Beatrice De Cardi

Early life and education De Cardi was born in London on 5 June 1914, the second daughter of a Corsican father, Edwin de Cardi, and an American mother, Christine Berbette Wurfflein. She was educated at St Paul's Girls' School, although her schooling was interrupted by ill health. From 1933 to 1935 she studied history, Latin and economics at University College London. She also studied archaeology, under the prominent archaeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler.

Career De Cardi received her earliest training as an assistant at the digs conducted by Wheeler and his wife Tessa at the Iron Age fort of Maiden Castle in southern England. In this time she also discovered more than 20 tombs from the second millennium B.C.

Honours From 1949 to 1973, de Cardi served as assistant secretary, and then secretary, of the Council for British Archaeology. Later, the Council renamed its headquarters Beatrice de Cardi House.

In 1973, she was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to archaeology.

In 1989 de Cardi received the Al Qasimi Medal, presented to her for archaeological services to the United Arab Emirates state of Ras Al Khaimah. She was the first woman to receive the medal. In 1993 she received the Burton Memorial Medal from the Royal Asiatic Society. From 1995 de Cardi was an Honorary Fellow at University College London. In June 2014 she turned 100, and was awarded the Gold Medal of the Society of Antiquaries of London "for distinguished services to archaeology".

Personal life De Cardi's first fiancé died in World War II. Her second fiancé died in a riding accident in Qatar while working there with her.

Publications De Cardi, Beatrice. Excavations at Bampur, a Third Millennium Settlement in Persian Baluchistan, 1966. New York: American Museum of Natural History, 1970. De Cardi, Beatrice, and D. Brian Doe. Archaeological Survey in the Northern Trucial States. Rome, 1971. De Cardi, Beatrice, Qatar Archaeological Report. Qatar: Qatar National Museum, 1978. De Cardi, Beatrice. Archaeological Surveys in Baluchistan, 1948 and 1957. London: Institute of Archaeology, 1983. Phillips, C. S., Daniel T. Potts, Sarah Searight, and Beatrice De Cardi (eds.). Arabia and its neighbours: essays on prehistorical and historical developments presented in honour of Beatrice de Cardi. Turnhout: Brepols, 1998. De Cardi, Beatrice. The De Cardi Family in Britain. London, 2006. De Cardi, Beatrice. "Exploring the Lower Gulf, 1947–2007" in Antiquity: A Quarterly Review of World Archaeology, Vol. 82, no. 315, p. 165-77.