Barbara Adams (1) (1945–2002)

Barbara Adams, née Bishop, was born in London, England, and attended the Godolphin and Latymer School on a scholarship. She began her professional life as an entomologist and worked at London's Natural History Museum. In 1964, she published her first book, a volume of poetry entitled Bones in My Soul. The following year, she joined the staff of the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology at University College London to work with Prof. Harry S. Smith, and got her first archaeological field experience at Yorkshire and other sites in the UK. In 1967, she married Robert F. Adams, a civil servant, who encouraged her new career as an archaeologist, and she went on to study archaeological field method at Cambridge University. Her book Ancient Hierakonpolis (1974) described the results of the early excavators Quibell and Green at the predynastic town site. She rose to become an assistant curator at the Petrie Museum and produced its first guidebook in 1977. In 1978, she conducted excavations at a late Bronze/early Iron Age site in Israel, and in 1980, she joined the American expedition at Hierakonpolis, to which she returned in 1982 and 86. By 1980, she was a full curator and founded the Shire Egyptology series of books. She died of cancer at age 57 in 2002.