Rocznik Muzeum Narodowego w Warszawie (1(37).2012/2013)

I Professor Jadwiga (“Jagoda”) Lipińska
(29 November 1932 - 4 October 2009)

Professor Jadwiga Lipińska devoted her entire professional life to Egyptology. Her work was
both theoretical and practical, as she studied the antiquities in the holdings of the National
Museum in Warsaw and published her research, lectured, wrote both academic and popular
books and took part in excavations in Egypt. With enough energy for several people, she di-
vided her time between all these activities effortlessly.
She worked at the National Museum in Warsaw from 1958 until 2002, when she retired after
serving as curator of the Collection of Ancient Art for eleven years. In 1991 she was appointed full
professor. Her scholarly studies of many Egyptian antiquities in the Collection of Ancient Art
appeared in both Polish and foreign journals. She curated numerous exhibitions, of which the
most important one, in 1997, was devoted to the mysterious Queen Hatshepsut. She also directed
the 1999-2001 renovation of the Egyptian galleiy. The many discussions, studies and efforts
this project entailed gave rise to a totally new conception of arranging the Egyptian collection,
which today optimally shows off the collection’s assets. Crowning this new arrangement was the
publication in 2007 of a beautifully illustrated guide to the Egyptian and Middle Eastern section
of the Galleiy of Ancient Art, to which Jagoda contributed significantly, already as a retiree.1
As a university teacher of many student cohorts, she mercilessly highlighted any and all
errors and slip-ups in fact, methodology or language. The Master’s theses she passed met all
scholarly criteria and were often published in the Annuaire du Musée National de Varsovie.
Employers snatched up her students like hot buns. In 1978 she put together a team of her
former students to work in Egypt on the Tuthmosis III mission in Deir el-Bahari. She also
advised several doctoral students, the last of whom, in 2008, was this author, whose disserta-
tion was - of course - about the temple of Thutmosis.
Working in Egypt itself was probably her favourite professional activity. Collaborating
closely with Kazimierz Michałowski, she took part in many missions coordinated by the
University of Warsaw’s Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology (Tell Atrib in i960,1963 and
1965 and Alexandria in 1963; also Sudan and Syria). But already in 1961 she bound her life
with Deir el-Bahari and the newly discovered temple of Thutmosis III. As an Egyptologist
and director of the site, she took part in excavating the temple in 1961-1967. She participated
in the astounding discoveries of its stunning polychrome reliefs and of many high-quality
sculptures, with the splendid statue of Thutmosis III on his throne foremost among them.
The whole world saw the photographs and heard the news about these findings.
For a long time, Jagoda (whom the Egyptians called “Madame Goda” or “Mudira,” boss)
dreamed about restoring the temple and writing about it. In her habilitation thesis she recon-
structed its layout and its appearance, and her many articles covered various aspects of this
great Polish discovery. She infected her students with her passion for the Egyptian iconography
of the New Kingdom. And she succeeded in creating the Polish-Egyptian Archaeological and
Conservation Mission for Thutmosis III, which operated from 1978 to 1996. The team’s first

1 Galeria Sztuki Starożytnej. Egipt, Bliski Wschód. Przewodnik, Witold Dobrowolski, ed. (Warsaw: Muzeum
Narodowe w Warszawie, 2007).