We Must Write about Those Who Have Been Silenced: On Writing Submerged Lives Back into the History of Archaeology

Archaeology has always written the vast majority of archaeologists out of its history while simultaneously elevating a privileged few to the canonical status of ‘Founding Fathers’. In this article I explore the mechanisms by which unsung archaeological labour is submerged in the archive and attempt to surface the presence of previously overlooked and unnamed Egyptian and Sudanese archaeologists at the excavation of Abu Geili in 1914. Recognising that it is often only possible to recover fragmentary evidence about these hidden histories of excavation, I suggest strategies and considerations for writing with (and around and about) these archival fragments, and reflect on how these writing conditions might force us to think critically about ongoing coloniality in the discipline.