Identity area
Reference code
Caton-Thompson MSS
Title
Date(s)
- c.1920-1985 (Creation)
Level of description
Collection
Extent and medium
1 box
Context area
Name of creator
Biographical history
British archaeologist; she was born in London, Feb. 1888, daughter of William Caton-Thompson, a solicitor, and Ethel Gertrude Page; she was educated in private schools in Eastbourne and Paris and visited Egypt in 1911 with her mother; she worked as a civil servant during World War I and then from 1921-6 was a student of Petrie at University College London; she took part in Petrie's excavations at Abydos and Oxyrhynchus 1921-2; her interest was in the prehistoric period in which she became a specialist; she excavated in Malta in 1921 and 1924; she joined Petrie and Brunton at Qau 1923-5 where she discovered the predynastic village at Hemmamiya; she inaugurated the first archaeological and geological survey of the Northern Fayum where she uncovered two neolithic cultures 1924-8 under the auspices of the British School of Archaeology and then the Royal Anthropological Institute; in 1929 she carried out excavations in Rhodesia at Zimbabwe and other sites; she undertook further excavations at Kharga Oasis 1930-2 and in southern Arabia in 1937-8; she served on the council of the Royal Anthropological Institute, the Royal Geographical Society, and the British Institute of History and Archaeology in East Africa; she was awarded the Cuthbert Peek award of the Royal Geographical Society, 1932; Rivers medallist of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 1934; Huxley medallist, 1946; Burton Medal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1954; Fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge, Hon. Fellow, 1981; FBA, 1944; Hon. Litt. D. Cambridge, 1954; she served as Governor of Bedford College for Women and the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London; her chief Egyptological publications were The Badarian Civilisation, with G. Brunton, 1928; The Desert Fayum, 1934, Kharga Oasis in Prehistory, 1952; and her reminiscenses Mixed Memoirs, 1983; she died at Court Farm, Broadway, Worcestershire, 18 April 1985.
Archival history
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Content and structure area
Scope and content
Notes, papers, correspondence, etc., on prehistoric Faiyûm.