Flinders Petrie
British Egyptologist
Died when: 89 years 55 days (1069 months)Star Sign: Gemini
Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie FRS FBA (3 June 1853 – 28 July 1942), commonly known as simply Flinders Petrie, was a British Egyptologist and a pioneer of systematic methodology in archaeology and the preservation of artefacts.
He held the first chair of Egyptology in the United Kingdom, and excavated many of the most important archaeological sites in Egypt in conjunction with his wife, Hilda Urlin.
Some consider his most famous discovery to be that of the Merneptah Stele, an opinion with which Petrie himself concurred.
Undoubtedly at least as important is his 1905 discovery and correct identification of the character of the Proto-Sinaitic script, the ancestor of almost all alphabetic scripts.
Petrie developed the system of dating layers based on pottery and ceramic findings.He remains controversial for his pro-eugenics views; he was a dedicated believer in the superiority of the Northern peoples over the Latinate and Southern peoples.
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