Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Figure 05

Portrait of Sir Flinders Petrie, ca. 1886 (Photo PD – Art).
Sir Flinders Petrie (3 June 1853 – 28 July 1942) was one of a kind and rather excentric, suffering from asthma and never went to school, yet he became the Father of Egyptology and professor at the University College, London, from 1892 to 1933. When he was eight years old he set out his theory of digging, “the earth ought to be pared away inch by inch to see all that is in it and how it lies” (Silverberg, Great Adventures in Archaeology, 34). He set in motion the predominant method of archaeological procedure that was followed by many of the great archaeologist after him. Although Petrie was not without his critics, he laid the foundation for the scientific use of stratigraphy (see Pottery Dating and Stratigraphy) earning him the nick name of “ Father of pots” (Drower, Flinders Petrie, 91) and the distinguished title of the “Father of Modern Egyptology” (Okasha El Daly, Egyptology: The Missing Millennium. Ancient Egypt in Medieval Arabic Writings (London: Cavendish, 2005), 12).

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