ABSTRACT
In the early 1920s, the loss of the prewar German excavation concession at the site of Amarna in Middle Egypt to Britain’s Egypt Exploration Society (EES) caused a severe rupture in the relationship of the leading Egyptologists Adolf Erman and Alan Gardiner, who had just resumed correspondence after the end of the conflict. This dispute, which very nearly put an end to the friendship of the two scholars, is discussed in detail in this chapter. The dispute is also placed within the context of Anglo-German relations within Egyptology as a whole and, in particular, the importance of the excavations at Amarna for German practitioners of the discipline. Issues of nationalism, research, and personal networks within Egyptology are therefore addressed.
