Britain is notable in Europe for the magnificence of its medieval lead-glazed tiles, which survive mainly on monastic sites, although some have been found in houses and palaces. Elizabeth Eames was the leading 20th-century scholar and writer on those tiles.

After the war she began work at the British Museum as a volunteer, unpacking items that had been stored. She came to tiles by chance. Dr Rupert Bruce Mitford was busy with Sutton Hoo, and she was asked to list the Duke of Rutland’s tile collection, which had been purchased with the aid of the National Art Collections Fund in 1947.

This, the greatest tile collection of the 20th century (some 9,000 items), was built up by Captain Ludovic Lindsay and the Marquis of Granby. As well as many fine tiles, it contained a number of whole pavements such as those from Halesowen Abbey; Burton Lazars, Leicestershire; and Canynge’s House, Bristol, as well as collections from northern Cistercian abbeys such as Byland and Rievaulx. In 1948 Eames was allowed £1 a day to catalogue the collection, and continued as a special assistant.

From this began her devotion to the study of medieval tiles, which was to culminate in her great two-volume catalogue of the medieval lead-glazed earthenware tiles in the Department of Medieval and Later Antiquities in the British Museum (1980). This turned the study of tiles from mere collecting to an understanding of the medieval craft and its place in medieval economic and art history.

The catalogue, detailing 13,882 tiles, gave a complete overview of the development of tiles from the late Saxon period to the mid-16th century. By the meticulous drawing of the exact designs of tiles, often reconstructed from many fragments (not using photographs, as Sir Kenneth Clark wanted), she set an entirely new standard in the recording of tile designs, and lastly she emphasised the importance of the examination and study of kiln sites. This gave a key to the distribution, ordering and use of tiles.

Two sites, both with royal connections, were foremost in her attention. At Chertsey, Surrey, with Arthur Gardner, she analysed the relationship between the remarkable panels of the King, Queen and Archbishop with the kiln found there, and published her results in The Tile Kiln at Chertsey Abbey (1954). Her tile catalogue also gives the most complete publication of the Tristan and Isolde romance tiles from Chertsey. At Clarendon, the royal palace near Salisbury, she removed the tile pavements and kiln, excavated by Tancred Borenius in the 1930s, to the British Museum, where they were displayed in the Medieval Tile and Pottery Gallery, opened in 1975. The kiln was placed beneath the two pavements — the great circular pavement of the King’s chapel (fired in the kiln), and that from the Queen’s chamber. She published further tiles in the Salisbury Museum Medieval Catalogue, and was pleased to see the recent work conducted by Dr. T. B. James.

Born in 1918, the daughter of Arthur Frederick Graham, a research chemist, and Eveline Lucy Graham (née Garrett), she was the first girl from Rugby High School to go to Cambridge (Newnham College), where she studied English and archaeology and anthropology from 1936. She travelled to Norway, where she studied Norse archaeology, and her thesis on the position of women in Viking society was awarded an MLitt in 1950. She was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1958. Her studies were interrupted by the war, when she joined the Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service in 1942-45. She was commissioned in 1943 and said the experience had broadened her understanding of people.

She was a natural teacher and her lively and exuberant nature made her a brilliant lecturer across the whole field of archaeology from the prehistoric sites in Orkney, to which she often took her students, to the detail of the new discipline of medieval archaeology. She lectured at the City Literary Institute, the London University Department of Extra Mural Studies, the City University, and the WEA for more than 43 years, and many of those to whom she lectured remained her lasting friends.

She served on the councils of many societies, including the Society of Antiquaries of London, the British Archaeological Association (vice-president), the Surrey Archaeological Society, the Southwark and Lambeth Archaeological Society, and the Kingston upon Thames Archaeological Society, where she served as President.

Her interest in education led her to lecture on tiles and to write popular books such as Medieval Tiles: a Hand-book (1968), and English Tilers (1992).

She encouraged a whole generation of younger scholars of medieval tiles, both in England and abroad. She established, with Dr A. B. Emden, the Census of Medieval Floor tiles in Britain. In the course of her work for this she visited many excavations, and her windswept appearance and vivacious enthusiasm inspired many and created lasting friendships.

Her early interest in Viking archaeology led to an interest in European tiles. She encouraged scholars such as Dr Christopher Norton to work on French tiles, collaborated with the late Tom Fanning on a survey of Irish tiles, and was proud of her links with foreign scholars, such as Birgit als Hansen, Tarquinius Hoekstra, Mathieu Pinette and Elenore Landgraf, whose Ornamentierte Bodenfliesen des Mittelalters in Süd -und West Deutschland 1150-1550 (1993), was modelled on Elizabeth’s work. Her achievements were acknowledged with a major conference in London in 1983, reported in the Revue de l’Art.

After the war, she married Herbert Eames, who, after a notable wartime career, became a distinguished solicitor and councillor in Lewisham, and was a great support to her. He died in 1983. She is survived by two daughters and a son.

Elizabeth Eames, archaeologist, was born on June 24, 1918. She died on September 20, 2008, aged 90