Women in Anthropology: MARGARET ALICE MURRAY
In the 100 years Margaret Murray was on this Earth she became a driving force for women in anthropology and in academia, earning the titles of archaeologst, Egyptologist, author, lecturer, Folkorist, and feminist.
Murray was born to wealthy English parents in Calcutta, India in 1863. She spent her early years living in Britain and Germany before settling back in India as a nurse until 1887 when she moved to England and became a social worker.
She began attending the University College London (UCL) at the age of 31 in 1894 (proving that there is no set age to being your academic career) and by 1898 she was working as a junior lecturer of linguistics in the Egyptology department.
In 1902 she joined British Egyptologist Sir William Flinders Petrie for 2 field seasons in Egypt. During the first field season she helped to excavate a temple to Osiris, the Osireion, built during the New kingdom (roughly 16th to 11th century BCE) under the Pharaoh Seti I (pictured below).
After returning to London, she became a big supporter of the first wave feminist movement and joined the Women’s Social and Political Union. Murray initiated many campaigns to change the culture for women in academia and make it more accessible. At her insistence for inclusivity, the UCL common room was opened to women and later a redesigned room was constructed and named the Margaret Murray Room.
During World War I, she began studying and publishing articles and books on the history of witchcraft in Europe and Folklorism. Eventually, in 1927 she was awarded an honorary doctorate for her work in Egyptology. Throughout her career she wrote several books and many articles on Egyptology, Folklorism and also authored her own autobiography titled “My First Hundred Years” published in the year of her death 1963.
It is challenging for modern day academics to truly comprehend the different era and culture for a woman in anthropology during the late 19th to mid-20th centuries. Although, I am sure many of us agree that the academic climate of today oftentimes has much more progress to make. In any case, Margaret Murray was one of the first women to ‘make it’ within this scientific field dominated by a white men, and her contributions to academia were significant, well known, and respected.
However, this does not mean she was perfect. Much of her academic work and theory, especially in the field of Folklorism, is often criticized. Anthropology has changed quite a bit since Murray first entered the field over 158 years ago, and our views and methods of understanding are extremely different today.
What will not change is Murray’s solidified importance as an academic mind and as a woman in archaeology. She paved the way for other female scholars, and she fought for their advancement and their voices along the way.
Refs:
Drower, Margaret S. (2004). “Margaret Alice Murray”. In Getzel M. Cohen; Martha Joukowsky (eds.). Breaking Ground: Pioneering Women Archaeologists. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. pp. 109–141
Margaret Murray. (n.d.). Retrieved March 16, 2021, from https://www.fembio.org/english/biography.php/woman/biography/margaret-murray/
Margaret Murray. 25 Feb. 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Murray.
“Margaret Murray”. Stories From The Museum Floor, 2021, https://storiesfromthemuseumfloor.wordpress.com/2018/03/02/margaret-murray/.
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