Archaeologist
W. M. Flinders Petrie
British archaeologist (1853–1942)
1853 – 1942
Biography
A pioneer of systematic archaeology in Egypt. He excavated at Naqada with James Quibell and devised "sequence dating" to order Predynastic graves.
Between 1899 and 1901 he re-excavated the early royal tombs at Umm el-Qa’ab, Abydos, and published their plans and contents.
Key facts
Certainty: Established
Petrie at first assigned the Naqada graves to an incoming "New Race", a view he later revised.
- W. M. Flinders Petrie, J. E. Quibell (1896) “Naqada and Ballas” Bernard Quaritch, London
- Béatrix Midant-Reynes (2000) “The Prehistory of Egypt: From the First Egyptians to the First Pharaohs” Blackwell