EGYPTIAN
ARCHAEOLOGY
An Egyptological friendship After his retirement Ricardo Caminos lived next door to the EES London Offices and his home now houses the Society’s Library. Alice Williams is currently cataloguing the EES Lucy Gura Archive and shows how the Caminos papers shed new light on relationships between renowned Egyptologists. In August 1954 Alan Gardiner, then a Vice-President of the Egypt Exploration Society, played host to some of the most prominent Egyptologists of the twentieth century. Taking place over two days, the event began with a garden party at his home in Iffley, Oxford, and was followed by a lunch and reception at The Queen’s College of Oxford University. Organised by Sir Alan and Lady Gardiner as an opportunity ‘to meet some of their Egyptologist friends from abroad’, the guest list and seating plan read as a veritable ‘who’s who’ of 1950s Egyptology, providing a rare social insight and fascinating snapshot of what remains a politically interesting, yet little discussed, period in the history of the discipline. Items relating to this event, including menus, guest lists, invitations and programmes, make up just a small fraction of the archival material left to the Society by the late Ricardo Caminos, a collection currently being catalogued as part of the Lucy Gura Archive. The collection spans the career of this dedicated Egyptologist from his time as a student in Buenos Aires and Chicago in the late 1930s to his last epigraphic mission for the Egypt Exploration Society in 1982. Untouched for nearly two decades and still fastidious in their organisation, the shelves of meticulously-kept notes, filed references and a number of research projects left unfinished at the time of his death are as valuable for revelations about Caminos’ character as they are for the information they contain. Perhaps the most telling aspect of the collection is the correspondence with Alan Gardiner and Battiscombe Gunn, within which the records of the Oxford event were kept. These personal letters, at times both touching
and humorous, reveal not only close friendship and mutual scholarly admiration, but Caminos’ strong attachment to Oxford University, where he first studied under Gunn from 1944 and to which he returned to work alongside Gardiner in 1950. Described by Caminos’ family as being ‘within his heart’ Oxford was later chosen for the burial of his ashes in 1992. In contrast to the academic nature of the rest of the material, these letters are the only real items of sentimental value kept by Caminos and therefore clearly had a very profound personal significance for him. The correspondence documents the influence of these two key Oxford figures upon Caminos’ life and career. Evidently assured of his talents, Gardiner in particular
The front of a Christmas card sent to Ricardo Caminos, showing Court Place, Gardiner’s Oxford home
Ricardo Caminos’ invitation to the garden party hosted by Alan Gardiner and his wife in Oxford
The seating plan for the lunch held at The Queen’s College, Oxford
10