Groundbreakers: The Joy of Lists, Letters and Wills - Women in the Archives

As part of the Groundbreakers: Women in Archaeology series, join Dr Amara Thornton & Dr Debbie Challis at UCL's Institute of Archaeology as they present case studies of tracing women in archaeological records at UCL and the Petrie Museum. They will explore how dry lists can bring surprising discoveries and how understanding names and naming are key to unlocking women’s involvement in archaeology.

Audiences will have a chance to take part in discussion and interact with historical material relating to women in archaeology.

Debbie Challis will draw on work for a forthcoming biography on the archaeologist and museum curator Charles Thomas Newton to understand how women, like the famous Jane E. Harrison or the relatively unknown Amy Yule, played a part in early museum engagement programmes, UCL lectures and related societies.

Amara Thornton will share learning from the Beyond Notability project to look at how UCL courses worked at the end of the nineteenth century and who were the women that took them.They will both use material from the archives of the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology to consider the role of women there, such as Hilda Petrie (nee Urlin), Annie Quibell, Beatrice Orme, and, of course, the multi-faceted work of Margaret Murray.

This event will be hybrid, taking place at UCL's Institute of Archaeology and online. When booking your ticket please select 'General Admission' for in person attendance, or 'Online Ticket' if wanting to watch online. An invitation link will be sent to you closer to the date of the talk.

Dr Debbie Challis is a cultural historian, public engagement consultant and works as Creative Producer at the Portico Library in Manchester. She researches the ancient past in the modern world in a frame of gender politics and racist theory in British history and society during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Liverpool.

Dr Amara Thornton is a historian of archaeology with a research focus on archaeological collections, histories in museums, social history and networks in archaeology, archives of archaeology, and popular publishing in archaeology, particularly during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Amara was Co-Investigator on the AHRC-funded “Beyond Notability” project (2021-24) and also led the “Animating Caribbean Collections at the British Museum” knowledge exchange project (2023). Amara's co-edited anthology with Dr Katy Soar, Strange Relics: Stories of Archaeology and the Supernatural was published by Handheld Press in 2022.

This event is part of a public engagement project called Groundbreakers: Women in Archaeology. Led by the British International Research Institutes (BIRI) and the Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology, this project spotlights pioneering women in archaeology through the archives of the BIRI's nine institutes.

The project will consist of a small display at the Petrie Museum with an accompanying talks programme.

Groundbreakers is based on Women Transcending Boundaries: over a century of scholarship, fieldwork and friendship across the British International Research Institutes, an online research project created by the BIRI Digital Coordination and Strategy Project (2022-2026) and supported by the British Academy.

See here for more information about the BIRI.

Credit: Photo collage © Alice Lubbock/BIRI

The Institute of Archaeology lecture theatre is located on the ground floor with step-free access into the building. For further information about the venue's accessibility, please visit UCL's Access Guide here.

The Institute of Archaeology is located in Bloomsbury, in the heart of central London. The nearest tube stations are Euston (Northern Line, Victoria Line) and Euston Square (Metropolitan, Circle, Hammersmith & City Lines), and buses 18, 30, 73, 134 and 205 stop three to five minutes away on Euston Road. See here for more transportation information.

This event is part of Being Human Festival, the UK’s national festival of the humanities, taking place 5-14 November 2026. Led by the School of Advanced Study, University of London, in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy. For further information please see beinghumanfestival.org.

Event venue

UCL Institute of Archaeology, lecture theatre G6, 31-34 Gordon Square, London, United Kingdom

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