Acting

Joyce Tyldesley

Joyce Ann Tyldesley OBE (born 25 February 1960) is a British archaeologist and Egyptologist, academic, writer and broadcaster who specialises in the women of ancient Egypt. She was interviewed on the TV series 'Cunk on Earth', about Egypt's pyramids, in 2022 Tyldesley was born in Bolton, Lancashire and attended Bolton School. In 1981, she earned a first-class honours degree in the archaeology of the Eastern Mediterranean from the University of Liverpool. Her doctoral studies were undertaken at Oxford University; first at St Anne's College then, following the award of a scholarship, at St Cross College. In 1986, she was awarded a doctorate in Prehistoric Archaeology from Oxford University. Her thesis was written about Mousterian bifaces (handaxes) in Northern Europe. Tyldesley then returned to Liverpool as a lecturer in Prehistoric Archaeology. Tyldesley next worked as a freelance Egyptologist/archaeologist; writing books, working with television companies, and teaching in further and higher education and online.