Miriam C Davis

Dame Kathleen Kenyon has always been a larger-than-life figure, likely the most influential woman archaeologist of the 20th century. In the first full-length biography of Kenyon, Miriam Davis recounts not only her many achievements in the field but also her personal side, known to very few of her contemporaries. Her public side is a catalog of major successes: discovering the oldest city at Jericho with its amazing collection of plastered skulls; untangling the archaeological complexities of ancient Jerusalem and identifying the original City of David; participating in the discipline’s most famous all-woman excavation at Great Zimbabwe. Her development (with Sir Mortimer Wheeler) of stratigraphic trenching methods has been universally emulated by archaeologists for over half a century. Her private life—her childhood as daughter of the director of the British Museum, her accidental choice of a career in archaeology, her working at bombed sites in London during the blitz, and her solitary retirement to Wales—are generally unknown. Davis provides a balanced and illuminating picture of both the public Dame Kenyon and the private person.

From 1910 to 1919, New Orleans suffered at the hands of a serial killer. The story has been the subject of short stories, novels, and the television series American Horror Story. But the full story of gruesome murders, accused innocents, public panic, the New Orleans Mafia, and a mysterious killer has never been written—until now. The Axeman broke into the homes of Italian grocers in the dead of night, leaving his victims in a pool of blood. Iorlando Jordano and his son Frank were wrongly accused of one of those murders; corrupt officials convicted them with coerced testimony. Miriam C. Davis here expertly tells the story of the search for the Axeman and of the exoneration of the Jordanos. She proves that the person suspected of being the Axeman was not the killer—and that the Axeman continued killing after leaving New Orleans in 1919.

Dame Kathleen Kenyon has always been a larger-than-life figure, likely the most influential woman archaeologist of the 20th century. In the first full-length biography of Kenyon, Miriam Davis recounts not only her many achievements in the field but also her personal side, known to very few of her contemporaries. Her public side is a catalog of major successes: discovering the oldest city at Jericho with its amazing collection of plastered skulls; untangling the archaeological complexities of ancient Jerusalem and identifying the original City of David; participating in the discipline’s most famous all-woman excavation at Great Zimbabwe. Her development (with Sir Mortimer Wheeler) of stratigraphic trenching methods has been universally emulated by archaeologists for over half a century. Her private life—her childhood as daughter of the director of the British Museum, her accidental choice of a career in archaeology, her working at bombed sites in London during the blitz, and her solitary retirement to Wales—are generally unknown. Davis provides a balanced and illuminating picture of both the public Dame Kenyon and the private person.