Monday, September 25, 2006

Sir William Flinders Petrie

A feature on the mlive website to coincide with the Petrie exhibition at the Flint Institute of Art. This piece focuses mainly on Petrie himself, looking at his early interest in archeaology, how he came to work in Egypt, and the development of field archaeology as a discipline:
"Before Sir William Flinders Petrie entered the scene, there were a lot of treasure hunters but no archaeologists. In a way, Petrie was the prototype for Indiana Jones - the first archaeologist 'anywhere in the world,' according to Peter Lacovara, curator of ancient art at Emory University's Michael C. Carlos Museum in Atlanta.
'He's often called the father of scientific archaeology, having invented techniques that are still used today.' Petrie came from a long line of inventors and explorers, said Lacovara, who curated the exhibit along with Betsy Teasley Trope. 'As a boy, he collected Roman coins he'd find in the fields. As a family outing, they did a survey of Stonehenge - they mapped and recorded it.'
In the 1880s, when he was in his late 20s, Petrie decided to go to Egypt and measure the Great Pyramid at Giza. "
See the above three page story for more.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Your readers may be interested to know that there are dozens of open access online facsimiles of Petries' books abailable. Search for Petrei in Abzu:
http://www.etana.org/abzu