Elise Jenny Baumgärtel, née Goldschmidt (1892-1975), was a leading figure in the study of predynastic Egypt. Enrolling initially as a medicine student at the University of Berlin, Elise switched to study Egyptology under Adolf Erman and Kurt Sethe. She continued her studies at the University of Königsberg, where, dissatisfied with the text-based approach in Egyptology, she pursued the subject in combination with archaeology, concentrating on the material culture of Egypt’s wider geographical context. She received her doctorate in 1927 with a thesis on the Neolithic period in Tunisia. After her doctorate, Elise was awarded several scholarships and grants, allowing her to: study lithic technology under Breuil in France; visit flint mines across Europe; participate in German excavations at Hermopolis; and direct her own excavations at Wadi el-Sheikh in Egypt, Macchia a Mare (Monte Gargano) in Italy, and near Sarajevo. She did all of this while raising three daughters on her own.

Sixty-seven flint flakes and fragments, excavated at Maccia a Mare. Donated to the British Museum by Dr Elise Baumgärtel in 1935. Released under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license. © The Trustees of the British Museum. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/image/268953001

Sixty-seven flint flakes and fragments, excavated at Macchia a Mare. Donated to the British Museum by Dr Elise Baumgärtel in 1935. Released under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license. © The Trustees of the British Museum. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/image/268953001

In 1933 the Nazis came to power in Germany and Elise, a Jewish woman, lost all of her grants from the government. A year later she fled to England – here she would be forced to rely on the support of refugee charities and other academics for many years to come. Sir John L. Myres secured a grant for Elise to produce a bibliography of prehistoric finds from Italy and Malta, and she worked as a private Latin tutor in Oxford and taught evening classes in Egyptian at University College London (UCL) between 1934 and 1936.

In 1936 Elise approached the Petrie Museum at UCL, volunteering to register and rearrange the uncatalogued and unlabelled predynastic and Early Dynastic material in Petrie’s collection. Her offer delighted the newly appointed Edwards Professor of Egyptian Archaeology and Philology Stephen Glanville, who arranged for Sir Robert Mond to subsidise her work. Working on the collection allowed Elise to combine her interests in Egyptology, Prehistory, and flints, and she wrote that it was ‘only then did I begin to understand what Egyptian Prehistory is and how little I had known of it previously’. When Mond died in 1938 and his widow terminated the subsidy, Glanville fought to have the department continue to fund Elise’s work, stating that ‘her services would be the first I should ask the college to pay out from whatever funds may be available for the Department of Egyptology’. Alongside her work at the Petrie Museum Elise also taught tutorials and seminar classes, and was appointed Honorary Research Assistant in 1937 and later promoted to Temporary Assistant in 1939. During this time she dropped the umlaut in her surname.

With the outbreak of World War II in Europe the Petrie collection was moved into storage and Elise and her youngest daughter, Liselott, relocated to Somerville College, Oxford, where the daughter read Philosophy, Politics and Economics. At Somerville Elise was in the company of other refugee women scholars from Europe, among them Egyptologist Käthe Bosse, who had also previously worked on the Petrie Collection, classical archaeologist Margarete Bieber, and Hittitologist Leonie Zuntz. She also became close friends with Dame Lucy Sutherland. In 1941 Elise received a grant from the Griffith Institute at Oxford, again through the help of Sir John L. Myres, to enlarge her unpublished paper on the objects in the Petrie collection into a monograph on predynastic Egypt –  The Cultures of Prehistoric Egypt.

The first volume of The Cultures of Prehistoric Egypt was published in 1947; the second volume in 1960, although it had actually been completed by 1955. In it she maintained that predynastic Egypt cannot be understood through texts written years after the events they describe, which led her to reject Sethe’s theory for a Delta kingdom that unified prehistoric Egypt. Instead she emphasised the primacy of Upper Egypt in the origin of Egyptian civilization, backing up her claims with as much archaeological evidence as she could muster; this, however, resulted in her outright denial of any early cultures in the Lower Egyptian Delta, for which she was heavily criticised. She also attempted to explain developments within predynastic Egypt by drawing comparisons and connections with Mesopotamia. Another significant finding was the discovery of major errors in Petrie’s system of Sequence Dating for predynastic material – one of the wavy-handled vessels that Petrie had placed earliest in the sequence had been purchased, not excavated. It was clear that a thorough review of the Naqada tomb groups, upon which Petrie’s system was based, was required – Elise therefore set out to locate and record objects from Naqada, scattered in museums around the world, to reconstruct the grave groups.

After the war Elise was in charge of the Department of Egyptology in the Manchester Museum at the University of Manchester, then relocated to the United States in 1955, where she joined the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. During her time in the United States she visited museums across North America, adding to her card index of objects from Naqada, and helped set up her family’s confectionary factory, which, along with compensation from the German government, finally freed her from the financial concerns that had caused her much distress during her time in England. In 1964 she returned to Oxford, having been granted the opportunity to assist in cataloguing the collection of flints at the Ashmolean Museum. When several of Petrie’s Naqada excavation notebooks were recovered at UCL in the late 1960s, Elise was able to combine the information from these notebooks with information from her index to publish Petrie’s Naqada Excavations: A Supplement, in collaboration with Joan Crowfoot Payne. She also worked on her chapter on predynastic Egypt for Cambridge Ancient History and a third volume of The Cultures of Prehistoric Egypt, which was never published.

Elise passed away in Oxford shortly after her 83rd birthday. It is unfortunate that, despite growing evidence to the contrary, she continued to dismiss the importance of early Lower Egyptian cultures until the end of her life – a view that has obscured the value of her work. Her insistence on understanding objects within their context and attempts to delve into their ‘cognitive’ aspects were ahead of her time, and her writings still contain a wealth of useful facts and observations. As Elise herself wrote about her own work: ‘This is not written to be believed, but to be argued about, and especially corrected where I have misrepresented the facts, or overlooked, some evidence. Only that way can we acquire some safer knowledge.’

Deutsche Fassung:

Elise Jenny Baumgärtel, geb. Goldschmidt (1892-1975), war eine Pionierin der Wissenschaft von der prädynastischen Zeit. Sie studierte an der Universität Berlin anfänglich Medizin, aber später wechselte Sie zu Ägyptologie bei Adolf Erman und Kurt Sethe. Sie promovierte 1927 an der Universität Königsberg. Ihre Dissertation hieß „Tunis (Algier und Nachbargebiete) Neolithikum“, und Sie konzentrierte sich auf archäologischen Materialien aus Nordafrika und dem Mittelmeerraum. Nach ihrer Promotion erhielte Elise mehrere Stipendien, was ihr erlaubt hat in Frankreich Steinbearbeitungstechnik zu studieren, Feuersteinminen in ganz Europa zu besuchen, an einer deutschen Ausgrabung in Hermopolis teilzunehmen und ihre eigenen Ausgrabungen zu führen in Wadi el-Sheikh in Ägypten, Macchia a Mare in Italien, und Sarajevo. Sie hat dies alles gemacht während sie drei Töchter allein erzog.

Nach der Machtübernahme der Nationalsozialisten in 1933 verlor Elise alle beruflichen Perspektiven in Deutschland, weil sie eine jüdische Frau war. 1934 floh sie nach England. In England arrangierte Sir John L. Myres Finanzhilfe für Elise, damit sie eine Bibliographie der prähistorischen Funde aus Italien und Malta erstellen konnte. Sie erteilte privaten Lateinunterricht in Oxford, und unterrichtete auch Abendkurse in ägyptischer Sprache an dem University College London.

1936 wandte sich Elise an das Petrie Museum der UCL und meldete sich freiwillig, um das nicht katalogisierte und unbeschriftete prädynastische und frühdynastische Material in Petries Sammlung zu registrieren und neu zu ordnen. Ihr Angebot erfreute den neuen Edwards-Professor Stephen Glanville, der dafür sorgte, dass ihre Arbeit von Sir Robert Mond subventioniert wurde. Elises Arbeit ermöglichte es ihr, ihre Forschungsinteressen in Ägyptologie, Vorgeschichte und Feuersteinen zu kombinieren. Als Mond 1938 starb und seine Witwe den Zuschuss beendete, kämpfte Glanville dafür, dass die Abteilung weiterhin Elises Arbeit finanzierte. Elise unterrichte auch Seminarklassen und wurde 1937 zum Honorary Research Assistant und 1939 zum Temporary Assistant ernannt. Während dieser Zeit änderte sie ihren Namen zu Baumgartel.

Mit dem Ausbruch des Zweiten Weltkrieg wurde die Petrie-Sammlung in Verwahrung gebracht. Elise und ihre jüngste Tochter Liselott zogen an das Somerville College in Oxford. Elise war mit anderen Flüchtlingswissenschaftlerinnen aus Europa in Somerville, darunter die Ägyptologin Käthe Bosse, die klassische Archäologin Margarete Bieber und die Hethitologin Leonie Zuntz. 1941 erhielt Elise vom Griffith Institute in Oxford ein Stipendium, um ihr unveröffentlichter Aufsatz über die Materialien in der Petrie-Sammlung zu einer Monographie über das prädynastische Ägypten – „The Cultures of Prehistoric Egypt“ – zu erweitern.

Der erste Band von „The Cultures of Prehistoric Egypt“ wurde 1947 veröffentlicht; der zweite Band im Jahr 1960, obwohl es in 1955 fertiggestellt war. Sie betonte eine oberägyptische Herkunft der ägyptischen Zivilisation und bestätigte ihre Behauptungen mit vielen archäologischen Funde. Sie bestritt jedoch auch die Existenz früher Kulturen im Unterägypten, und wurde dafür kritisiert. Elise entdeckte auch große Fehler in Petries System der Datierung für prädynastisches Material. Dies erforderte eine Überprüfung der Naqada-Friedhof, auf denen Petries System beruhte. Elise machte sich daran, Objekte aus Naqada-Kultur in Museen auf der ganzen Welt zu lokalisieren und zu verzeichnen.

Von 1948 bis 1950 war Baumgartel Kuratorin ägyptischer Artefakte der University of Manchester. Sie zog 1955 in die USA, wo sie am Oriental Institute der University of Chicago arbeitete. In die USA besuchte sie Museen in ganz Nordamerika und fügte ihr Naqada-Grabregister hinzu. Sie half auch beim Aufbau der Süßwarenfabrik ihrer Familie, die sie zusammen mit der Entschädigung durch die deutsche Regierung schließlich von den finanziellen Sorgen befreite. 1964 kehrte sie nach Oxford zurück, um die Feuersteinsammlung des Ashmolean Museum zu katalogisieren. Als Ende der 1960er Jahre mehrere von Petries Naqada-Ausgrabungsheften an der UCL geborgen wurden, kombinierte Elise die Informationen aus diesen Notizbüchern mit Informationen aus ihrem Register, um „Petrie’s Naqada Excavations: A Supplement” in Zusammenarbeit mit Joan Crowfoot Payne zu veröffentlichen. Sie arbeitete auch an ihrem Kapitel über das prädynastische Ägypten für „Cambridge Ancient History” und an einem dritten Band der „The Cultures of Prehistoric Egypt”,  der nie veröffentlicht wurde.

Elise starb 1975 in Oxford. Es ist bedauerlich, dass sie trotz wachsender Beweise die Bedeutung der frühen unterägyptischen Kulturen bis zum Ende ihres Lebens weiterhin ablehnte. Diese Ansicht hat der Wert ihrer Arbeit verdunkelt. Ihr Bestehen darauf, Objekte in ihrem Kontext zu verstehen und zu versuchen, sich mit ihren „kognitiven“ Aspekten auseinanderzusetzen, war ihrer Zeit voraus, und ihre Arbeiten enthalten immer noch viele nützliche Fakten und Beobachtungen.

References and further reading

  1. Biography of Elise Baumgartel by Reneé Friedman in Breaking Ground: https://www.brown.edu/Research/Breaking_Ground/results.php?d=1&first=Elise%20Jenny&last=Baumgartel
  2. Janssen, R., 1992. The First Hundred Years: Egyptology at University College London, 1892-1992. London: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
  3. Kasper-Holtkotte, C., 2017. Deutschland in Ägypten: Orientalistische Netzwerke, Judenverfolgung und das Leben der Frankfurter Jüdin Mimi Borchardt. Berlin: De Gruyter Oldenbourg.
  4. Obituary for Elise Baumgartel by Joan Crowfoot Payne in Editorial Foreword of Journal of Egyptian Archaeology Vol. 62 (1976), pp. 3-4
  5. Baumgartel, E. J., 1947. The Cultures of Prehistoric Egypt. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  6. Baumgartel, E. J., 1960. The Cultures of Prehistoric Egypt II. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Many thanks to Somerville College, staff at the Petrie Museum and UCL Archaeology, and Elise Baumgartel’s family for their help in the research process. Thank you also to my friend Emilia Gerz for proofreading the German version.

 Written by Eponine Wong as part of the TrowelBlazers Digital Fieldwork Project at the Institute of Archaeology, UCL.