
W M Flinders Petrie Collection
Volume 1
"The Great Pyramid has lent its name as a sort of by-word for paradoxes; and, as moths to a candle, so are theorisers attracted to it. The very fact that the subject was so generally familiar, and yet so little was accurately known about it, made it the more enticing; there were plenty of descriptions from which to choose, and yet most of them were so hazy that their support could be claimed for many varying theories."
Sir Flinders Petrie's 1880-82 survey of the Giza plateau, which included the Great Pyramid of Khufu and the relatively unknown Trial Site, is probably the most detailed Egyptian study ever undertaken by a surveyor.
author: William Matthew Flinders Petrie
(1884)
Illihum, Kahum, & Garob
(1889)
Kahum, Garob, & Hawara
(1890)
A Season in Egypt
(1887)
Ten Years Digging in Egypt
(1893)
(1907)
The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh
(1883)
These seven hard to find (some out of print) books have been scanned from the originals. Five of gthe books are direct scans and are actually pictures of the original pages. Two were scanned through OCR and are presented in a much larger print than the originals. (expect occasional scan errors)
- Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie, The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh, 1883
Sir William Mathew Flinders Petrie was born in 1853, and lived until 1942. He had little or no formal education, but learned a practical knowledge of geometry and surveying from his father. This knowledge was to prove invaluable in his later years. Petrie and his father both had a strong interest in Egypt, especially in the pyramids. In his youth Petrie was fascinated with history, and spent much of his time browsing in the British Museum amongst the coins and books.
In Egypt, in his early days he was employed by the Egypt Exploration Fund, and he worked for them over three years. Through his contacts in the British Museum, Petrie was aware that there were gaps in archaeological knowledge of Egypt, and that there was not a lot of meaning to the sculptures and inscriptions. Petrie was convinced that the key to ancient Egypt lay in the pyramids and he commenced a survey of them. Looting was still rife at this time, so recording was important. This was a novel undertaking by Egyptian standards, however his work was soon noticed by serious archaeologists of the time.
Between surveys, Petrie started to collect sherds of pottery, and he turned from surveying to excavating. His work in this area was given approval by the Royal Society.
Petrie excavated at Tanis, and at Naukratis where there was Greek pottery thick on the ground.
Terri Paton
Excerpts:
When, in the end of 1880, I first started for Egypt, I had long been preparing for the expedition; during a couple of years before that measuring instruments, theodolites, rope ladders, and all the impedimenta for scientific work, had been prepared and tested. To start work under circumstances so different to those of any European country, and where many customary appliances were not to be obtained, required necessary prearrangement and consideration; though on the whole my subsequent experience has been that of decreasing the baggage, and simplifying one's requirements.
The first consideration on reaching Egypt was where to be housed. In those days there was no luxurious hotel close to the pyramids; if any one needed to live there, they must live in a tomb or in the Arab village. As an English engineer had left a tomb fitted with door and shutters I was glad to get such accommodation. When I say a tomb, it must be understood to be the upper chamber where the Egyptian fed his ancestors with offerings, not the actual sepulchre. And I had three rooms, which had belonged to separate tombs originally; the thin walls of rock which had the economical Egyptian left between his cuttings, had been broken away, and so I had a doorway in the middle into my living room, a window on one side for my bedroom and another window opposite for a store room. I resided here for the past part of two years; and often when in draughty houses, or chilly tents, I have wished myself back in my tomb. No place is equable in heat and cold, as a room cut out in solid rock; it seems as good as a fire in cold weather, and deliciously cool in the heat.
The object in view for which the work was undertaken was to decisively test the various theories concerning the pyramids, which were then being widely discussed on very insufficient knowledge. One of the most obvious of all facts was the actual size of the great pyramid; yet this was not known with any great accuracy. The main work of the first season, therefore, consisted in making a very precise triangulation all over the hill of Gizeh; including points around all the three pyramids, and on the temples and walls belonging to them. A fine theodolite was used, by which single seconds of angle could be read ; and the observations were repeated many times. The result of all this mass of checked observations, was that there was scarcely a point about which one quarter inch of uncertainty remained, and most of the points were fixed to within one tenth of an inch.
The second season I obtained permission from Prof. Maspero to search for the ancient casing and points of construction of the pyramids. Many points were found easily enough; but some required long and dangerous work. To reach the casing , which still remains at the middle of each side of the great pyramid, was a hard matter; it was heaped over with broken chips a dozen to twenty feet deep, and they lay so loosely that they soon fell into any hole we dug.
At the third pyramid the difficulty was varied; there the pyramid was encumbered with loose blocks lying on a bed of sand. So soon then as we dug into the sand, the blocks came sliding down into our hole. But here the matter was settled by adding more stones, and so weighing all the blocks around into a ring; thus they balanced around the hole, and kept each other out. The temple of the third pyramid is the most complete, and gives the best notion of the enclosures around the cell or chamber, in which the offerings to the deceased king were represented.
Comb-bound, 960+ pages 8 1/2 x 11 inches, Illustrated