Historian Kathleen Sheppard Shares the Untold Story of Early Women Egyptologists

St. Louis County Library Foundation’s Westfall Politics and History Series and Left Bank Books are  pleased to host historian Kathleen Sheppard, author of “Women in the Valley of the Kings: The Untold Story of Women Egyptologists in the Gilded Age.”

Sheppard will be in conversation with Dr. Anne Austin, Egyptologist and Assistant Professor of History - University of Missouri St. Louis. 

The event will take place on Tuesday, July 16, 7:00 p.m. at the Clark Family Branch, 1640 S. Lindbergh Blvd, St. Louis MO 63131.

The history of Egyptology is often told as yet one more grand narrative of powerful men striving to seize the day and the precious artifacts for their competing homelands. But that is only half of the story. During the so-called Golden Age of Exploration, there were women exploring long before the discovery of the tomb of King Tut and working to lay the groundwork for all future exploration.

In “Women in the Valley of the Kings,” Kathleen Sheppard brings the untold stories of these women back into the narrative. Sheppard begins with some of the earliest European women who ventured to Egypt as travelers. Their travelogues, diaries and maps chronicled a new world for the curious. As each woman scored a success in the desert, she set up the women who came later for their own struggles and successes. 

Sheppard upends the grand male narrative of Egyptian exploration and shows how a group of courageous women charted unknown territory and changed the field of Egyptology forever.

Kathleen Sheppard earned an MA in Egyptian Archaeology from University College, London, and an MA and PhD in History of Science from the University of Oklahoma. She sits on the board of the Missouri Chapter of the American Research Center in Egypt and is the Chapters’ Council VP. She is a Professor in the History and Political Science department at Missouri S&T. 

Program sites are accessible. With at least two weeks' notice, accommodations will be made for persons with disabilities. Call 314-994-3300 or contact us.