# Joyce Tyldesley

Joyce Ann Tyldesley OBE (born 25 February 1960) is a British Archaeologist and Egyptologist, academic, writer and broadcaster who specialises in research on women in ancient Egypt. She was interviewed on the TV series Cunk on Earth, about Egyptian pyramids, in 2022.

## Education and early life

Tyldesley was born in Bolton, Lancashire and privately educated at Bolton School. In 1981, she earned a first-class honours degree in archaeology from the University of Liverpool specialising in the Eastern Mediterranean. She moved to the University of Oxford; initially at St Anne's College, Oxford then, following the award of a scholarship, at St Cross College, Oxford. In 1986, she was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Paleolithic archaeology, for her thesis on Mousterian bifaces (handaxes) in Northern Europe.

## Career and research

After her DPhil, 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, 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 Master of Arts (MA) degree in Egyptology programme. She has devised, writes, directs and teaches a suite of on-line Short Courses in Egyptology, and has created several free online Egyptology massive open online course (MOOCs), working in conjunction with the Manchester Museum. Mumford the Mummy is a series of lessons aimed at Key Stage 2 children primary school, freely available online.
Tyldesley is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA) 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 the University of Liverpool 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).

### Accountancy and Rutherford Press Limited

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 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 Rutherford Press Limited totalling £3,000 were made to Manchester Museum, the Egypt Exploration Society and the University of Liverpool fieldwork project at Zawyet Umm El Rakham. Rutherford Press closed in February 2017, to allow Tyldesley to concentrate on her teaching.

### Publications

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 was awarded the Felicia A. Holton Book Award by the Archaeological Institute of America in 2014.

### Gender and ancient history

Tyldesley has written about the role of women in ancient Egypt, such as Hatshepsut, a female pharaoh, in the 18th dynasty. 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'.
She has written about the lives of women in ancient Egypt.
Tyldesley commented that she thought Hatshepsut 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."
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'.

### Publications

Tyldesley's publications include:
* The Wolvercote Channel Handaxe Assemblage: A Comparative Study
* The Bout Coupe Biface: a Typological Problem
* Nazlet Tuna: An Archaeological Survey in Middle Egypt
* Daughters of Isis: Women of Ancient Egypt
* Hatchepsut: The Female Pharaoh
* Nefertiti: Egypt's Sun Queen
* The Mummy: Unwrap the Ancient Secrets of the Mummy's Tombs
* Ramesses: Egypt's Greatest Pharaoh
* Judgement of the Pharaoh: Crime and Punishment in Ancient Egypt
* The Private Lives of the Pharaohs
* Egypt's Golden Empire: The Age of the New Kingdom
* Tales from Ancient Egypt
* Pyramids: The Real Story behind Egypt's most Ancient Monuments
* Unearthing the Past
* Egypt: How a Lost Civilization was Rediscovered
* Chronicle of the Queens of Egypt
* Egyptian Games and Sports
* INSIDERS: Egypt (Ancient Egypt Revealed)
* Mummy Mysteries: The Secret World of Tutankhamun and the Pharaohs
* Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt
* The Pharaohs
* Myths and Legends of Ancient Egypt
* Stories from Ancient Greece and Rome
* Tutankhamen's Curse: The Developing History of an Egyptian King
* Stories from Ancient Egypt: Egyptian Myths and Legends for Children
* Nefertiti's Face: The Creation of an Icon
* From Mummies to Microchips: A Case Study in Online Learning

### Awards and honours

Tyldesley was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2024 New Year Honours for services to Egyptology and heritage. Other awards include:
* 2014 - Felicia A. Holton Book Award from the Archaeological Institute of America
* 2019 - Outstanding Technology Enhanced Learning Award
* 2011 - Tyldesley was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Bolton in recognition of her contribution to education.

## Personal life

Tyldesley has two children.