Joann Fletcher Explained

Joann Fletcher
Birth Date:1966 8, df=yes
Birth Place:Barnsley, West Riding of Yorkshire, England
Nationality:British
Honorary Visiting Professor
Discipline:Egyptology
Education:Barnsley College
Alma Mater:University College London
University of Manchester
Thesis Title:Ancient Egyptian Hair: a study in style, form, and function
Thesis Year:1995
Website:www.immortalegypt.co.uk

Joann Fletcher (born 30 August 1966) is an Egyptologist and an honorary visiting professor in the department of archaeology at the University of York. She has published a number of books and academic articles, including several on Cleopatra, and made numerous television and radio appearances. In 2003, she controversially claimed to have identified the mummy of Queen Nefertiti.

Early life and education

Fletcher was born on 30 August 1966 in Barnsley.[1] [2] [3] She was educated at Barnsley College, a sixth-form and further education college in Barnsley. She studied ancient history and Egyptology at University College London, specializing in the Ptolemaic dynasty and Cleopatra.

She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in 1987. Fletcher then earned a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in 1996 from the University of Manchester, with a thesis on hair and wigs entitled "Ancient Egyptian Hair: a study in style, form, and function".[4] [5]

Career

Fletcher is honorary visiting professor in the Department of Archaeology at the University of York and Head of the Local Ambassador Programme at the Egypt Exploration Society.[6] She is a consultant Egyptologist for Harrogate Museums and Arts[7] and an archaeology consultant for the museums of Wigan and Barnsley,[8] [9] for which she curated a trio of exhibitions in 2017–2018.[10]

In addition, she has contributed to galleries at the National Museum of Ireland, the Great North Museum in Newcastle, Sheffield’s Weston Park Museum, Scarborough’s Rotunda Museum, the Burrell Collection in Glasgow. In 2012, she and Dr. Stephen Buckley worked with Sheffield's Medico-Legal Centre to mummify a human body donor.[11]

Fletcher 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 History Magazine and website. She has made numerous appearances on television and radio and was lead investigator in the History Channel television series Mummy Forensics.

Her publications include The Story of Egypt, Cleopatra the Great and The Search for Nefertiti, together with guidebooks, journal articles, and academic papers.[12]

Queen Nefertiti

See also: The Younger Lady. 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 that was sanctioned by Zahi Hawass, then head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA). The investigation pursued a hypothesis put forward by Fletcher that one of the three mummies studied could be the mummified body of Queen Nefertiti. All three of the mummified bodies had been found among a cache of mummies in tomb KV35 in 1898. The team's scientific findings supported this and the hypothesis was included in the official report submitted to Hawass and the SCA shortly after the 2003 expedition.[13] 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 were dismissed by a prominent group of Egyptologists (some of whom previously claimed that the mummy in question was male who was young as fifteen years old, a theory now disproven),[14] and the evidence used to support Fletcher's theories was declared as insufficient, circumstantial, and inconclusive. Archaeology, a publication of the Archaeological Institute of America, asserted that Fletcher's "identification of the mummy in question as Nefertiti is balderdash".[15] Zahi Hawass, head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities of the Egyptian Ministry of Culture, subsequently banned her from working in Egypt because he said "Dr. Fletcher has broken the rules" requiring all prominent discoveries be subject to approval by the SCA prior to publication in popular media.[15]

According to The Times newspaper, British archaeologists "leapt to her defence", however, and they reported that the research team members stood by their findings.[16] [17] [18] The team members maintained 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 that Hawass had been informed of what was to be put forward in the television programme prior to the Discovery Channel documentary being aired.[19]

The ban on Fletcher's research in Egypt was later lifted, and she resumed working in the Valley of the Kings in April 2008.

Television and radio appearances

Selected works

Notes and references

References

External links

Notes and References

  1. News: Weekend birthdays . . 55 . 30 August 2014 .
  2. nr96-44325.
  3. Web site: College return for Dr Joann Fletcher . Barnsley.ac.uk . 22 January 2015 . 12 January 2016 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20160127100708/http://www.barnsley.ac.uk/news/college-return-for-dr-joann-fletcher?page=7 . 27 January 2016 .
  4. Web site: Professor Joann Fletcher. Department of Archaeology. University of York. 1 September 2020.
  5. Fletcher . Amy Joann . Ancient Egyptian hair: a study in style, form and function. . E-Thesis Online Service . The British Library . 6 November 2021 . 1995. Ph.D .
  6. https://www.ees.ac.uk/local-ambassador-programme Local Ambassador Programme
  7. Web site: Daily Life in Ancient Egypt. 21 January 2014.
  8. News: 10 October 2016. Wigan museum gallery named after York staff. University of York.
  9. Web site: York Joann.
  10. News: 12 March 2018. Ancient Egypt exhibition pulls in the crowds. Barnsley Museums and Heritage Trust.
  11. News: Museum's final resting place for modern mummy.
  12. Web site: Joann Fletcher – Archaeology, The University of York . University of York . 1 September 2020.
  13. Web site: Stephen Buckley – Archaeology, The University of York . University of York . 1 September 2020.
  14. 10.1001/jama.2010.121. Ancestry and Pathology in King Tutankhamun's Family. 2010. Hawass. Zahi. Gad. Y. Z.. Ismail. S.. Khairat. R.. Fathalla. D.. Hasan. N.. Ahmed. A.. Elleithy. H.. Ball. M.. Gaballah. F.. Wasef. S.. Fateen. M.. Amer. H.. Gostner. P.. Selim. A.. Zink. A.. Pusch. C. M.. JAMA. 303. 7. 638–647. 20159872.
  15. Mark Rose, "Where's Nefertiti?", Archaeology, 16 September 2004.
  16. Web site: In the news: Joann Fletcher | Times Higher Education (THE) . Times Higher Education . 29 August 2003 . 12 January 2016.
  17. Web site: History – Ancient History in depth: The End of the Amarna Period . BBC . 12 January 2016.
  18. Web site: Rose . Mark . Tut: Disease and DNA News – Archaeology Magazine Archive . Archaeology.org . 16 February 2010 . 12 January 2016.
  19. Ian Parker, "The Pharaoh: Is Zahi Hawass bad for Egyptology?", The New Yorker, 16 November 2009.
  20. News: 27 June 2013. Neolithic axe head in new museum Experience Barnsley. BBC.
  21. Web site: Watson, Fletcher, Blashford-Snell.
  22. Web site: 7 January 2016. The amazing history of Egypt. HistoryExtra.
  23. Web site: Fact Not Fiction.
  24. Web site: Dawn French, Wilfred Frost, Professor Joann Fletcher, Nikita Salmon. Midweek. BBC.
  25. Web site: BBC Radio 4 – Radio 4 in Four, Were the Ancient Egyptians really that advanced?. 7 July 2020. BBC. 21 October 2015 . en-GB.
  26. Web site: BBC World Service – The Forum, Symbols, Signs, and Secrets. What symbols tell us about ourselves.. 7 July 2020. BBC. en-GB.
  27. Web site: BBC Radio 4 – A Good Read, Joann Fletcher and Damian Barr. 7 July 2020. BBC. en-GB.
  28. Web site: What's it like to be a female historian in the 21st century?. 7 July 2020. HistoryExtra. en. Video: women in history panel discussion
  29. Web site: Introduction to The Egypt Centre, Swansea. https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211221/9f1dCqoehZU . 2021-12-21 . live. 7 July 2020. www.youtube.com. 15 September 2017 .
  30. Web site: Archaeology Professors Play: Assassin's Creed: Origins. . 7 July 2020.
  31. Web site: Live with The Apprentice icon Margaret Mountford and TV Egyptologist Joanne Fletcher. . 7 July 2020.
  32. Web site: BBC One – North West Tonight, Evening News, 21/09/2018. 7 July 2020. BBC. en-GB.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Joann Fletcher".

Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is © Copyright 2009-2024, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Cookie policy.