Framing the Archaeologist: Archival Photographs

Images 1 - 20 are photographs from within the Petrie Museum archive collection. In most cases the images are accompanied by extracts from Petrie's journals and publications, either from within the museum or from the Griffith Institute, Oxford.

Journal extracts are courtesy of the Griffith Institute, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford and their permission to publish on this site is gratefully acknowledged.

We won't display all this information in the exhibition!

Please feel free to comment on the photographs - we would like to know what you think about them in terms of the history of photography, art history, excavation and archaeology and anthropology. We then hope to use these comments in the exhibition.

Image 10 - Hilda Petrie on horseback

Hilda Dec 23 1898, market trip:

“Ali himself went on to Dichna, so returning we had only the black groom, Hassan Sudani, with us, and one arab, Mohammed Shergawi, and the horse, but going to Waqf we were a merry party of 16.”

Image 11 - Hussein Osman by sugar cane

Hilda Petrie, 23.12.1898:

“A man of Kuft named Hussein Osman is our best and most trusty workman next to Ali.”


On the men of Qift (Koptos):

“The Kuftis proved to be the most troublesome people that I have ever worked with. The pertinacity with which the rascals of the place would dog our steps about our house, and at the work, was amazing. And the regularity with which a fresh spy was set on every morning, to try and watch our doings, was most irritating. Among this rather untoward people we found however, as in every place, a small percentage of excellent men; some half-dozen were of the very best type of native, faithful, friendly, and laborious, and from among these workmen we have drawn about forty to sixty of two following years at Negadeh and at Thebes. They have formed the backbone of my upper Egyptian staff, and I hope that I may keep these good friends so long as I work anywhere within reach of them. Beside these I had living with me at Koptos four of the Illahunis from the Fayum; and some of the former workers from Tell el Amarna came also, but did not prove satisfactory.” (Petrie 1896a: 1)

Image 12 - Hussein Osman excavating

“A gang of well-trained men need hardly any directions, especially in cemetery work; and their observations and knowledge should always be listened to, and will often determine matters. The freshman from England is their inferior in everything except in recording; and at least a season's experience is needed before any one can afford to disregard the judgment of a well-trained digger.” (Petrie, Methods and Aims, 1904: 22).

“The better class of these workers are one's personal friends, and are regarded much as old servants are in a good household. Their feelings and self-respect must be thought of, as among our own equals, and they will not put up with any rudeness or contempt. A man with landed property and cattle, and an ancestry of a couple of centuries, can afford to look down on most Englishmen who would bully him.” (Petrie, Methods and Aims, 1904: 22).

Image 13 - Ali's wife breadmaking (1899)

Hilda letter November 1900 (Drower 2004: 159-160):

“outside the gate is Ali’s square hut, with a yard of bus, and a mud mastaba, and a mud oven where his wife bakes our bread.
She is a rather pleasant little girl who wears a great deal of Arab jewellery, bakes very good bread, and sits sewing a teqieh (embroidered skull-cap) all day long. We have short talks often, but she talks very provincial Arabic, or perhaps it is women’s talk, so we don’t understand each oteher very well.”

Image 17 - Ali buying antiquities (1899)

Hilda letter, Dandara Feb 6 1898:

“Ali is a great bargainer and is very proud of his successes in marketing.”

Hilda letter, second year at Abydos, November 1900 (Drower 2004: 160:

“Ali is delightful as ever ... He is now in a full place in cemetery E where plenty of good XII-XVIII things are turning up, and is very useful in working with 4 gangs of men at once, and training new recruits from Quft.

Image 19 - Flinders Petrie with Camera

Hilda Petrie Letter November 1900 (Drower 2004: 159):

“Half a day’s excavation brings in fragments enough to take three of us several days’ time to mark up, classify, draw, photograph, and otherwise work over. It takes much of each day to group and sort these fragments: the fitting is often a great puzzle.”

Hilda Petrie Letter 13 January 1901 (Drower 2004: 163:

“There is an immense amount of accumulations of stone-bowl-fragments to sort out, from tombs of Den, Zer, Perabsen, and Khasekhamui. Flinders works half his day at the final sorting (with a magnifier) of the stones of Den, preparatory to our hunting for fits in the fragments, and, the remainder of the day, he does 15 or 20 photographs, to different scales, and draws the said stone vases when the scanty portions of them are put together.”

Framing the Archaeologist: Petrie Portraits

Fullop Laszlo (1869 - 1937)
Professor Sir William Flinders Petrie c. 1934
PC5676


Henry Wallis (1830 - 1916)
Excavating in Egypt: Professor Petrie at Thebes
EDC2674