The New International Encyclopædia/Petrie, William Matthew Flinders

PETRIE, pe′trĭ, William Matthew Flinders (1853—). An English Egyptologist, born at Charlton, June 3, 1S53, the son of William Petrie and Anne, daughter of Captain Matthew Flinders, the Australian explorer. He was educated at private schools, and at first turned his attention to the study of British archaeology. His earliest works were Inductive Metrology (London, 1877), and Stonehenge: Plans, Descriptions and Theories (London, 1880). After 1880 he occupied himself with the investigation of Egyptian antiquities, and made many valuable discoveries. Between 1884 and 1886 he excavated the site of Tanis, Naukratis, and Daphne and revealed the existence of ancient Greek settlements at the two latter places. From 1888 to 1890 he worked in the Fayûm, finding a number of interesting funeral portraits at Hawara, and gathering an extensive collection of valuable papyri, chiefly from the ruins of Kahun and Gurob. In 1890 he discovered and excavated for the Palestine Exploration Fund the site of ancient Lachish at Tell el-Hesy, in Palestine. In 1893 he received the degree of D.C.L. from the University of Oxford and was appointed to the newly founded professorship of Egyptology at King's College, London. In 1895 he discovered the remains of a prehistoric race at Nagada, and the following year found at Thebes the stele of Meneptah, containing the sole mention of Israel occurring in the Egyptian inscriptions. After 1899 he investigated the very interesting tombs of the First Dynasty at Abdos. Among his more important works may be mentioned: The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh (1883); Tanis, Memoirs II. and V. of the Egyptian Exploration Fund (1885-87); Hawara (1889); Kahun (1890); Ten Years' Diggings (1893); A History of Egypt (2d ed. 1897); Egyptian Tales (1895-99); Religion and Conscience in Ancient Egypt (1898); Royal Tombs of the First Dynasty (1900-01).