Margaret Murray

Anthropologist, Author

1863 – 1963

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Who was Margaret Murray?

Margaret Alice Murray was a prominent English Egyptologist, archaeologist, anthropologist, and folklorist. The first female to be appointed as a lecturer in archaeology in the United Kingdom, she worked at University College London from 1898 to 1935. She served as President of the Folklore Society from 1953 to 1955, and published widely over the course of her career.

Born in Calcutta, British India, Murray divided her youth between India and Britain, training as both a nurse and a social worker. In 1894 she began studying Egyptology at UCL, developing a friendship with department head Flinders Petrie, who appointed her Junior Professor in 1898. In 1902–03 she took part in Petrie's excavations at Abydos, Egypt, there discovering the Osireion temple, and the following season investigated the Saqqara cemetery, both of which established her reputation in Egyptology. On return to London she became closely involved in the first-wave feminist movement and devoted much time to improving women's status at UCL.

Undertaking public lectures at Manchester Museum, where she became the first woman to publicly unwrap a mummy in 1908, she began to author books on Egyptology for a general audience.

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Born
Jul 13, 1863
Kolkata
Also known as
  • Margaret Alice Murray
  • M. A. Murray
Nationality
  • United Kingdom
Profession
Education
  • University College London
Employment
  • University College London
Lived in
  • Kolkata
Died
Nov 13, 1963
Welwyn

Submitted
on July 23, 2013

Citation

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