Author Description

A pioneering Egyptologist, Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie (1853-1942) excavated over fifty sites and trained a generation of archaeologists. This reissue brings together two of his well-illustrated excavation reports. The first, originally published in 1891, covers his 1890 dig in Palestine at Tell el-Hesi. Although he identified it incorrectly as the biblical city of Lachish, his work here was significant in Near Eastern archaeology for the stratigraphic method of excavation and use of pottery to establish chronology. The second report, from 1906, records the work carried out at a number of Hyksos and Israelite sites in Egypt, such as Tell el-Yehudiyeh and Tell er-Retabeh. It also includes chapters by John Garrow Duncan (1872-1951) on the cemeteries of Suwa and Goshen. Each report contains a section of photographs and drawings of sites, artefacts and inscriptions. Petrie wrote prolifically throughout his long career, and a great many of his other publications are also reissued in this series.