Dorothy Eady

[5] After being taken by her parents to visit the British Museum, and on observing a photograph in the New Kingdom temple exhibits room, the young Eady called out "There is my home!"

[7] On leaving school at sixteen she visited museums and archaeological sites around Britain, facilitated by her father's investigations into the nationwide booming cinema industry.

[11] At the age of twenty-seven, she began working in London with an Egyptian public relations magazine, for which she wrote articles and drew cartoons that reflected her political support for an independent Egypt.

[12] After a chance meeting with George Reisner's secretary, who commented on her apparent ability to charm snakes and told her that spells on such powers were in early ancient Egyptian literature, Eady visited the Fifth Dynasty pyramid of Unas.

[20] Two years after the marriage broke down she went to live in Nazlat al-Samman near the Giza pyramids, where she met the Egyptian archaeologist Selim Hassan of the Department of Antiquities, who employed her as his secretary and draughtswoman.

So this poorly educated Englishwoman developed in Egypt into a first-rate draughtswoman and prolific and talented writer who, even under her own name, produced articles, essays, monographs and books of great range, wit and substance.

[23] Hassan's magnum opus, the ten-volume "Excavations at Giza", gives "special mention, with sincere gratitude" to Eady for her editing, drawing, indexing, and proofreading work.

At one of these trips to the temple, the chief inspector from the Antiquities Department, who knew about her claims, had decided to test her by asking her to stand at particular wall paintings in complete darkness.

[citation needed] Ancient Egyptian boys were circumcised, probably for reasons of hygiene, and she believed this was picked up by the Jews, which in turn was passed down to modern Muslims.

[60] A common belief amongst village people relates to a "bogeyman" and "terrorist," called Ba Bah, and compares with the obscure ancient Egyptian god Bwbi who similarly invoked terror.

On "Job Wednesday," during the week preceding Easter Sunday, a bath is taken and the body scrubbed with a plant, "Egyptian Amaranath", called ghabira by the Muslims, and damissa by the Copts.

[63] Between December and January (the month of Koiak in both ancient Egyptian and Coptic calendars), Muslims and Copts, but mainly the latter, sow small gardens which are thought to bring prosperity to the household when they sprout.

[64] Andrew Strum notes a similar practice amongst Egyptian Jews, in this case relating to atonement for sin, and also speculates that this has its origins in the Osirian beliefs of ancient Egypt.

These were edited and published by the Egyptologist Nicole B. Hansen in 2008, under the title "Omm Sety's Living Egypt: Surviving Folkways from Pharaonic Times," with a foreword by Kent Weeks and an introduction by Walter A.

[66] On reaching the age of sixty in 1964, Omm Sety was faced with mandatory retirement by the Antiquities Department and advised to seek part-time work in Cairo.

She began work as a part-time consultant for the Antiquities Department, guiding tourists around the Temple of Seti and explaining the symbolism of the painted wall scenes.

[68] In 1972, she suffered a mild heart attack and in the aftermath decided to sell her old house and move into a zareba (a ramshackle single room made of reeds).

As a prelude to meeting Set he fasted for ten days before entering the Chapel of the Great Strength, where the god appeared with "a beauty that cannot be described".

"[71] Seti made several visits during the following weeks, during which he gave his opinion of the Greek story of Atlantis (a Cretan had once told him that the islands of the Aegean were the tops of mountains from a great land that had sunk into the Mediterranean) and the origins of Osiris ("our Lord came from Amenti, whence he returned").

John Romer recalled taking a bottle of vodka to her home and Omm Sety having fun telling the slightly more ribald stories of the gods and goddesses.

She, in common with other Egyptologists, did not regard the king as a romantic idealist dedicated to a universal god, but a "one-track minded, authoritarian iconoclast who impaled captives and deported populations.

[79] On 15 April she received a letter from Olivia Robertson confirming that Omm Sety had been enrolled in the Fellowship of Isis, an interfaith spiritual movement focused on the goddess, on 23 March.

The local health authority refused to allow her to be buried in the tomb she had constructed, so she was interred in an unmarked grave, facing the west, in the desert outside a Coptic cemetery.

[88] In 2006, Otto Shaden, on a completely unrelated dig, accidentally burst into one of the "anomalies" (later numbered KV63), which contained particularly fine examples of mummification supplies used for a royal burial, presumably nearby.

[90] While the general public tend to focus on the beauty of ancient Egyptian artefacts, scholars highly value texts which reveal more about history and religious beliefs.

Since Edgar Cayce, a clairvoyant of Presbyterian background, asserted while in a trance state that a Hall of Records was to be found in the area of the Sphinx, there have been repeated attempts to find its supposed location.

[93] According to the late John A. Wilson, head of the Oriental Institute, and called the "dean of American Egyptology" by contemporaries, Omm Sety deserved to be treated as "a responsible scholar".

[97] One noted Egyptologist, who did not wish to be named, commented "I was deeply shocked when, one night, I attended a party given by Dr. Ahmed Fakhry behind the Great Pyramid...and there under the full moon was Dorothy Eady belly dancing!

So this poorly educated Englishwoman developed in Egypt into a first rate draughtswoman and prolific and talented writer who, even under her own name, produced articles, essays, monographs and books of great range, wit and substance.

[107] The psychologist Michael Gruber noted that Omm Sety lived "a functional life in so-called everyday reality", including work in Egyptology, embroidery, making jewellery and socializing with people.