The Witch Cult in Western Europe

"Margaret Alice Murray (July 13, 1863 - November 13, 1963) was a prominent British anthropologist and Egyptologist. She was well known in academic circles for scholarly contributions to Egyptology and the study of folklore which led to the theory of a pan-European, pre-Christian pagan religion that revolved around the Horned God.

Her ideas are acknowledged to have significantly influenced the emergence of Wicca and reconstructionist neopagan religions. However, Margaret Murray's reputation as a witchcraft scholar was criticized by most historians because of her demonstrated tendency to subjectively interpret or otherwise manipulate evidence to conform to the theory.

Margaret Murray was born in Calcutta, India on July 13, 1863. She attended the University College of London and was a student of linguistics and anthropology. She was also a pioneer campaigner for women's rights. Margaret Murray accompanied the renowned Egyptologist Sir William Flinders Petrie, on several archaeological excavations in Egypt and Palestine during the late 1890s.

Murray was the first in a line of female Egyptologists employed at The Manchester Museum, The University of Manchester. In 1908, she undertook the unwrapping of "The Two Brothers", a Middle Kingdom non-royal burial excavated by Petrie in Egypt. It is regarded as the first interdisciplinary study of mummies and probably kick-started future scientific unwrappings, such as those of Keeper Professor Rosalie David completed in the 1970's.

Her work and association with Petrie helped secure employment at University College as a junior lecturer. Murray's best known and most controversial text, "The Witch-Cult in Western Europe," was published in 1921. She was consequently named Assistant Professor of Egyptology at the University College of London in 1924, a post she held until her retirement in 1935. In 1926, she became a fellow of Britain's Royal Anthropological Institute. Murray became President of the Folklore Society in 1953. Ten years later and having reached 100 years of age, Margaret Murray published her final work, an autobiography entitled "My First Hundred Years" (1963). She died later that same year of natural causes."