Petrie, Flinders

(1853-1942)

   A pioneering English archaeologist whose methods for dating pottery came to be used in excavations all across the Near East, including Mesopotamia. The grandson of Matthew Flinders, a leading explorer of the coasts of Australia, Petrie studied surveying as a young man. In 1880 Petrie journeyed to Egypt to study and measure the Great Pyramid at Giza, and in the years that followed he became one of the leading excavators of ancient Egypt. For these efforts, he was knighted by the British queen in 1923, becoming Sir Flinders Petrie. In 1926, he decided it was time to tackle sites in the Near East and began excavations in Palestine. There, over the course of several years, he applied his effective new methods for dating ancient pottery. He also demonstrated how the cities and kingdoms of ancient Palestine, including ancient Israel and Judah, interacted with and were often integral parts of the great empires centered in ancient Mesopotamia, including the Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian realms.

   See also: Egypt; Mesopotamia, history of; Palestine