Lifelong love of Egypt comes to fruition

Rose Campbell's fascination with ancient Egypt began more than two decades ago.

She was in about third or fourth grade and learning about ancient Egypt from her mother, Lyn, who home-schooled her. Campbell was enthralled by the country and took every advantage to learn more about it.

That meant traveling to Bozeman to see replicas of artifacts found in King Tut's tomb and teaching herself to read and write hieroglyphics. It also meant going through a lot of VHS tape.

"When I was little I used to beg my mom to videotape all the Egypt shows on the Discovery Channel and the History Channel," Campbell said. "I have videotapes full."

Now 25, Campbell realized a lifelong dream this summer when she participated in an archaeological dig in Egypt. But if it's up to Campbell, who is pursuing her master's degree in archaeology at the University of Montana, the trip was just the first of many she will spend digging in Egyptian sand.

Despite her lifelong love of ancient Egypt, Campbell said she didn't always want to be an archaeologist. Lyn Campbell remembers looking at colleges with programs in horse training, and then at those with marine biology programs.

But her passion for Egyptology triumphed.

"In high school, I came to the point when I realized, ‘I think I just need to do this for a career,'" she said. "I can make a little bit of a living at it. I'll never be rich, but I haven't ever really considered going back."

Lyn Campbell said she wasn't sure at first how to take her daughter's career decision.

"I kept telling her, maybe you can write books [about Egypt]," she said. "And she said, ‘Nope, I'm going to go over there and dig.'"

After graduating from Columbia Falls High School in 2003, Campbell began pursuing her dream at Flathead Valley Community College, where she earned an associate degree in humanities. She took a semester off to travel, work and take online classes, and then started school in Missoula.

There she earned her bachelor's degree in anthropology with a double focus in archaeology and forensic anthropology. Her real archaeological passion, Campbell said, is not in artifacts but in "bioarchaeology," which looks closely at the bones of long-deceased people.

"I consider it almost a cross between archaeology and forensics," she said. "Archaeology tends to focus more on stuff that you find; in forensics, you find the people."

She wants to apply her studies to ancient Egyptians who haven't received much press.

"I'm more interested in regular people," she said. "Particularly in Egypt, where the goal has been for so long treasures and pyramids and pharaohs, regular people slip under the radar. But you can't have a king without a kingdom."

Her first dig in Egypt allowed her to look at what some "regular people" left behind at Tell Timai.

The site, located in the Delta region near the modern city of El Mansoura, contains the ruins of the Greco-Roman city Thmuis, which flourished until it was abandoned in the 10th century.

Archaeologists just started excavating the site last year, Campbell said. She spent five weeks there this summer on a field project with the University of Hawaii and helped unearth several kilns at the site.

While it was her first Egyptian dig, it wasn't Campbell's first foray into archaeological fieldwork. Through the University of Montana she had the chance to work in Coloma, an abandoned mining town east of Missoula.

On her very first dig there, Campbell found a sewing pin.

"To me, it was very exciting - to be paying close enough attention to find a sewing pin," she said. "It wasn't what I expected to find."

That attention to detail is one of Campbell's favorite things about archaeology.

"I love the work of archaeology. It can be very precise," she said.

Campbell hopes to get back to Egypt soon. Her master's thesis will involve a landscape survey there - if her proposal is approved by Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.

"I'm keeping my fingers crossed," she said.

Campbell still has to pursue her doctorate after her master's is taken care of. Once she has it, she has every intention of going back to Egypt.

"I would love to be out excavating," she said. "In Egypt you excavate every few weeks or few months and the rest of the year you catalog artifacts. ... I would like to do that."

She also anticipates teaching someday to pay the bills, but plans to be out in the field as much as possible.

"I love being out in the field. To me, that's absolutely my favorite thing to do," she said.

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com.