The Egypt Exploration Society is the UK’s oldest Egypt society and celebrates its 125th birthday this year.

Founded on March 27, 1882 as the Egypt Exploration Fund, the society helped to pioneer the study of Egyptology, changing its name to the Egypt Exploration Society in 1914. The society was created to explore, survey and excavate the ancient sites of Egypt and Sudan and to publish the results.

It was co-founded by Emelia Edwards, a novelist and travel writer who described the antiquities of Ancient Egypt after travelling along the Nile from Cairo to Abu Simbel. Her partner in the scheme was Reginald Stuart Poole, of the Department of Coins and Medals at the British Museum.

The idea was to raise money to fund excavations in the Nile delta. There was considerable interest in finding evidence to support the veracity of bible stories to test the reliability of classical texts by Greek and Roman authors, who have influenced the nature of British education.

Next May the society, as part of its birthday celebrations, is staging a two-week tour of Egypt, its sites, pyramids, tombs and museums. The society, which has 3,000 members, runs day schools, conferences, and publishes the results of fieldwork in the scholarly Journal of Egyptian Archaeology and a more populist magazine, Egyptian Archaeology.

From March 2009 the society is to lose its government funding, channelled via the British Academy. So, as well as finding new sponsors, it will have to review which projects it will continue to fund.

Egypt Travel

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