Caroline Ransom Williams

The Decoration of the Tomb of Per-neb Caroline Ransom Williams

Caroline Louise Ransom Williams (1872-1952) was the first woman to obtain a degree through the first American Egyptology program, at the University of Chicago. She then became the first woman to study Egyptology at a university in continental Europe. She went on to work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Toledo Museum of Art, and the New York Historical Society (precursor to the Brooklyn Museum). She participated in Epigraphic Survey at Luxor and assisted the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The Decoration of the Tomb of Per-neb was published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1932. "Using as a vehicle for her discussion the 5th Dynasty tomb of Per-neb now in the Metropolitan Museum, Mrs. Williams has given an almost complete background for the conventions and the techniques of color as used by the ancient Egyptians, particularly of the early dynasties. A book on this subject and with such scholarliness might easily have been a dull thing to read but due to the easy style and clear presentation of ideas it is an absorbing matter for the expert or layman." Brooklyn Museum Quarterly (1935) "For the Old Kingdom Caroline Ransom Williams' The Decoration of the Tomb of Per-neb is a comprehensive and exceedingly valuable study of the technical processes of painting and relief sculpture." William Stevenson Smith, Ancient Egypt as Represented in the Museum of Fine Arts (1952)