Joyce Ann Tyldesley OBE (born 25 February 1960)[1] is a British archaeologist and Egyptologist, academic, writer and broadcaster who specialises in the women of ancient Egypt. She was interviewed on the TV series 'Cunk on Earth', about Egypt's pyramids, in 2022.[2]
Tyldesley was born in Bolton, Lancashire[3] and attended Bolton School.[4] In 1981, she earned a first-class honours degree in the archaeology of the Eastern Mediterranean from the University of Liverpool. Her doctoral studies were undertaken at Oxford University; first at St Anne's College then, following the award of a scholarship, at St Cross College. In 1986, she was awarded a doctorate in Prehistoric Archaeology from Oxford University. Her thesis was written about Mousterian bifaces (handaxes) in Northern Europe. Tyldesley then returned to Liverpool as a lecturer in Prehistoric Archaeology.
Tyldesley next worked as a freelance Egyptologist/archaeologist; writing books, working with television companies, and teaching in further and higher education and online.
In 2007, she joined the University of Manchester, as a joint appointment between the Manchester Museum and the Faculty of Life Sciences. As of 2023[update], she is Professor of Egyptology in the Department of Classics, Ancient History, Archaeology and Egyptology where she is tutor and Programme Director of the three-year online Certificate in Egyptology programme, the two-year online Diploma in Egyptology programme and the two year part-time online MA in Egyptology programme.[5] She has devised, writes, directs and teaches a suite of on-line Short Courses in Egyptology, and has created several free online Egyptology courses (MOOCS), working in conjunction with the Manchester Museum. Mumford the Mummy is a series of lessons aimed at Key Stage 2 primary school children, freely available via Nearpod.[6]
In 2011, Tyldesley was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Bolton in recognition of her contribution to education.[7] She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA) and a Research Associate of the Manchester Museum. Tyldesley is President of Bolton Archaeology and Egyptology Society and a former trustee of the Egypt Exploration Society.
Tyldesley has extensive archaeological fieldwork experience, having excavated in Britain, Europe and Egypt where she worked with the British Museum at Ashmunein, with Liverpool University in the Eastern Nile Delta, and where she conducted her own field survey at Tuna el-Gebel.
Tyldesley has been interviewed on various TV series including Empires: Egypt's Golden Empire (2001), and The Nile: Egypt's Great River with Bettany Hughes (2019).[8]
Tyldesley has two children.
She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2024 New Year Honours for services to Egyptology and heritage.[9]
Tyldesley is a part-qualified Chartered Accountant, and spent 17 years supporting her writing career by working as a small business manager for Crossley and Davis Chartered Accountants in Bolton.
In 2004 Tyldesley established, with Dr. Steven Snape, Rutherford Press Limited, a publishing firm dedicated to publishing serious but accessible books on ancient Egypt while raising money for Egyptology field work. Donations from RPL totaling £3,000 were made to Manchester Museum, the Egypt Exploration Society and the Liverpool University fieldwork project at Zawiyet umm el-Rakham. Rutherford Press closed in February 2017, to allow Tyldesley to concentrate on her teaching.[citation needed]
Tyldesley has written academic and popular books for adults and children, including books to accompany the television series Private Lives of the Pharaohs (Channel 4), Egypt's Golden Empire (Lion Television) and Egypt (BBC). In January 2008 book Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt, was the Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4. Her play for children, The Lost Scroll, premiered at Kendal Museum in 2011. Her book Tutankhamen's Curse (published as Tutankhamen in the USA) was awarded the 2014 Felicia A. Holton Book Award by the Archaeological Institute of America.
Tyldesley has written about the role of women in power, in ancient Egypt, such as Hatschepsut, a female pharaoh, in the 18th dynasty. [10] She has written about Egyptian women and their lives, as well as the roles of power women held in ancient societies. She has described how in ancient Egypt, women:
'enjoyed a legal, social and sexual independence unrivalled by their Greek or Roman sisters, or in fact by most women until the late nineteenth century'.[11]
She has written about the lives of women in ancient Egypt.[12] Tyldesley commented that she thought Hatschepsut may have been 'keenly conscious of her exceptional place in history', as there were inscriptions on a pair of obelisks erected, which said:
"Now my heart turns this way and that, as I think what the people will say—those who shall see my monuments in years to come, and who shall speak of what I have done."[13]
Tyldesley was also on a panel, hosted by Bettany Hughes of the BBC, on how Nefertiti, Cleopatra, and Hatshepsut ruled in positions of power, and 'flipped gender roles'. The panel discussed examples of women who were able to take and hold power via 'bravery, guile... self-reinvention... and the ability to control their own image'.[14]
