Woman in Science — Women in Archæology, Part 2

Besides Mrs. Hawes, three other American women have achieved marked distinction by their archaeological researches.

These are Mrs. Sarah Yorke Stevenson, Miss Alice C. Fletcher and Mrs. Zelia Nuttall.

Mrs. Stevenson has long been identified with the progress of archaeological research, especially with that in Egypt and the Mediterranean.

A prominent member of many learned societies, she is likewise a writer and lecturer of note.

She enjoys the distinction of being the first woman whose name appears as a lecturer on the calendar of the University of Harvard.

In acknowledgment of her scholarly ability and eminent services in the development of its Department of Archaeology, the University of Pennsylvania has conferred upon her the honorary degree of Doctor of Science.

That American women have not been behind their sisters in Europe in their enthusiasm for archaeological investigation is evinced by the researches and writings of Miss Alice C. Fletcher and Mrs. Zelia Nuttall, both of whom enjoy an international reputation in the learned world.

Miss Fletcher's chosen field of labor has been in ethnology and anthropology.

Her studies of the folk lore and the manners and customs of various tribes of North American Indians have a distinct and permanent value, while those of her contributions which have been published by the Smithsonian Institution and the Bureau of Ethnology--contributions based on personal knowledge of a long residence among the tribes she writes about--show that she has exceptional talent for the branches of archaeology to which she has devoted many years of earnest and successful study.

Mrs. Nuttall is the daughter of an American mother and an English father.

Thanks to the care that was bestowed on her education by her parents and to her long residence in the different countries of Europe, she is proficient in seven languages.

This knowledge of tongues has been of inestimable advantage to her in her researches in European libraries and in those historical and archaeological investigations which have rendered her famous.

She has devoted special attention to the early history, languages, religions and calendar systems of the primitive inhabitants of Mexico and Central America, in all of which she is a recognized authority.

When, some years ago, the mysterious ruins of Mexico began to attract the special attention of archaeologists, Mrs. Nuttall was selected by the University of California as the field director of the commission which it sent to pursue archaeological researches in this Egypt of the New World.

A more competent or a more enthusiastic director could not have been chosen.

Her finds in the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon at Teotihuacan and elsewhere in our sister republic were especially important.

In recognition of her achievements President Porfirio Diaz nominated Mrs. Nuttall honorary professor in the Mexican National Museum.

She was also offered the position of curator of the archaeological Museum of Mexico; but this office she declined.

She holds membership in a large number of learned societies in America and Europe and is a frequent contributor to numerous magazines on historical and archaeological subjects.

She has had the good fortune to discover a number of important manuscripts illustrating the early history of Mexico.

Chief among these are a Hispano-American manuscript which she dug out of one of the libraries of Madrid and another which was found in a private collection in England and reproduced in facsimile in this country.

In honor of its fair discoverer it is now known as the Codex Nuttall, and is regarded by experts as one of the most precious records of ancient Mexico.

What is probably Mrs. Nuttall's most valuable contribution to archaeological science is her erudite work entitled _The Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilizations_.

It is a comparative research based on a study of the ancient Mexican, religious, sociological and calendar systems, and represents thirteen years of assiduous labor.

It is a worthy monument to the scientific ability of this gifted Americanist, and one which brilliantly illumines some of the most controverted points of comparative archaeology.

The Nestor of women archaeologists is Donna Ersilia Caetani-Bovatelli--the daughter of the famous Dante scholar, the late Duke Don Michel Angelo Caetani-Sermonetta.

Since the days of Boniface VIII, whom Dante scornfully denounced as _lo principe de' Pharisei_, the family of the Caetani has been one of the most illustrious of the Roman nobility, and is to-day ranked with those of the Colonna and Orsini.

Besides his thorough knowledge of Dante, whose _Divina Commedia_ he regarded as the great artistic production of the human mind--a work which he knew by heart--the Duke of Sermonetta was deeply versed in philology and archaeology.

No one was more familiar with the history and antiquities of Rome than he was, nor a greater friend and patron of scholars of every nationality.

The Palazzo Caetani was the resort of not only the savants of Rome, but also and especially of those who gathered from all quarters of the world to study the rich collections of antiquities for which the Eternal City is so famous.

Here the ablest authorities in history and archaeology discussed the latest discoveries among the ruins of Greece and Asia Minor, and the most recent finds in the Forum or amidst the crumbling ruins of the palaces of the Caesars.

Having such a father and brought up in such an environment it is not surprising that Donna Ersilia acquired at an early age that taste for archaeology which was, as events proved, to constitute the chief occupation of her long and busy life.

Having enjoyed and studied literature and the languages under the best masters in Rome, she was thoroughly prepared for the work of deciphering Greek and Latin inscriptions and for an intelligent study of the ancient monuments of Italy and Hellas.

Her learned countryman, A. de Gubernatis, assures us that she has such a thorough knowledge of Latin and Greek that she writes both with ease and elegance, and that she is endowed with an admirable memory for philology and archaeology.

Besides being a mistress of several modern languages, she is also familiar with Sanscrit.

Since the death of her husband, in 1879, she has devoted all her time, outside of that given to the care and education of her children, to the pursuit of classical archaeology, in which she has long been regarded as an authority of the first order.

Her salon, unlike those of the frivolous leaders of high life, has for many years been the favorite rendezvous in Rome of learned men and women from every clime.

Here were seen the noted historians Gregorovius, Theodore Mommsen, and Giovanni Battista de Rossi, the illustrious founder of Christian archaeology.

Here the representatives of the French, German and American schools of archaeology meet to exchange views on their favorite science and to find inspiration in the knowledge and enthusiasm of their gifted hostess, who always takes an active part in their recondite discussions, and never fails to contribute her share to these meetings, which have contributed so much toward the advancement of science and the history of antiquity.

Whether the discussion turn on the deciphering of an ancient text, the inscription of a monument or a recently excavated sarcophagus, Donna Ersilia's opinion is eagerly sought, and her judgment is generally unerring.

This cultured and erudite daughter of sunny Italy has been a prolific writer on her favorite branch of research.

Besides contributing to such publications as the _Nuova Antologia_ and the bulletins of the archaeological commissions in Rome, she has found time to prepare for the press a number of volumes of the highest value on divers questions of Roman and Greek archaeology.

It is interesting, in this connection, to note the fact that, after Mme.

Curie had been refused admittance into the French Academy, one of the members of this institution, who had voted against her on the ground that she was a woman, had occasion to attend a meeting of the Academy of the Lincei in Rome, an association which plays the same role in Italy as does the French Academy in France, and found, to his astonishment, that the dean of the department of archaeology, as well as the presiding officer of some of the most important meetings of the academy, was a woman.

She was no other than Donna Ersilia Caetani-Bovatelli, the learned and gracious scion of an honored race.

So taken aback was the Gallic opponent of _feminisme_ that he could but exclaim: "_Diable!

_ they order things differently in Italy from what we do in _la belle France_."

Considering their attainments and achievements, the two women who occupy the highest place as archaeologists in the English-speaking world are Mrs. Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlop Gibson.

They are the twin daughters of the Rev. John Smith, an English clergyman, and have long enjoyed an enviable reputation among Scriptural scholars and Orientalists.

During their youth they had the advantage of instruction under the best masters, and, among other things, acquired a wide knowledge of the modern and classical languages.

Subsequent study and frequent visits to Greece and the Orient made them proficient in modern Greek, Arabic, Hebrew and Syriac.

Becoming interested in the search for ancient manuscripts, they resolved to make the long and arduous journey to the Greek convent of St. Catherine on Mt. Sinai.

In the latter part of January, 1892, these two brave and enterprising women left Suez for their destination in the heart of the Arabian desert.

They were accompanied only by their dragoman and Bedouin servants.

Eleven camels carried the two travelers, their baggage, tents and provisions for fifty days.

They had laid in supplies not only for the two or three weeks they were to spend on the way to and from Sinai, but also for the month they expected to remain at the Convent of St. Catherine.

Arriving at the end of their journey, they were most cordially received by the monks, who afforded them every facility for examining the treasures of their unique and venerable library.

They immediately set to work, and before they left the room in which the manuscripts were preserved they had made one of the most remarkable finds of the century.

For, in closely inspecting a dirty, forbidding old manuscript whose leaves had probably not been turned for centuries, they discovered a palimpsest, of which the upper writing contained the biographies of women saints, while that beneath proved to be one of the earliest copies of the Syriac Gospels, if not the very earliest in existence.

No find since the celebrated discovery by Tischendorf of the Sinaitic Codex, in the same convent nearly fifty years before, ever excited such interest among Scriptural scholars or was hailed with greater rejoicings.

It was by all Biblical students regarded as an invaluable contribution to Scriptural literature, and as a find which "has doubled our sources of knowledge of the darkest corner of New Testament criticism."

To distinguish it from the _Codex Sinaiticus_, the precious manuscript brought to light by Mrs. Lewis has been very appropriately named after the fortunate discoverer, and will hereafter be known as the Codex Ludovicus.

[223] Another find of rare importance made by the gifted twin sisters was a Palestinian Syriac lectionary similar to the hitherto unique copy in the Library of the Vatican.

A special interest attaches to this lectionary from the fact that it is written in the language that was most probably spoken by our Lord.

Among other notable discoveries of Mrs. Lewis and her sister during the four visits[224] which they made to Mt. Sinai and Palestine between the years 1892 and 1897 were a number of manuscripts in Arabic and a portion of the original Hebrew manuscript of Ecclesiastes which was written about 200 B. C.

Previously the oldest copies of this book of the Old Testament were the Greek and Syriac versions.

What is specially remarkable about the discoveries made by Mrs. Lewis and Mrs. Gibson is that they were able to make so many valuable finds after the convent library at Mt. Sinai had been so frequently examined by previous scholars.

The indefatigable Tischendorf made three visits to this library and had but one phenomenal success.

But neither "he nor any of the other wandering scholars who have visited the convent attained," as has been well said, "to a tithe of the acquaintance with its treasures which these energetic ladies possess."

But more remarkable than the mere discovery of so many invaluable manuscripts, which was, of course, an extraordinary achievement, is the fact that these manuscripts, whether in Syriac, Arabic or Hebrew, have been translated, annotated and edited by these same scholarly women.

Already more than a score of volumes have come from their prolific pens, all evincing the keenest critical acumen and the highest order of Biblical and archaeological scholarship.

The reader who desires a popular account of their famous discoveries should by all means read Mrs. Gibson's entertaining volume, _How the Codex Was Found_, and Mrs. Lewis' charming little work entitled, _In the Shadow of Sinai_.

As to those men--and the species is yet far from extinct--who still doubt the capacity of women for the higher kinds of intellectual effort, let them glance at the pages of the numerous volumes given to the press by these richly dowered women under the captions of _Studia Sinaitica_ and _Horae Semiticae_; and, if they are able to comprehend the evidence before them, they will be forced to admit that the long-imagined difference between the intellectual powers of men and women is one of fancy and not one of reality.

[225] And yet, strange to relate, while Mrs. Lewis and Mrs. Gibson were electrifying the learned world by their achievements in the highest form of scholarship, the slow-moving University of Cambridge was gravely debating "whether it was a proper thing to confer degrees upon women," and preparing to answer the question in the negative.

The fact that there were "representatives of the unenfranchised sex at their gates who had gathered more laurels in the field of scholarship than most of those who belong to the privileged sex" did not appeal to the university dons or prevent them from putting themselves on record as favoring a condition of things which, at this late age of the world, should be expected only among the women-enslaving followers of Mohammed.

The saying that "a prophet hath no honor in his own country" was fulfilled to the letter in the case of the two women who had shed such luster on the land of their birth.

While foreign institutions were vying with one another in showering honors on the two brilliant Englishwomen, with whose praises the whole world was resounding, the University of Cambridge was silent.

The University of St. Andrews conferred on them the degree of LL.

D.

, while conservative old Heidelberg, casting aside its age-old traditions, made haste to honor them with the degree of Doctor of Divinity.

In addition to this, Halle made Mrs. Lewis a Doctor of Philosophy.

One would have thought that sheer shame, if not patriotic spirit, would have compelled the university in whose shadows the two women had their home, and in which Mrs. Lewis' husband had held for years an official appointment, to show itself equally appreciative of superlative merit and equally ready to reward rare scholarship, regardless of the sex of the beneficiaries.

But no. The illustrious archaeologists and Biblical scholars were women, and this fact alone was in the estimation of the Cambridge authorities enough to withhold from them that recognition which was so spontaneously accorded them by the great universities of the Continent.

Nor was this the only instance of the kind.

While the celebrated twin sisters just referred to were so materially contributing to our knowledge of Biblical lore, another Englishwoman, Jane E. Harrison, who lived within hearing of the church bells of Cambridge, was lecturing to delighted audiences in Newnham College on the history, mythology and monuments of ancient Athens, and writing those learned works on the religion and antiquities of Greece which have given her so conspicuous a place among modern archaeologists.

[226] But, as in the case of her distinguished neighbors, the discoverers of the _Codex Ludovicus_, the degrees she was honored with came not from Cambridge, with which, through her fellowship in Newnham, she was so closely connected.

And while this gifted lady was deserving so well of science and literature, the undergraduate students of Cambridge, following the cue given by the twenty-four hundred graduates who had just rejected the proposal to give honorary degrees to women who could pass the required examinations, were giving an exhibition of rowdyism which far surpassed that which, a few years before, had so disgraced the University of Edinburgh, when the same question of degrees for women was under consideration.

According to the report of an eye witness of the turbulent scene at Cambridge, "The undergraduate students appeared to be, as a body, viciously opposed to the proposal to give degrees to women, and became fairly riotous.

They hooted those who supported the reform and fired crackers even in the Senate House and made the night lurid with bonfires and powder.

They put up insulting effigies of girl students, and such mottoes as 'Get you to Girton, Beatrice.

Get you to Newnham.

Here is no place for maids!'

" Verily, when such scenes are possible in one of the world's great intellectual centers--a place where, above all others, women should receive due recognition for their contributions toward the progress of knowledge--one is constrained to declare that what we call civilization is still far from the ideal.

And, when one witnesses the total indifference of institutions like Cambridge and the French Academy to the splendid achievements of women like Mrs. Lewis, Mrs. Gibson and Mme.

Curie, one cannot but exclaim in words Apocalyptic: "How long, O Lord, holy and true," is this iniquitous discrimination against one-half of our race to endure?

O Lord, how long?

FOOTNOTES:

[215] A.

Michaelis, _A Century of Archaeological Discoveries_, p. 6, New York, 1908. [216] _The Most Illustrious Ladies of the Renaissance_, p. 152, by Christopher Hare, London, 1904. [217] Michaelis, Op.

cit.

, p. 20, Cf.

also Fiorelli's _Pompeinarum Antiquitatum Historia_, Vol. I, Pars.

III, Naples, 1860. Arditi characterized Queen Caroline's interest in the excavations as "_entusiasmo veramente ammirabile_."

[218] _Frauenarbeit in der Archaeologie in Deutsche Rundschau_, March, 1890, page 396. [219] _Memoirs of the Life of Anna Jameson_, pp. 296-297, by her niece, Geraldine Macpherson, London, 1878. [220] _Ilios, the City and Country of the Trojans_, pp. 657-658, by Dr. Henry Schliemann, New York, 1881. As an illustration of Mrs. Schliemann's devotion to the work which has rendered her, as well as her husband, immortal, a single passage from the volume just quoted, p. 261, is pertinent.

Referring to the sufferings and privations which they endured during their third year's work at Hissarlik, Dr. Schliemann writes as follows: "My poor wife and myself, therefore, suffered very much since the icy north wind, which recalls Homer's frequent mention of the blasts of Boreas, blew with such violence through the chinks of our house-walls, which were made of planks, that we were not even able to light our lamps in the evening, while the water which stood near the hearth froze into solid masses.

During the day we could, to some degree, bear the cold by working in the excavations; but, in the evenings, we had nothing to keep us warm except our enthusiasm for the great work of discovering Troy."

So high was Dr. Schliemann's opinion of his wife's ability as an archaeologist that he entrusted to her--as well as to their daughter, Andromache, and son, Agamemnon--the continuation of the work which death prevented him from completing.

[221] See Mme.

Dieulafoy's graphic account of the expedition in a work which has been translated into English under the title, _At Susa, the Ancient Capital of the Kings of Persia, Narrative of Travel Through Western Persia and Excavations Made at the Site of the Lost City of the Lilies, 1884-1886_, Philadelphia, 1890. See also her other related work--crowned by the French Academy--entitled, _La Perse, La Chaldee et la Susiane_, Paris, 1887. [222] Among the specimens secured were two of extraordinary beauty and interest.

One of them is a beautiful enameled frieze of a lion and the other, likewise a work in enamel, represents a number of polychrome figures of the Immortals--the name given to the guards of the Great Kings of Persia.

Both are truly magnificent specimens of ceramic art, and compare favorably with anything of the kind which antiquity has bequeathed to us.

Commenting on the pictures of the Persian guards, Mme.

Dieulafoy writes: "Whatever their race may be, our Immortals appear fine in line, fine in form, fine in color and constitute a ceramic work infinitely superior to the bas-reliefs, so justly celebrated, of Lucca della Robbia."

Op.

cit.

, p. 222. [223] One passage in this codex bears so strongly on a leading argument of this work that I cannot resist the temptation to give it with Mrs. Lewis' own comment: "The piece of my work," she writes, _In the Shadow of Sinai_, p. 98 et seq.

, "which has given me the greatest satisfaction, consists in the decipherment of two words in John IV, 27. They were well worth all our visits to Sinai, for they illustrate an action of our Lord which seems to be recorded nowhere else, and which has some degree of inherent probability from what we know of His character.

The passage is 'His disciples came and wondered that with the women he was _standing and talking_'....

"Why was our Lord standing?

He had been sitting on the wall when the disciples left Him; and, we know that He was tired.

Moreover, sitting is the proper attitude for an Easterner when engaged in teaching.

And an ordinary Oriental would never rise of his own natural free will out of politeness to a woman.

It may be that He rose in His enthusiasm for the great truths He was uttering; but, I like to think that His great heart, which embraced the lowest of humanity, lifted Him above the restrictions of His race and age, and made Him show that courtesy to our sex, even in the person of a degraded specimen, which is considered among all really progressive peoples to be a mark of true and noble manhood.

To shed even a faint light upon that wondrous story of His tabernacling amongst us is an inestimable privilege and worthy of all the trouble we can possibly take."

[224] Mrs. Gibson, unaccompanied by her sister, has since made two more visits to Mt. Sinai in order to complete the work so auspiciously begun.

[225] The following partial list of the works of these erudite twins on subjects connected with Scripture and Oriental literature gives some idea of their extraordinary attainments and of their prodigious activity in researches that are usually considered entirely foreign to the tastes and aptitudes of women.

_Some Pages of the Four Gospels Retranscribed From the Sinaitic Palimpsest_, with a translation of the whole text by Agnes Smith Lewis.

_An Arabic Version of St. Paul's Epistles to the Romans, Corinthians, Galatians and part of Ephesians.

_ Edited from a ninth century MS. by Margaret Dunlop Gibson.

_Apocrypha Sinaitica.

_ Containing the Anaphora Pilati in Syriac and Arabic: the Syriac transcribed by J. Rendel Harris, and the Arabic by Margaret Dunlop Gibson; also two recensions of the _Recognitions of Clement_, in Arabic, transcribed and translated by Margaret Dunlop Gibson.

_An Arabic Version of the Acts of the Apostles and the Seven Catholic Epistles_, from an eighth or ninth century MS. , with a treatise on the Triune Nature of God and translation.

Edited by Margaret Dunlop Gibson.

Apocrypha Arabica, Edited by Margaret D. Gibson, containing 1, _Kitab al Magall_ or the _Book of the Rolls_; 2, _The Story of the Aphikia Wife of Jesus Ben Sira_ (Carshuni); 3, _Cyprian and Justa_, in Arabic and Greek.

_Select Narratives of Holy Women_, from the Syro-Antiochene or Sinai Palimpsest, as written above the Old Syriac Gospels in A. D.

778. Translation by Agnes Smith Lewis.

_Apocrypha Syriaca Sinaitica_, being the _Protevangelium Jacobi_ and _Transitus Mariae_, from a Palimpsest of the fifth or sixth century.

Edited by Agnes Smith Lewis.

_Forty-One Facsimiles of Dated Christian Arabic Manuscripts_, with Text and English Translation, arranged by Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlop Gibson, with introductory observations in Arabic calligraphy by the Rev. David S. Margoliouth.

_The Didascalia Apostolorum in Syriac_, edited from a Mesopotamian MS, with various readings and collations of other MS, by Margaret Dunlop Gibson.

_The Arabic Version of the Acta Apocrypha Apostolorum_, edited and translated by Agnes Smith Lewis, with fifth century fragments of the Acta Thomae, in Syriac.

_The Gospel of Isbodad in Syriac and English_, by Margaret D. Gibson.

_Acta Mythologica Apostolorum in Arabic_, with translation by Agnes Smith Lewis.

For an elaborate and sympathetic account of the labors and discoveries of Mrs. Lewis and her sister, the reader is referred to an article from the pen of the learned Professor V. Ryssel, in the _Schweizerische Theologische Zeitschrift_, XVI, Jahrgang, 1899. [226] For an evidence of this learned lady's competency to deal with the most recondite stores of history and archaeology, the reader is referred to two of her later works, viz.

, _Primitive Athens as Described by Thucydides_, Cambridge, 1906, and _Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion_, Cambridge University Press, 1903.