ABSTRACT
Barbara began her fascination with the site of Hierakonpolis in 1970 when Harry Smith encouraged her to work on a catalogue of the Petrie Museum’s holdings from the Hierakonpolis excavations of Quibell and Green. The immense value of this work, published in 1974, led Michael Hoffman to seek her out in 1979 on his way back from his season as director of Predynastic excavations at Hierakonpolis. Some measure of the immediate rapport between Barbara and Mike can be determined by the fact that Mike, not one for keeping his opinions to himself, had for a variety of reasons decided, in his highly vocal manner, that Egyptologists and women were not to work at his site. In 1980 and again in 1982 Barbara worked with Mike in the elite cemetery at HK6, helping with the analysis of the artefacts on site.
