To mark International Women’s Day, BILNAS highlights two influential archaeologists whose work in North Africa is preserved in its archive:

Dame Kathleen Kenyon (1906–1978) was a leading British archaeologist known for her significant work at Jericho (Tell es-Sultan) and the Jewry Wall in Leicester, as well as her contribution to the development of excavation and recording techniques. The BILNAS Archive holds records of Kenyon’s work at the site of Sabratha, a key Punic and Roman trading port in Libya. There, alongside John Ward-Perkins, she refined stratigraphic excavation techniques to establish a chronological framework for the site, tracing its evolution from Phoenician trading encampments to permanent settlement by the fifth century B.C.E.

BILNAS/D5/12/7/8, Kathleen Kenyon and unidentified men at the basilica, Sabratha (1949-1951). The Kathleen Kenyon and John Ward Perkins Papers on Sabratha (1932 – 1992).

Lady Olwen Brogan (1900–1989) played a crucial role in reshaping the study of classical sites in Libya. Initially working under Kenyon at Sabratha, she later conducted work at the Roman City of Lepcis Magna. In 1953, Brogan shifted her focus to the Romano-Libyan settlement at Ghirza, where her meticulous stratigraphic work demonstrated that it was a Libyan settlement during the Roman Period, challenging prevailing assumptions. A key advocate for British archaeological research in Libya, she co-founded the Society for Libyan Studies in 1969, and served as its first secretary.

BILNAS/D41/2/7/8/3/2/46, Olwen Brogan makes a squeeze of inscription at Ghriza (1950s-1970s). Olwen Brogan Papers (19th cent-1989)