Margaret Benson
Margaret Benson (born June 16, 1865 in Wellington College, Crowthorne , Berkshire , † May 13, 1916 in Wimbledon ) was the first woman to be granted a concession in Egypt to carry out excavations as an amateur archaeologist in the temple precinct of the goddess Mut in Karnak .
Life
Margaret was the fourth of six children born to Mary. Sidgwick, sister of the philosopher Henry Sidgwick , and Edward White Benson , the first rector (1859–1872) of the newly formed Wellington College . All children were born here. The father rose to serve the Church of England, first as Chancellor of the Diocese of Lincoln 1872-77, then Bishop of the new Diocese of Truro 1877-82, where he founded the first high school for girls in 1880, Margaret and her older sister Mary Eleanor "Nelly" Benson (1863–1890) visited. In 1882 he finally became Archbishop of Canterbury . Each time the promotion was accompanied by a move for the family. They then lived in Lambeth Palace in London, the official seat of the Archbishop. Here Margaret and her siblings met literary greats such as B. Alfred Lord Tennyson and Henry James . In this family, the father's expectations of his children were high because they were raised in an intellectual environment. Three of her brothers became famous authors: Arthur Christopher Benson (1862-1925), taught at Eton, Edward Frederic "Fred" Benson (1867-1940) became a well-known writer and Robert Hugh Benson (1871-1914), clergyman, joined in 1903 Roman Catholic beliefs about what caused a scandal. Margaret's older sister Nelly died of diphtheria at the age of 27, as did her eldest brother Martin in Winchester in 1878 .
Margaret's sister, Nelly, had been studying mathematics and English literature for two years at Lady Margaret Hall College for Girls, which had only opened in Oxford two years earlier , when she was called back home in 1883 because of her poor health. Now Margaret took her place there at the age of 18. She studied politics, economics and "moral science". She played cricket and field hockey and learned to swim so she could take part in boat races. As an actress she was a member of the Shakespeare and Browning Society and she had a special talent for drawing and painting with watercolors. Even John Ruskin praised her drawings and said she should stay as a teacher later in college. After three years she passed her exams in 1886 and left Oxford before the “final year”. She then wrote her book Capital, Labor, Trade and the Outlook . Margaret, however, was of frail health. The family often traveled to Zermatt in Switzerland in the summer and in 1885 Margaret fell ill with scarlet fever there. She commuted between Lambeth Palace and Addington Park, the country estate near Croydon, where she painted and learned to ride. In 1887 she traveled to Menton in southern France. At the age of 25 she suffered from symptoms of rheumatism and arthritis and sought relief in Aix-les-Bains. In 1893 she was advised to travel to the warm, dry and pure climate of Egypt, which was very fashionable in England at the time.
In January 1894 she arrived in Alexandria and visited Cairo and Giza as a tourist. Then she traveled as far as Aswan and Philae and set up in Luxor to plan her visits here and in Karnak , because apart from the donkey there was no land transport. She had heard of granite statues with "cats' heads" (the lion-headed statues of the goddess Sekhmet ) and the boys with the donkeys knew the way there: to the temple district of Mut. This is surrounded by a wall on three sides and is fairly isolated. It had its own "holy lake" in the shape of a horseshoe, which made it appear picturesque, romantic and irresistible in Margaret's eyes. The goddess Mut was the wife of Amun , from whom she got her name "Amaunet". She was worshiped with the imperial god Amun and their son Chons , especially during the great Opet festival, when sacrifices were made in front of her holy boat. At some point she was assimilated to the lion goddess and depicted with the head of a lioness and then possessed - like Sachmet - a warlike character. Mut and Chons had their own temples, but the most magnificent was that of Amun.
Since the beginning of her journey, she was fascinated by the ancient sites, as well as by the animals and birds. She started studying the ancient Egyptian and Arabic languages and when she left in March, she already knew that she would come back in the fall.
The concession for the temple district of the goddess Mut
Margaret stubbornly pursued the idea of excavating the area of the goddess Mut in Karnak. At the end of November 1894 she was back in Egypt and took care of the sulfur springs of Helwan, south of Cairo, to alleviate her rheumatic ailments. At the same time, she asked the Egyptian authorities for approval of her project, which was refused, even though professional archaeologists had so far shown no interest in this part of Karnak. Margaret received help from Édouard Naville , who worked for the Egypt Exploration Fund (EFF) in Deir el-Bahari on Hatshepsut's temple. He wrote to Jacques de Morgan , Director of Antiquities, and presented Margaret's request. Her application was checked again and in January 1895 she received her license. It was the most exciting moment not only in her life but for the whole family, who were very concerned about it.
Her brother Fred (Edward. Frederic Benson) wrote about it in his book in 1921:
“ She spent the winter in Egypt because of her health, which was threatened by a crippling type of rheumatism; she also suffered from an internal illness, depressed and fatal; a cold was a serious matter for her, fatigue had to be avoided and yet she continued with the greatest possible contempt for physical ailments ... All the English archaeologists on the spot literally lay at her feet, partly because of the total novelty that an English girl is conducting her own excavation , but even more because of her grateful and enthusiastic personality ... "
David George Hogarth , who was staying with Naville in Deir el-Bahari, advised them on the direction the excavation should take and Percy Newberry stood out for his tireless friendly advice, suggestions and corrections. He studied the inscriptions, which he later published as part of Margret's book. They had been warned not to have too high expectations of finding something big here, because Auguste Mariette had described the site as "cleared".
The first season in Karnak in 1895
Margaret stayed at Pagnon's Hotel , between the Winter Palace and the Luxor Temple. Her brother Edward ("Freddy") traveled from Greece and also supported her in the following years. He had worked for the British Archaeological Society in Athens from 1892–95.
Édouard Naville helped Margaret prepare for the excavation and plan the work. It was difficult at first because Margaret did not speak Arabic. In the end, she had to use one of the boys who kept the donkeys as the “translator” of her instructions, which she did not like, because a boy as a middleman had little authority. On the first day of work, twice as many workers with hoes and baskets appeared as they could employ. Margaret found it shameful that she had to send so many away. However, she later heard that it was quite common because this work was very popular. She also had little luck with her first rais (overseer). On the one hand, he asked for a higher wage than the average (10d instead of 7½), and on the other hand, he found it beneath his dignity to work under a woman, so that she soon had to fire him. The new overseer was then more suitable. On payday he made sure that the boys stood in a row in front of her according to their duties, behind them the men and a little to one side the girls with the drinking water. They were called, and so Margaret gradually learned their names too. Margaret paid her workers weekly wages: two piastres, which at that time was five pence , for men and 1½ piastres for boys for a ten-hour workday. She assumed that the remuneration of the purchasing power would correspond to half a British krona. Flinders Petrie , who worked at the Ramesseum , had introduced a reward for those workers who found something of value. It was roughly based on the black market price. The EFF in Deir el-Bahari paid a daily wage as a reward, but practiced stricter guarding of the excavation.
In January 1895 she began with a small team of men and boys to clean the first courtyard of the Temple of Courage, where Auguste Mariette had undoubtedly worked, because from the north side to the south there were heaps of earth 3 m high. They were based on the map by Mariette, which Mariette published in his book Karnak: étude topographique et archéologique in 1875. Next to fallen blocks from the entrance gate lay the head of a sandstone crocodile and a lion-headed statue of Sekhmet. With the evacuation of the courtyard, the base of four pairs of pillars appeared. Another eight Sekhmet statues were recovered from under the rubble. Margret's first find of historical importance was a block statue of Amenemhet, a royal scribe under the reign of Amenhotep II. It was supposed to be confiscated immediately by an overseer, but Margaret turned to Georges Daressy , who commissioned the work in the Temple of Karnak was, and this allowed her that the statue could stay in the Luxor Hotel until her departure. Furthermore, she found two sandstone baboon sculptures from the time of Ramses III. dated, the large upper part of a female statue as well as various coins, fragments of pottery and bronzes. In just five weeks she had achieved a lot for a beginner.
The second season of 1896 with rich finds and help from Janet A. Gourlay
In the second year, work began in late January 1896. Her work was financed by family and friends. Margaret started with a slightly enlarged crew in the second courtyard. By now Margaret had realized that she needed to work more carefully and pay more attention to the construction technique and its sequence. Margaret's school friend, Lady Jane Lindsay, brought a young woman over to help with the excavations. Janet "Nettie" Gourlay (1863–1912) and Margaret were almost the same age and hit it off right away. The two women should have a lifelong friendship.
The second courtyard revealed further sculpture finds. A monumental lion head was found here, from which most of the sun disk that went to the Museum of Giza was preserved, along with about 30 other statues that Margaret uncovered. Two statues of Sekhmet, larger than average, and the statue of a seated New Kingdom king, but whose names were obliterated, were restored and left in place in the temple. One of the large Sekhmet statues of approx. 3 m stood in the pillared courtyard of the Temple of Courage. Instead of the sun disk, Sachmet wears a crown made of uraeus snakes. The inscription of Scheschonq I (also Sesonchis 945-924) from the 22nd "Libyan" dynasty on the seat was deeply cut and well worked. Scheschonk I owes his fame to his Palestine campaign of 924 BC. BC, which is also mentioned in the Bible. He would therefore be identical to the Egyptian King Shishak from the Bible. The reason is said to have been the lodging of Jeroboam, a candidate for the Israelite throne, after his flight from Solomon. He had his victory depicted in the temple of Karnak on the southern outer wall of the hypostyle hall to the right of the "Bubastidentor". What was striking about this statue were the white legs that Margaret called "white knee socks". Flinders Petrie and Jacques de Morgan explained the cause:
Damage from the Nile floodplain
In the past, the annual flood of the Nile was vital for the desert landscape of Egypt . From the volcanic soils of the Ethiopian highlands, the Nile brought nutrient-rich alluvial debris that was a blessing for the fields but a curse for the monuments. Jacques de Morgan was convinced that the "Holy Lake" in the temple district was indirectly connected to the Nile. Due to changes in the river bed over the millennia and at times of flooding, the water level sometimes rose so high that the temple area was flooded. Flinders Petrie explained to Margaret that the stone types responded differently. While sandstone is strongly attacked by the salts, granite is less affected. If a statue lies underground and is soaked in moisture year after year, it suffers less than another that is dried by the sun after being wet, because the crystallization of the salts inside the stone causes it to corrode. So it was with the Sekhmet statue of Sheschonk I, the upper part of which was hidden in sand and earth, while the lower part was exposed to the weather on the surface. The legs had turned white and were a strange sight. Margaret preferred a statue "with white stockings" one with no feet or legs.
She had the experience of an earthen Coptic lamp, which she put away without soaking because she didn't know any better. The next year a layer of salt had grown on it. When she wiped it off, a new one appeared after a short time and soon the surface began to crumble. Ultimately, it meant for her that every find had to be carefully washed in fresh water before it was finally treated in the Gizeh Museum.
Here in the second courtyard, near the southernmost pillar on the east side, she came across three stone blocks on which ships could be seen, and to which they attached no further importance. Then it turned out that they came from the 25th Dynasty and were of considerable interest, because they reported from a ship voyage of the Nubian Pharaoh Piankhy (reign around 747-716). The following year they found two more blocks translated by Newberry under the name "Phiankhy blocks".
Her archaeological friends urged her to look for founding gifts. At the stone pylon between the first and second courtyards, the double-thickness surrounding wall began and delimited the temple. At the southeast corner of this main wall, they began to look for founding additions. They found the corner stone, but the wall was so destroyed that they only found one stone above the foundation. They continued to dig around this stone and came across a small, unlabeled statue, then a labeled one, and in the course of the morning they discovered 8 statues, 6 of which were inscribed, including a double statue of a man and a woman, page sitting at one side made of yellow sandstone, without heads; however, they found a male head that seemed to match this double statue. It was at this point that Georges Legrain appeared and urged that these statues be brought to his warehouse in Karnak. That meant quite a way for Margaret to study the statues more closely, so Legrain finally agreed that she could keep the statues in the hotel until she left, until Jacques de Morgan had decided on their whereabouts. At the same time, he tied his permission to the condition that they correctly report all their finds in the future, which they had neglected in the past out of ignorance. By evening they had found three more statuettes from the 18th Dynasty that had been purposely removed from the temple and hidden here. Their search for founding gifts was unsuccessful here too, so they filled the pits again so as not to endanger the construction. They received a letter from de Morgan confirming Legrain's permission and pointing out that they were required to report and document the finds.
At the end of February they wanted to finish their excavations and had already released most of their boys because it was Ramadan. A few men were still busy with repair work and if more help was needed they brought 2-3 more. On the Thursday of the last week of February, one of the released boys, Osman Amar, appeared very excited and had seen "a man's foot". He took them to the south bank at the "Holy Lake", where a piece of sandstone peeped out. The boy continued digging, and Margaret could feel the foot of a statue as she stuck her hand in, making the digging seem promising. The boy borrowed a pickaxe and soon they could see a kneeling figure lying on its back. They called the other men over and soon a Hathor head appeared on the chest. They discovered that there was another statue underneath. But first it was necessary to recover them, which was done by sunset. The statue was over 5 feet tall, beautifully crafted, and written on all around. They left two armed guards there. The next morning, Percy Newberry was already on the lakeshore and was able to tell them that it was Senenmut , a high official at the court of Hatshepsut , and they also found her cartridge on the back of the statue. The second statue below this had now been uncovered, and it was Beacon Consu . Bak-en-Khonsu ("Servant of Khons"), or of the "Ba" (soul), ("Soul of Khons"), was a high priest of Amun during the reign of Ramses II (around 1220 BC) . The inscriptions on the statue of Senenmut lead to the conclusion that the temple was not built in the time of Amenhotep III. , but was built earlier in the 18th Dynasty.
Senenmut's statue now had to be carried up from the bank, and M. Legrain sent his foreman to help to command the workers. Mr. Dixon, a surveyor who was at Luxor, also offered to help with the pulleys. Once at the top, she had to be carried on a cart to the truck, which then took Senenmut to the museum boat. Bakenkonsu remained guarded at its place of discovery until it could also be loaded.
They looked for more statues on the lakeshore, but without success. Then they began digging up from the west side of the temple gate to the southwest, where Senenmut had been found. All they found was a pier made of recycled stone, and the digging from the east side did not reveal anything significant. After removing about a third of the eastern half of the bank, they stopped working after three days to return to Cairo.
She was allowed to take three pieces from the excavation with her to England, including a fragmentary upper part of a large royal statue of Ramses II. This part remained in the family's possession for many years as a reminder of Margaret's excavations.
The third season in 1897 and other important finds
In October 1896 Margaret's father, the Archbishop of Canterbury, died suddenly and unexpectedly. That was a heavy blow for the entire family, so that in January, in addition to Janet Gourlay and Margaret, her mother Mary and her brothers Hugh and Fred came to Luxor. The latter had been of great help to Margaret in previous years when he came over from Athens. He supervised the work, measured the temple complex and drew a plan.
The goal this year was, in addition to further clearing the temple and looking for founding gifts, to open up the area around the southeast corner of the temple, where they had discovered the statues last year. A new plan with corrections to the plans drawn by Mariette and others should also be drawn up. The work began on January 10th with a further enlarged team, as they now had more money at their disposal. On the very first day they discovered two important statues: the first was a headless block statue with the inscription of Mentuemhat, fourth prophet of Amun, from the 25th to 28th centuries. Dynasty. The second was the top of a statue in which only part of the inscription was preserved, but the legible titles also allowed identification as Mentuemhat. It was a life-size image that was preserved to under the shoulders. The head was adorned with a bald head, but hair was worked around it, which was a rare representation in Egyptian art. These two finds were later published by Janet Gourlay and Percy Newberry under the title: The Fourth Prophet of Amun, Montemhet .
After this discovery, the excavation of the southeast corner was expanded and they came across 14 more statues, including a remarkable head from the Saïtic period (26th Dyn. Approx. 664-525 BC). Another trench was dug to the west. In both areas they found parts of 15 inscribed statues, a sphinx, three heads and parts of an alabaster statue. Because of this success, a third section was laid from the south-east corner 40 feet (approx. 12 m) long to the east side of the temple, where large fallen stone blocks then blocked a continuation. Here they only found fragments of sculptures. A surprise was a clay pot that contained 49 coins from the time of the Roman emperor Nero .
This season almost ended in tragedy: Margaret suffered from a cold that led to pneumonia. Her condition was so bad that she feared death. A doctor at the Luxor Hotel dared to drain the lung fluid and saved her life. She later had a heart attack. The lung problems persisted.
In her three short excavation times, Margaret Benson had exposed the Courage of Courage from the first courtyard to the banks of the sacred lake behind the temple.
All excavators started out as amateurs and acquired their knowledge of archeology through experience over the years. Victorian women interested in Egypt have hitherto been collectors of antiques, writers of travelogues, or companions / supporters of their husbands in science or adventure. Margaret Benson said in the introduction to her book that she would hardly have been granted the license if someone had suspected her finds there.
In 1899 Margaret Benson published with Janet Gourlay as co-author her book on the excavations under the title The Temple of Mut at Asher . They chose this title because the "Holy Lake" was also called "asheru" (or "isheru"). The Brooklyn Museum in New York has given the work of the two women the same value as the publications of their male colleagues from that time.
In the index of her book she gives the statues of the goddess Sekhmet that will remain in the temple with: 98 in the outer courtyard, 40 in the second courtyard, 48 in the corridor, 2 in the gate and 6 fragments. She points out in a footnote that some of them could be seen before the excavations began in 1895-97 and that many were removed before that. Are known Giovanni Belzoni and Bernardino Drovetti .
In 1900 Margaret visited Egypt for the last time with Janet Gourlay, but only as a tourist. The next excavations in the temple area of Mut were not to be carried out until 1921 by Maurice Pillet for the antiquity service in Karnak.
Back in England
The family had to vacate their late father's official residence at Lambeth Palace and moved to a house in Winchester , near the cathedral . Margaret helped her brother Arthur put together materials for a biography of her father, but she suffered from exhaustion and listlessness. So they looked for a place with a better climate for Margaret and settled in Tremans, near Horsted Keyes, north of Brighton .
Margaret was working on her book, The Venture of Rational Faith, and wrote the introduction to her father's work, which she edited posthumously. She was partly responsible for the organization of the St. Paul Association for Biblical Study , which met regularly in London and invited lecturers. She also organized camps for biblical study at Oxford and Cambridge. She also supported the association founded by her father for graduation in theology studies for women.
In 1906 Margaret suffered a nervous breakdown and from then until her death she would suffer from depression and hallucinations. In 1907 she was given to the Sisters of Mercy for care and then to the Priorie in Roehampton , a private home for mental illnesses. Around 1913 she lived under the care of a doctor and his wife at Wimbledon, where she was able to lead a more or less "normal" life. She died here on May 13, 1916 at the age of 50.
Photo gallery
Heads of women from the Saitic period (664–525 BC)
Fig. 1: Head of the god Min. Fig. 2: Head of Ta-Urt. Fig. 3 and 4: String Sphinx
Large lion head with sun disk of the goddess Sekhmet
Seat or block statue by Sen-Mut with a cartouche of Hatshepsut
Tutankhamun statue in the Mut temple district in Karnak
Bak-en-Khonsu statue in the Mut temple district in Karnak
Excavation M. Benson 1895–97, baboon statues on the left
Plan of the temple of the goddess Mut. Excavations 1895–97.
Works
- Capital, Labor and Trade and the Outlook . London 1891
- Subject to Vanity . New York 1895
- The temple of courage in Asher ; an account of the excavation of the temple and of the religious representations and objects found therein, as illustrating the history of Egypt and the main religious ideas of the Egyptians. The inscriptions and translations by Percy Newberry. John Murray publisher, London 1899 online
- The soul of a cat and other stories . London 1901
- The Venture of Rational Faith . London 1908
- Margaret Benson Books - online at Internet Archive
literature
- Arthur Christopher Benson: The Life and Letters of Maggie Benson. London 1927.
- Edward Frederic Benson: OurFamily Affairs, 1867-1896. George H. Doran Co., New York 1921.
- Betty Askwith: Two Victorian Families. (the Strachey Family; the Benson Family). Chatto & Windus, London 1971, ISBN 0-7011-1804-0 .
- David Williams: Genesis and exodus: a Portrait of the Benson Family. H. Hamilton Publisher, London 1979, ISBN 0-241-10190-5 .
- Rodney Bolt: As Good As God, As Clever As The Devil: The Impossible Life of Mary Benson. Atlantic Books, 2011, ISBN 978-1-84354-861-4
Web links
- Wellington College
- Genealogy Benson family
- Papers of the Benson family, 18th-20th cent. - Bodleian Library, University of Oxford
- Pagnon's Luxor (Wena) Hotel
- The Courage District - History of the Excavation at the Brooklyn Museum New York
- Courage Precinct in Karnak - today
- Berlin exhibits: Prince of Thebes. Seated figure of Montemhet (PDF; 83 kB)
- Another knee figure of Senenmut and a cube statue of Bekenchon in the State Museum of Egyptian Art in Munich
- William Peck: Margaret Benson in Egypt
Individual evidence
- ↑ Arthur Christopher Benson: The Life and Letters of Maggie Benson . London 1927, p. 40.
- ↑ Our Family Affairs 1867-1896 . P. 312.
- ↑ Edward Frederic see under “Edward White Benson” in Encyclopedia Britannica 1911 ( Memento from January 23, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ M. Benson: The Temple of Mut in Asher. P. 14 ff.
- ↑ Janet Gourlay
- ↑ M. Benson: The Temple of Mut in Asher. P. 34 ff.
- ↑ M. Benson: The Temple of Mut in Asher. Murray Publishing House, London 1899. Part V, p. 370 ff.
- ↑ M. Benson: The Temple of Mut in Asher. London 1899. Part V, p. 53 ff.
- ^ William Peck: Janet Gourlay. (PDF; 59 kB)
- ^ Preface in The Temple of Mut in Asher.
- ^ The courage district - history of the excavation. in the Brooklyn Museum New York
- ^ Maurice Pillet photo archive
- ^ AC Benson: The Life of Edward White Benson, Sometime Archbishop of Canterbury. MacMillan Publisher, London 1899.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Benson, Margaret |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British archaeologist and author |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 16, 1865 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Wellington College, Crowthorne , Berkshire |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 13, 1916 |
| Place of death | Wimbledon |