A Dedicated Life

Rosalind Moss was one of the most remarkable figures of Egyptology in the 20th century. She was born on 21 September 1890. Her father, the Rev. H.W. Moss, was headmaster of Shrewsbury School. Rosalind went to Heathfield School, Ascot, and St. Anne's College, Oxford. She received her Diploma in Anthropolgy in 1917 and her BSc in 1922. Her Life after Death in Oceania was published in 1925. While at Oxford, she studied Egyptology with F.Ll. Griffith. In 1924 she became junior editor, with Miss Bertha Porter, of the Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Reliefs, and Paintings. For the next fifty years, until her retirement in 1972, she was the main driving force behind the project which is unique to Egyptology. She received an honorary doctorate from Oxford in 1961. Rosalind Moss's work exerted profound influence on research techniques of Egyptology. She died in Ewell on 22 April, 1990, some five months short of her 100th birthday.