The Egypt Exploration Society: Helping Archeologists Dig and Discover Since 1882

The Egypt Exploration Society (EES) has been operating in the country since 1882, tells Egyptologist Essam Nagy, the society's Cairo Office Manager. It was founded by esteemed British author Amilia Edwards with aim of registering and documenting dig sites and artefacts in the Nile Delta region and beyond. Since then and up until today, they have worked on several different archeological missions all around the country and have been in joint collaborations with universities and organisations from all over the world -  currently they are in collaboration with Chicago University and the University of Birmingham on different projects. In short they promote the studying of Egypt's past and the preservation of it, with quite a number of running projects.

For their latest project, have brought in Melanie Pitkin a visiting fellow who is currently a PhD student at Macquarie University in Sydney and also Museum Curator at the Museum of Applied Arts Sydney. She is here for three months as part of the society's plan to educate and enhance the academic and workplace skills of Archeology and Egyptology students in Egypt to help prepare them for the international job market through presentations and workshops conducted at the AUC's GrEEk Campus and other locations around Cairo. The move came after the people at EES's London headquarters (EES offers scholarships to Egyptian students in the fields of Egyptology, Archeology, and Museology), realised from the students applications the lack of academic and workplace skills that are necessary for them to complete the scholarship program. Melanie was therefore sent in to engage these students on the ground and help them gain the skills they need. She tells us, "We are working for ourselves here, trying to offer solutions to the problems these students are facing."

The society is offering all the presentations and workshops to the public, not just Egyptology students. Announcements are made through flyers given out on campus and soon on the society's website. 

They also have a Facebook page that you can follow. Melanie Pitkin has a travel blog surrounding her travels through Egypt that you can checkout here and you can follow her on Instagram @melaniemisr and Twitter @melanie_misr.

All images retrieved from their Facebook page.