The British Vacuum

Tracing the Life Course of a Never-Established Institution

Andrés Martín García de la Cruz, NVIC/NINO PhD candidate, Leiden University

The project The British Vacuum: Tracing the Life Course of a Never-Established Institution forms part of my doctoral dissertation research, which focuses on compiling and crafting a shared history of the foreign archaeological institutes in Egypt, emphasising their role as actors in Egyptology and modern politics. While addressing the presence of foreign (Western) archaeological schools in the country, a notable vacuum stands out: the absence of a British archaeological or Egyptological institute.

The prominent role of Egypt in British imperial policy and the valuable contributions of British scholars and UK-based institutions to Egyptian archaeology make this absence particularly significant for understanding the full picture of the foreign institutes in Egypt. Therefore, exploring why such an institution never materialised is highly relevant to the institutes’ history. On these grounds, the project aims to provide a comprehensive diachronic overview of efforts to establish a British institute in Egypt, from the late 19^th century to the present. This will include key figures involved and will examine the disciplinary, institutional, and political challenges that hindered success.

With these goals in mind, the project combines two main research methodologies. On the one hand, it draws on archival research in several London- and UK-based archives containing relevant institutional and personal records. On the other hand, beyond traditional archival research, a core part of this project involves oral history through semi-structured qualitative interviews with scholars, mainly those connected to the EES over the past decades. Such interviews can offer a deeper understanding of recent developments in these initiatives and in the EES, which established a Cairo Office at the end of the 20^th century. Using a mixed-methods approach, I aim to provide insights into a question that remains largely unexplored in the current literature despite its broad relevance to the general public, students, and scholars from diverse backgrounds and disciplines—ranging from Middle Eastern Studies to Modern and Colonial History—with Egyptology at its centre: what is the story behind the absence of a British archaeological institute in Egypt?

This project has been supported by an EES Centenary Award (2025-26) which enabled Andrés to visit collections in the UK, notably the archives of the Egypt Exploration Society ahead of the redevelopment of the London premises (see image).