Margaret Alice Murray was a trailblazing British Egyptologist, archaeologist, and folklorist. Born in Calcutta, British India, she studied Egyptology at University College London (UCL) under Flinders Petrie. In 1898, she became the first woman appointed as a lecturer in archaeology in the United Kingdom. Murray established her academic reputation through significant excavations in Egypt, including the discovery of the Osireion temple at Abydos and investigations at the Saqqara cemetery. In 1908, she achieved a public milestone by leading the unwrapping of the mummy Khnum-nakht at the Manchester Museum, marking the first time a woman conducted a public mummy unwrapping.
Beyond her archaeological fieldwork, Murray was an active participant in the first-wave feminist movement, joining the Women's Social and Political Union and advocating for women's status at UCL. During World War I, unable to travel to Egypt, she shifted her focus to folklore and European history. She formulated the controversial "witch-cult hypothesis," which posited that early modern witch trials were an attempt to suppress a surviving pagan religion. Although this theory was later academically discredited, it achieved immense popular reach and profoundly influenced the development of the modern Wiccan religion, earning her the informal title "Grandmother of Wicca."
Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Murray expanded her archaeological research to prehistoric sites in Malta, Menorca, Palestine, and Petra. She retired from UCL in 1935 as an assistant professor but remained active in academic circles, serving as president of the Folklore Society from 1953 to 1955. Though her historical theories on witchcraft faced severe academic criticism, her pioneering contributions to Egyptology and public science education earned her lasting recognition as the "Grand Old Woman of Egyptology."
