The War Years in Thebes: Ernest Mackay’s Work in Theban Tombs

The Mackay archive (now part of the larger manuscript collection of Alan H. Gardiner) kept at the Griffith Institute, University of Oxford, comprises excavation reports, photographs, and personal correspondence of Ernest Mackay, the British archaeologist who worked in the Theban necropolis from 1913–1916 on behalf of Robert Mond. Mackay’s notes fill in the gaps in the history of the exploration of Theban tombs, as well as add some additional information on the obscure years of the First World War in the Theban necropolis. The archive also sheds some light on the hitherto unknown beginning of the archaeological career of Dorothy Mackay.

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