Joann Fletcher

Joann Fletcher (born 30 Aug 1966,[1][2] in Barnsley, South Yorkshire[3]) is an Egyptologist and Honorary Visiting Professor in the Department of Archaeology at the University of York. She has published a number of books and academic articles, including on Cleopatra, and made numerous television and radio appearances. In 2003 she controversially claimed to have identified the mummy of Queen Nefertiti.

Career

She went to University College London to study ancient history and Egyptology. She specialised in the Ptolemies (one of the ancient Egyptian dynasties) and Cleopatra and also in ancient Egyptian hair, wigs and forms of adornment - she did her PhD at the University of Manchester on hair and wigs. Currently Fletcher is Honorary Visiting Professor in the Department of Archaeology at the University of York and Consultant Egyptologist for Harrogate Museums and Arts. She also contributed to the new Egyptology galleries at the new Great North Museum in Newcastle, in Ancient Egypt Daily Life galleries at the Burrell Collection in Glasgow, in mummification exhibitions at Bolton and Burnley and at the Leiden's Rijksmuseum as part of their 1994 exhibition 'Clothing of the Pharaohs'

Fletcher designed the UK's first GCSE equivalent qualification in Egyptology on behalf on the government education body, Centra in 2003. She is co-founder of York University's Mummy Research Group with whom she has studied human remains from South America, Yemen, Italy, Ireland, the Canary Islands and Egypt, including the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings. She has undertaken excavation work in Egypt, Yemen, and the UK, and has examined mummies both on-site and in collections around the world.

Fletcher writes for The Guardian newspaper and the BBC's History Online Web site,(including major input into their multimedia project 'Death in Sakkara' which won the New Media Award in 2005) and has made numerous appearances on television and radio. She was lead investigator in the History Channel series Mummy Forensics and most recently was involved with Mummifying Alan: Egypt's Last Secret, a documentary for Channel 4 and Discovery, the subject of a long term project which rewrites current understanding of mummification. This documentary won the 2011 Royal Television Society Award for Science and Natural History and also the BAFTA for Specialist Factual programme.

Her publications include Cleopatra the Great and The Search for Nefertiti, together with guidebooks, journal articles and academic papers.[4]

Queen Nefertiti

In 2003, Fletcher and a multidisciplinary scientific team from the University of York, including the forensic anthropologist Don Brothwell, took part in an expedition to the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, sanctioned by Dr. Zahi Hawass, then Head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA),[5] where the hypothesis was put forward by Fletcher that one of the three mummies studied could be the mummified body of Queen Nefertiti, all three mummified bodies being found among a cache of mummies in tomb KV35 in 1898. This followed the team's scientific findings, and the hypothesis was included in the official report submitted to Hawass and the SCA shortly after the 2003 expedition.[5] The expedition, the result of 12 years of research, was funded by the Discovery Channel, which also produced a documentary on the findings.

Fletcher's conclusions have been dismissed by some Egyptologists, who claim that the mummy in question was a male as young as 15 years old (a theory now disproved),[6] and that evidence used to support Fletcher's theories is insufficient, circumstantial and inconclusive. Archaeology, a publication of the Archaeological Institute of America considered that Fletcher's "identification of the mummy in question as Nefertiti is balderdash".[7] Zahi Hawass, head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, subsequently banned her from working in Egypt because he said "Dr Fletcher has broken the rules". Hawass explained this action in an article in the newspaper Al-Ahram:

"There are more than 300 foreign expeditions currently working in Egypt, and they all follow the same guidelines. We grant concessions to any scholar affiliate to a scientific or educational institution, and it has long been accepted code of ethics that any discovery made during excavations should first be reported to the SCA. By going first to the press with what might be considered a great discovery, Fletcher broke the bond made by York University with the Egyptian authorities. And by putting out in the popular media what is considered by most scholars to be an unsound theory, Fletcher has broken the rules and therefore, at least until we have reviewed the situation with her university, she must be banned from working in Egypt."[7]

According to The Times newspaper, British archaeologists have "leapt to her defence", and the research team stand by their findings.[8][9][10] The team maintain that no rules were broken on the basis that the official report submitted to the SCA included Fletcher's hypothesis, described by others as a 'discovery', and Hawass was also informed of what was to be put forward in the TV programme prior to the Discovery Channel documentary being aired.[11] Fletcher, who had the ban lifted by Hawass and was again working in the Valley of the Kings in April 2008, and the scientists who were involved are adamant the research proves that the KV35YL mummy is more likely than not Nefertiti.[12]

Television and radio

Publications

Notes and references

References

  1. ↑ "Weekend birthdays". The Guardian (Guardian News & Media). 30 Aug 2014. p. 55.
  2. ↑ Date information sourced from Library of Congress Authorities data, via corresponding WorldCat Identities linked authority file (LAF) .
  3. ↑
  4. ↑ http://www.york.ac.uk/archaeology/staff/research-staff/joann-fletcher/
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 http://www.york.ac.uk/archaeology/staff/research-staff/stephen-buckley/#research"
  6. ↑ Hawass, Zahi et al. "Ancestry and Pathology in King Tutankhamun's Family" The Journal of the American Medical Association, February 17, 2010. Vol 303, No. 7 p.638-647
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Mark Rose, "Where's Nefertiti?", Archaeology, September 16, 2004.
  8. ↑ http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=178812
  9. ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/egyptians/amarna_01.shtml#four
  10. ↑ http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/tutdna/
  11. ↑ Ian Parker, "The Pharaoh: Is Zahi Hawass bad for Egyptology?", The New Yorker, November 16, 2009
  12. ↑ http://www.thestar.co.uk/lifestyle/features/barnsley_lass_joann_really_digs_egypt_1_2967863

External links