ISBN 978-1-906137-04-5

A4, 312 pages, more than 200 so far, mostly unpublished photographs

list price: UK 30 - US £ 55

 

The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology is renowned as one of the major collections of material excavated by Flinders Petrie during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. However, one of its major treasures is the extraordinarily rich archive of material relating to the collection: journals, excavation records, letters, including over 7,000 negatives and photographs taken on site. This archive is as vulnerable, and as in need of conservation, as any of the objects in the museum.

This collection of the Petrie Museum's previously unpublished archive photographs from three of Petrie's key sites in Egypt (Gurob, Sedment and Tarkhan) presents a fascinating insight into early scientific archaeology and photography. The book will be of interest to the general and specialist reader. The commentary, illustrated with many tomb cards and field notebook extracts, explores Petrie's working methods, discusses the distribution of finds and the present location of many of the objects photographed, and deals frankly with the limitations of the information available to us.

A catalogue is included with thumbnail images of all 461 of the photographs in the archive identified from these sites. This volume in honour of Professor Harry Smith and sponsored by the Friends of the Petrie Museum will be an invaluable research tool for anyone working on material from these important sites and demonstrates that much information can be derived from a re-examination of museum archives.