Petrie Essay

Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie also known as Sir Petrie Flinders lived from 3 June 1853 – 28 July 1942, and was known as an English archaeologist and Egyptologist, he was also considered the “Father of Egyptian archaeology”. It was he who first called the attention of excavators to the importance "unconsidered trifles" as means for the construction of the past and developing the chronology of Ancient Egypt, claiming that the broken earthenware of people which most archaeologists ignore may be of far greater value than its most gigantic monuments.

Biography

William Matthew Flinders Petrie was born in Charlton, Kent, England, he was the son of William Petrie (1821–1908), a civil engineer and professional surveyor, and Anne Flinders (1812–1892) who was multilingual with an aptitude for the science of fossils and natural minerals. Because of his ill health he was educated at home, enabling him to develop early archaeological, ethnological, and lingual interests, particularly in the area of ancient weights and measures, and in Egyptology.

Petrie’s first archaeological opinion happened at the age of eight after being visited by family friends in which he protested that the earth should be pared away, inch by inch, to see all that was in it and how it lay (Petrie, Seventy Years, p.10)

On 26 November 1896, Petrie married Hilda Urlin (1871–1957) in London. They had two children, John (1907–1972) and Ann (1909–1989).

When he died in 1942, Petrie donated his head to the Royal College of Surgeons of London while his body was buried in the Protestant Cemetery on Mt. Zion.

Academic Career

Petrie’s only formal education was a University Extension Course in mathematics. He began as a Practical Surveyor in south England, during this time ...

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...t at the time the inscription was engraved Israel was significant enough as a major player to be included amongst all the other major city-states defeated by Merneptah in the late 13th century B.C. agreeing with the biblical narrative.

Some other noted discoveries of Petrie are:

• Fragments of a colossal statue of Ramses II(1884) during the excavation of the Temple of Tanis

• Painted pottery (1885 and 1886), at Naukratis and Daphnae in the Nile River delta, which proved that those sites had been trading colonies for the ancient Greeks.

• Tombs of the first dynasty at Abydos (1899); in which Petrie spent 6 years (1898-1904) excavating the necropolis of Abydos, uncovering the royal cenotaphs of predynastic times.

• A magnificent collection of Twelfth-Dynasty jewellery from Excavations at Dandarah, Memphis, and in the Faiyûm

• Amana Letters

• Tell el-Yahudiyeh Ware