Annie Abernethy Pirie Quibell (1862–1927) was a Scottish artist and archaeologist.
Early life and education
Annie Abernethy Pirie Quibell was born in 1862 in Scotland. Her father was minister and Principal at the University of Aberdeen. As a young woman, she originally trained as an artist and her work was exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy.[1]
In 1895, Pirie was chosen by Petrie to join his field team in Egypt at Saqqara and the Ramesseum, Thebes. She went to work as a copyist with another artist Rosalind Frances Emily Paget. At Saqqara they worked in the Fifth Dynasty tomb of Ptahhotep.[2]
She was a part of the excavation team at El Kab in 1897, and Hierakonpolis the following year and continued working in excavations in Egypt with her husband, James Edward Quibell, whom she met in Egypt and married in 1900. They first fell in love while both were suffering from a bout of ptomaine poisoning from eating bad food while on excavation.[3] They ultimately worked together at Saqqara for eight years from 1905 to 1914.[4] Her illustrations of archaeological finds were featured in archaeological reports on Saqqara,[5] the Ramesseum[6] and Hierakonpolis.[7]
Annie Quibell was also an author, as well as an artist. Her first publication was an English translation of the Guide to the Cairo Museum in 1906, co-authored with her husband.[9] She produced short guides to the Pyramids at Giza[10] and the Saqqara tombs which were originally published in Cairo.[11] In the 1920s, she published two books, Egyptian History and Art (1923), and A Wayfarer in Egypt (1925).[12] After her return to Britain, she worked on arranging the Egyptian gallery at the Marischal Museum at Aberdeen University.[3]
Death and legacy
Annie Pirie Quibell died in England in 1927[4] of leukaemia, when she was 65 years old.[1][2] Her husband and her friends were shocked by this death, and he never fully recovered.[2] Annie's archaeological drawings are still used by researchers and students, and can be viewed at the Ancient Egypt Rediscovered Gallery[13] of the National Museum of Scotland.
^Maspero, Gaston (1910). Guide to the Cairo Museum. Translated by Quibell, James; Quibell, Annie P. Cairo: Printing Office of the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology.
^Quibell, Annie A. (1915). The Pyramids of Giza. Cairo: CMS Bookshop.
^Quibell, Annie A. (1925). The Tombs of Sakkara (2nd ed.). Cairo: CMS Bookshop.