailing Egyptian politics, religious customs and Duff Gordon's relationships with her Egyptian neighbours, the book stood out as a social and cultural commentary at a time when most women authors wrote fiction. Duff Gordon's example of travelling – and living – in Egypt as a British woman on her own soon inspired other female travellers to do the same.

 

A little more than a decade later, novelist Amelia Edwards, moved by Lucie Duff Gordon's experiences, visited Egypt and published a best-selling travelogue, A Thousand Miles up the Nile. Edwards' work, in turn, aroused the interest of Emma Andrews, a wealthy American traveller who further advanced archaeology in Egypt at the start of the 20th Century by funding dozens of tomb excavations – many of which are still actively studied today.

 

Although these three women initially travelled to the country as tourists, they each made a profound impact on Egyptology (the scientific study of ancient Egypt). And in doing so, they not only shaped our views of one of the most important civilisations in the ancient world, but also how tourists travelled to Egypt at the turn of the 20th Century.

Edwards's evocative writing and vivid illustrations drew countless tourists to Egypt

A Thousand Miles up the Nile also simultaneously stimulated and benefitted from the rise of package holidays offering archaeological tourism. Beginning in 1855, English businessman Thomas Cook's eponymous travel company started leading people on all-inclusive holidays across Europe. Popular with the upper-middle and aristocratic classes, these package tours encouraged people to travel to destinations like Athens and Rome to not only explore their contemporary culture, but also to witness their ancient monuments and learn about their historical importance. If you were spending a lot of money on a holiday, the argument went, you should learn from it and support the local economies, too.