Egypt exhibit is work of 'real Indiana Jones'
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Albany (N.Y.) Times Union - Published: January 22, 2006
In the late 1880s, William Matthew Flinders Petrie went to Egypt to measure the pyramids.
While getting established as an archaeologist, the young adventurer lived in an abandoned tomb at the Giza necropolis, where he used a hammock for a bed.
In one feat of excavation, he swung down 25 feet on a rope ladder and squeezed through a pyramid doorway into a flooded burial chamber. With only a candle to light the pitch-black walls, he waded through fetid water filled with floating coffins, skulls and other debris. Shortly after, his sensational finds made him the talk of London.
Petrie went on to lead excavations at many of the most important sites in Egypt, including Hawara, Abydos and Amarna. The excitement surrounding his discoveries — he identified the palace complex of Nefertiti — is believed by some to have inspired the movie character of Indiana Jones.
He's also credited with transforming archaeology from a treasure hunt to a real science. His innovations include the development of historical chronology based on differing styles of pottery and meticulous field practices.
"Excavating Egypt: Great Discoveries from the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, University College London," a traveling exhibit of 221 artifacts, opened recently at the Albany Institute of History & Art. The exhibit runs through June 4.
The exhibit ranges from prehistory to the time of the pharaohs, and through the Roman, Coptic and Islamic periods.
Among the objects are many "firsts," including a fragment of mankind's first calendar, along with such spectacular pieces as a finely wrought gold mummy mask dating from around the time of Nero.
A beaded dress made from fired-quartz paste with shell tassels is one of the oldest surviving garments in the world, says Peter Lacovara, a senior curator at the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University. "And it looks very contemporary, like something that Madonna would wear."
Lacovara was instrumental in bringing the exhibit across the Atlantic.
"Excavating Egypt" is also remarkable for its breadth of subjects, from warfare (rare iron scales from a suit of armor) to writing (an early pen case, parchment scroll with glyphs in aqua-green pigment and "sketch pads" made of stone).
Despite the Petrie Museum's reserve of some 80,000 artifacts, it hasn't had any of the troubles regarding stolen or misappropriated antiquities that have plagued other collections. "They were all legally exported in the days when you could do that," says Lacovara. "Petrie worked with the Cairo museum 'on division.' After a season of excavation, he would show everything to the Cairo, and they would take what they wanted and he would get the remainder."
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