02

Aug

ARCE-NT: The Golden Age of Travel 1870-1930: Egyptologists and the Dahabeah Dining Society by Dr. Kathleen Sheppard

Sponsored by: Southern Methodist University’s Clements Department of History

Registration is required

  • 7:30 pm -9:00 pm ESTNorth Texas
  • In-Person/OnlineSouthern Methodist University Fondren Science Building Room 123
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Lecture Information

Dahabeahs and steamers are well known as useful in the history of leisured travel on the Nile in Egypt in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. They are also associated with the travel of Egyptologists when they were in the country. This presentation will discuss the work of two main American Egyptologists, Charles Wilbour (1833-1896) and James Breasted (1865-1935), their travel on the Nile, and their subsequent impact on the discipline in the US. 

One might argue that Charles Wilbour was not an Egyptologist, and you might be right. I will talk about his boat, the Seven Hathors, and the ways in which he built a circle of influential Egyptology friends on and around the boat. James Breasted was America’s first university-trained Egyptologist, and by 1907 he was so convinced of the utility of dahabeahs as places to do the science of Egyptology that he had proposed a grant to the Rockefeller Foundation for a custom-built steamer that he called a “floating headquarters and working laboratory.” While the boat never came to fruition for him, he was still successful in his ultimate mission in Egypt. 

Speaker Bio

Kate Sheppard ST headshot 2023(1)

Dr. Kathleen Sheppard is Professor in the History and Political Science department at Missouri S&T. She is also the ARCE National Chapter Council Vice President. Her focus of study is the history of Egyptology. Her most recent book, Women in the Valley of the Kings, tells a history of Egyptology through the perspective of women’s work in the field. Her 2022 book, Tea on the Terrace: Hotels and Egyptologists’ Social Networks, investigates the role of hotels as hubs in the professional and friendship networks of Egyptologists in the late 19th and early 20th century. She received her MA in Egyptian Archaeology from UCL in 2002 and her PhD in History of Science from University of Oklahoma in 2010.