Flinders Petrie and the discovery of early Egypt

As readers of AE are well aware, William Flinders Petrie looms large in the story of archaeology in Egypt. He played a significant part in the development of Egyptology from what began as a hobby for wealthy, educated Europeans to the sophisticated scientific discipline it is today. Indeed, with his meticulous excavation methods and techniques, Petrie was ahead of his time, and his invention of sequence or seriation dating in pottery studies, which archaeologists still use today to date sites relatively (see ‘Milestones’ in AE 138), marks him out as a seminal figure not just of Egyptian archaeology, but of archaeology in general. It is thus not surprising that Petrie is alternatively ref