Christmas visitors

Christmas visitors

Author: Susan Biddle.

During their eight years working at the Temple of Seti I at Abydos, Myrtle Broome and Amice Calverley welcomed many Egyptian, European, and American visitors. Some were already friends, others became friends, and a few proved to be more challenging. All were however made as welcome as the team’s resources allowed. This post is one of an occasional series looking at the visitors to the dig-house and the Temple of Seti I, and focuses on those who shared Christmas with Myrtle, Amice, and the other members of the team.

In 1929, Myrtle’s first Christmas in Abydos, the team was joined for four days by Mary C. Jonas, the secretary of the Egypt Exploration Society (EES). The EES was Amice and Myrtle’s employer, but although Mary Jonas was visiting in order to report to the EES on the team and its work when she returned, there is no sense that her presence dampened the Christmas celebrations. Mrytle told her parents that Miss Jonas “is a dear & is enjoying everything thoroughly”. On Christmas Day Miss Jonas joined the team at the party given for about 80 local Egyptian children and at the “fantasia” – which included musicians – and a play staged by the Egyptian members of the team.

Mary Jonas (left), Myrtle Broome (centre) and Amice Calverley (right) at the Abydos dig house, Christmas 1929
© The Egypt Exploration Society

On 26 December, “in honour of Miss Jonas”, Myrtle, Amice, and Mary went to a nearby wadi with a sand-slope for a picnic of “cold turkey & salad, mince pies, sweets, mandarins etc”. While they rested after lunch, their Egyptian servants “had great sport on the sand slope, racing each other up & coming down in the most spectacular manner. They entertained us immensely”. The Europeans then made their own attempt, with unexpectedly humorous results. They choose a longer, less steep ascent than their men, who all accompanied them including the youngest, Abdullah, who was little more than a boy. Myrtle told her mother: “we started down in great style, the men were down first & of course turned to watch our descent. To our consternation they were consumed with unseemly mirth, & we wondered what on earth could be the matter with us to make our respectful servants lose their respectful attitude towards us, but as we came lower they signalled us to look back. We did so, & there was poor little Abdullah spread-eagled on the slope, too terrified to come down except on his tummy. Of course we couldn’t help laughing too”. Luckily “Abdullah came down safely, doing the less steep part in the more approved manner”. This wadi, and the challenge of the sand-slope, became a favourite expedition to entertain visitors in subsequent seasons.

This was Mary Jonas’ first visit to Egypt and, sadly, it proved to be her only one. However, on 20 December 1933 Myrtle told her mother: “I have already received a Christmas present. Two very pretty silk handkerchiefs from Miss Jonas, wasn’t it kind of her”.

In 1930 the team’s Christmas visitor was Miss Byles, the librarian from Chicago House, the Luxor base of the other patron of the Abydos project, the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, now the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, West Asia & North Africa (ISAC). The Abydos team discussed techniques with the Oriental Institute’s Epigraphic Survey, who were based there, and Amice sometimes used the more sophisticated darkroom facilities at Chicago House. Phoebe Byles had joined the Chicago House team in 1926 as librarian and assistant to the director Dr Harold Nelson, the first field director of the Epigraphic Survey.

Epigraphic Survey staff (1926–1927)
Phoebe Byles (back row, third from left); Dr Harold Nelson (second row, third from left)
© Epigraphic Survey, Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures

She arrived at the Abydos dig house on 23 December and spent Christmas Eve seeing the sights under the guidance of one of the Egyptian servants, while Amice and Myrtle were working. In the evening they “went off for a desert ride in Joey [Amice’s Jowett car]. It was fun, we bumped along … [and] … sometimes we came to a wadi [where] we had to prospect a little to make sure little to make sure we could get out if we went down. When we saw the rise the other side had a fairly firm surface, then swish went Joey down into the sandy gulley, then snorting & puffing up he went the other side & waddled along until he came to the next obstacle. We got as close to the great limestone cliffs as we could … We returned under a flaming sky over a desert all tinted with soft pink & gold & mauve with the vivid green strip of the Nile valley in the distance”.

On Christmas morning the team received visits from the Egyptian friends and lunched on turkey, with peas and sweet potatoes, followed by a Christmas pudding, fruit, sweets, and coffee. After a snooze during the hot afternoon, they went for another desert drive. They had intended to take Miss Byles to their favourite wadi and sand-slope, but were thwarted by a series of unfortunate incidents. Delayed by a visit from the Coptic priest, who had to be entertained with coffee and more sweets, they did not set out until nearly sunset and then had to make several detours to avoid long high sand ridges, so it was dark by the time they arrived, except for some faint moonlight. They then discovered that “Joey” – Amice’s Jowett car – had a flat tyre, so had to change the wheel for the spare which was “none too easy a job in the dim light; however we managed it without losing any bolts or washers [but] of course it delayed us somewhat”. They then mistook the light of a camp fire for the light from their dig house and went out of their way in consequence, so “poor Nannie [the Syrian housekeeper] got into an awful stew & sent all our servants out to look for us. We met them about half a mile from home & there was a great fuss & rejoicings to find we were all right”. Miss Byles was described by Donald Wilber, one of the artists engaged by the Epigraphic Survey, as “the possessor of a tart tongue”, but Myrtle does not report any comments their visitor may have made about the experience. Fortunately, they were back in time for the fantasia in the evening, which this time included a series of skits, as well as dancing and nabout stick play.

The following year Myrtle indicated back home that they “very much hope the Oultons from Sohag will come to share our Xmas dinner, we have had such a fine turkey presented to us”. Charles Oulton was the British sub-consular agent for the district, based in Sohag; Amice and Myrtle had stayed a night with him and his wife Betty when driving from Cairo to Baliana at the start of the season. However it was not until 5 January 1932 that the Oultons visited the Abydos camp, where they were entertained in a new way. Myrtle explained to her mother that “we have been preparing a Badminton court in the hopes of having a game if there is not too much wind. We had some difficulty in making the white lines on the mud floor, but managed by pouring whitewash in little dribbles (along the measuring string) out of a milk jug”. With some justification, “Nannie of course waxed furious as you can imagine”.

The Egyptologist and artist Norman de Garis Davies and his artist wife Nina invited Amice and Myrtle to spend Christmas 1932 with them in Luxor, although Myrtle told her mother that “we do so love our Xmas here & it would be too bad to disappoint all our people who look forward all the year to the fantasia, so we are suggesting the Davieses come to us instead”.

Norman and Nina de Garis Davies
© Griffith Institute, University of Oxford

Nina had stayed with the team for a month during 1930 in order to paint one of the scenes in the temple for a book on Egyptian painting, and was a welcome visitor. Myrtle had told her mother that “we are so glad to have her, she is such a dear, & we may be able to pick up lots of useful hints for our own colour work. Her tempera painting is the finest of its type I have ever seen”. In fact the Davies’ Christmas visit did not happen, which was perhaps just as well since on Christmas morning two other visitors arrived: Hugh Last, the secretary of the Egypt Exploration Society from 1931, and Frank Adcock, Professor of History at Cambridge University. As Myrtle explained to her mother, these visitors “have to be duly shown the temple etc & also impressed with our great industry so this year Xmas gaieties have been somewhat curtailed as we have had to give all our attention to them. We wish they had come at any other time. They are very pleasant but have a very learned air”. However their recent Arabic lessons enabled Myrtle and Amice to score in one respect – Myrtle told her mother that neither of their learned visitors “speak any Arabic, so we have one advantage”.

The “learned visitors” at Christmas 1932: Professor Frank Adcock (top) and Hugh Last (bottom).
Top: Lafayette Ltd, Public domain via Wikimedia Commons; bottom: From photograph no. 2828 in William Teulon Stallybrass’s 1940 album, courtesy of Brasenose College, University of Oxford (reference PRI 25 H3/2/14)

The two visitors stayed until 27 December, so would have joined the fantasia on Christmas night, which was similar to those in previous years, except that this year “our Soudanis [the military guard] helped to liven up the party by letting off their guns with loud bangs” – luckily “everyone seemed to enjoy it very much”.

Amice and Myrtle had no visitors for Christmas 1933, when their celebrations were postponed as Amice did not arrive in camp until 1 January 1934. At Christmas 1934 they had no resident visitors, but the new police officer, a Copt appropriately called Messiah, was invited to come to see the Christmas tree and have tea with them on Christmas Day. Myrtle told her mother that, unlike the previous bumptious police officer, “this one is polite & pleasant & does not presume at all, so we feel we can invite him to our festivities”. He presented them with “an enormous bunch of roses”, which filled the house and, together with the paper chains put up by Nannie, made it look very festive.

Christmas 1935 was another quiet one, because on 16 December one of the team, Otto Daum, had a serious accident in the Temple and had been sent urgently to the hospital in Cairo with a compound fracture of his leg and a broken wrist. There was another new police officer that year, whom they invited to lunch on Christmas Day. Myrtle reports how on Christmas Eve this police officer had “fixed up his little radio set in our teresina so that we might hear the London programme which was relayed from Cairo on Xmas Day. Wasn’t it a nice thought of his”. They listened to “a variety of Arabic and English music to the accompaniment of what sounded like a thunderstorm or artillery practice. Amice regarded it with horror & retired to the innermost recesses of her room as soon as politeness permitted, but Nannie & the men loved it”. Unlike Amice, Myrtle “sat out in the teresina & listened to it also because I thought it was so kind of the man to send it to us & I wanted him to feel that it was appreciated”.

Christmas 1936 was by contrast a very sociable affair. For lunch on Christmas Day they were joined by Monsieur Roche, the head of the sugar refinery at Nag Hammadi, and his wife, as well as by Robert Martindale and his wife Alice. Robert Martindale was one of the artists with the Chicago House Epigraphic Survey, who was about to be seconded to the Abydos team for a month in order to help out.

Myrtle with M. and Mme Roche in their garden at Nag Hammadi
© Griffith Institute, University of Oxford

Monsieur Roche brought them “three bottles of his own rum from the sugar cane, & he poured a whole bottle of it over the [Christmas] pudding & set it alight. It made a wonderful blaze & certainly gave the pudding a marvellous flavour”. In the afternoon they had the usual children’s party with a tree and “a gay hankie filled with sweets & nuts & an orange for each child”. Myrtle told her mother that “there were about 56 [children] invited & for whom presents from the tree were provided, but there was the usual infiltration & there must have been quite a hundred before it was time for them to be sent home. Madame Roche was delighted to see them all, she had never been to such a party before”. The fantasia that year was postponed until 27 December when, Major Robert Gayer-Anderson, known to Myrtle as “Major Anderson”, was coming to dinner.

Major Robert “John” Gayer-Anderson
© Thomas Gayer-Anderson
Courtesy of Suffolk Artists

In previous years Major Anderson, a retired soldier and collector, had invited Amice and Myrtle to dine with him on board when he passed through Baliana on a Nile steamer, but this time they insisted on returning his hospitality. They thought his visit the ideal moment to hold the fantasia as he was very keen on all local customs. Myrtle had given Sardic [the head servant] all the odds and ends she could find to assist the men in their dressing up for the party and, after “Joey” had suffered another puncture, “had made fantastic noses out of the inner tube of [the] discarded tyre”. She told her mother: “the effect in the desert in the moonlight was macabre in the extreme. The audience both Egyptian & Arab rocked with mirth at the strange figures & their antics” – a fitting end to the celebrations of what proved to be Myrtle’s last Christmas in Egypt.

Sources:

Letters: 49, 50, 55A, 99, 100, 106, 145, 153, 161, 169, 198, 201, 253, 257, 304, 309, 359, 362, 365, 367, 390.

Gardiner MSS 43 – Calverley Correspondence, Letter 76.

With thanks to: