Acknowledgements

The present book is based on my doctoral dissertation, which came to fruition thanks to the assistance of many friends and colleagues whom I now have the honor to thank. First, I thank my committee at UC Berkeley for their expert advice and guidance: Rita Lucarelli, Carol Redmount, and Kim Shelton. I have learned so much from them, as well as the other professors under whom I had the privilege to study, especially Barbara Richter, Jackie Williamson, Ben Porter, David Larkin, Todd Hickey, Marian Feldman, Rosemary Joyce, and Vanessa Davies. The camaraderie of my fellow grad students, especially Amr Khalaf Shahat, Jessica Kaiser, Lissette Jimenez, Kea Johnston, and Brooke Norton, have been much appreciated over the years. The wonderful and knowledgeable staff in the Department of Near Eastern Studies, Shorena Kurtsikidze and Deanna Kiser-Go, compassionately shepherded me through the process from Extension student to Master’s degree to doctorate. My studies were supported by the University of California Berkeley Graduate Division, the Department of Near Eastern Studies, and the Northern California chapter of the American Research Center in Egypt, all of whom I thank for making this research and the resulting publication possible.

Steve Harvey allowed me to join his team for my first-ever fieldwork in Egypt, and his friendship, advice, and support over the subsequent years have been treasured. Peter Lacovara has been helpful and supportive, suggesting references as well as including me on the team for the renewed excavation and conservation work at Deir el-Ballas from 2017–2021. Susan Allen helped me access the archived Deir el-Ballas material at the MFA, and Denise Doxey has kindly scanned original Hearst Expedition photos for me. Catharine Roehrig at the MMA provided scans of Lythgoe’s photo album, providing key evidence that was missing from other sources. And this research would not have been possible without the unflagging support of the staff at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology at UC Berkeley, in particular Leslie Freund, Collections Manager; Michael Black, Head of Research and Information; and Linda Waterfield, Head of Registration. Joan Knudsen, PAHMA Registrar Emerita, provided me with scans of the Hearst Expedition’s field notes, introduced me to the collection of original photographs, and shared her prodigious institutional memory with me regarding the history of the Egyptian collection now at Berkeley. Elizabeth Minor very kindly helped me formulate the concept of my database, and Michael Black’s programming skills helped make it real. I have benefited from the expertise of Bettina Bader, Christian Knoblauch, Natasha Ayers, and Aaron de Souza who have endured my questions and educated me on the nuances of pottery. I am grateful to Christine Marshall, who carefully reviewed the Hearst Expedition photographs containing images of human remains and provided me with her detailed bioarchaeological analysis, and I thank Salima Ikram for enlisting Chris’s expertise for this project. I am indebted to Peter der Manuelian for his consultation and helpful information concerning the history of Reisner’s work for the Hearst Egyptian Expedition, as well as his advice in the process of turning my unpublished dissertation into the present book.

I also want to thank Jim Kelly, former Provost at California State University East Bay, who gave me the flexibility to start taking Egyptology classes at UC Berkeley while I was working at CSUEB and championed my desire to pursue a Ph.D. degree. Another important influence was Christine Lilyquist, The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s former head of the Department of Egyptian Art and Lila Acheson Wallace Research Curator in Egyptology, who was kind enough to respond to a 13-year-old girl’s letter from Dayton, Ohio inquiring about how one became an Egyptologist. But above all, thanks to my family for supporting me over the years while I pursued this dream: Katherine Hill, David Jensen, Janice Rush, Jonathan Spencer, Mahmoud Farouk, Margaret Jensen, Beatrice “Grammy” Hill, Tom Jensen, and most of all my daughter, the heart of my heart, Evelyn Ivy.