Fayza Haikal

Fayza Mohamed Hussein Haikal (born 1938) is a professor emerita of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo and the first Egyptian woman to earn a PhD in Egyptology.

Education and career Haikal was born on April 11, 1938; her father was a prominent Egyptian politician. She attended the Lycée Français du Caire as a child, and studied Egyptology at the Faculty of Arts at Cairo University from 1956 to 1960, where she received her BA. After graduating, she successfully applied for a scholarship to study Egyptology abroad; in the following year, before taking up the scholarship, she worked on the UNESCO Campaign in Nubia to save monuments at risk from the construction of the Aswan Dam, first being responsible for revising the campaign's epigraphic material for publication, and then conducting fieldwork in Nubia. Egyptian women had not previously been allowed to travel to work archaeological excavations, and Haikal describes herself as having 'paved the way for women Egyptologists to work in Nubia". From 1961 to 1965, Haikal studied in the UK, initially at University College London, where her supervisor, W.B. Emery, on being asked to include her in his team working in Nubia, replied "I don't take girls in my team".

Honours A Festschrift titled "Hommages à Fayza Haikal" was published by the Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale in 2003,