In this list the following abbreviations are used:

• EEF Egypt Exploration Fund (founded in 1882, today the Egypt Exploration Society)
• BSAE British School or Archaeology in Egypt (founded by Petrie to support excavations in Egypt)

See too the introduction to Petrie's life in archaeology, with table of excavation seasons listed year by year.

See a map of the sites

Delta and Sinai

Tanis

Petrie excavations at the site: 1883-1885 (EEF)

Publications: Petrie 1885, Petrie 1888, Griffith/Petrie 1889

Main features at site: city named in ancient Egyptian sources as Djanet, in Greek and Latin as Tanis, nominal capital of Egypt for much of the Third Intermediate Period (about 1070-725 BC), and a major population centre into the Roman Period; few traces of earlier settlement on the site, so perhaps founded as a new royal Residence city in Dynasty 21; extensive temple ruins, with partly excavated areas of the town from Roman times and earlier

Highlights of the Petrie excavations:

• carbonised papyri of second century AD with array of other finds from the same house, mainly now in the British Museum and British Library
• glass zodiac from a Roman house, now in the British Museum

Buto

Petrie excavations at the site: 1904 (EEF: Currelly in February)

Publications: Petrie 1905

Main features at site: city figuring in ancient Egyptian sources by the two names Pe and Dep, also Per-Wadjyt 'House of Wadjyt', rendered in Greek, Latin and Coptic as Buto, a name surviving in the Arabic name of the modern village ; a settlement of unknown size in the predynastic period, originally with a material culture distinct from that of Upper Egypt; from at least the Second Dynasty a city of considerable size, and cult centre of the goddess Wadjyt, counterpart to the goddess Nekhbet of Elkab as the Two Goddesses protecting the king and the two geographical ends of Egypt, north and south

Highlights of the Petrie excavations:

• sketch-plan of the site
• Roman Period cemetery, poor quality tombs, crude pottery coffins (children buried in water-jars with top broken off)
• Roman Period houses, with finds including fine pottery, and Early Dynastic stone vessels (Currelly thought these must have been removed from tombs in the temple area)

Naukratis

Petrie excavations at the site: 1884-1885, continued by Ernest Gardner 1885-1886 (EEF)

Publications: Petrie 1886, Gardner 1888

Main features at site: Greek colony in the western Delta, established by the Egyptian kings in Dynasty 26 to channel trade with Greece; major centre into the Roman Period with distinctive Greek identity, though in Dynasty 30 Egyptian-style temples were also established on the site; site known from ancient Greek sources, but first identified on the ground by Petrie in 1884, and since then largely destroyed by agriculture

Highlights of the Petrie excavations:

• archaic and early classical Greek statuettes of men (kouroi)
• Greek figured vase fragments
• 7th century BC Greek inscriptions on pottery
• steatite seal-amulet factory of Dynasty 26

Nebesheh

Petrie excavations at the site: 1886

Publications: Petrie 1888

Main features at site: site of Imet, main city of 19th province of Lower Egypt; temple of goddess Wadjyt, with sculpture of Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period (moved from other sites?), Late Period shrine and foundation deposits of Ahmose II (Amasis); Late Period and Ptolemaic Period (?) houses; Ramesside to Late Period cemeteries

Highlights of the Petrie excavations: town plan for Late Period to Ptolemaic Period city quarter

Defenna

Petrie excavations at the site: 1886

Publications: Petrie 1888

Main features at site: fortress for Greek mercenaries, founded by Psamtek I

Highlights of the Petrie excavations:

• identification of the Greek fortress, confirming classical Greek references to Greek mercenaries installed at fortresses by Psamtek I (seventh century BC)
• Greek pottery; gold vessel handle, Late Period (Petrie 1888, pl.41, no.10, in Egyptian Museum, Cairo)
• foundation deposits of Psamtek I under fortress
• Late Period to Roman Period iron tools and weapons
• curse figurines from foundation ritual (?) (Petrie 1888, pl.40, nos.8-13, now in British Museum)

Tell el-Retaba

Petrie excavations at the site: 1905-1906

Publications: Petrie 1906

Main features at site: New Kingdom walled town, Ramesside temple and Third Intermediate Period cemeteries; from the New Kingdom to the Late Period this seems to have been the principal population centre in the Wadi Tumilat (the northern route from the Nile Valley to the Red Sea and Sinai) - in the Late Period the town seems to have fallen out of use, the population shifting to Tell el-Maskhuta farther east; Petrie identified the site as the city 'Ramses' in the Bible.

Highlights of the Petrie excavations:

• jasper weight of a northern king of the First Intermediate Period, Nebkaura Khety (UC 11782)
• temple relief with depiction of Ramesses II smiting eastern enemies (Petrie 1906: pl.29 = Philadelphia E 3067)
• faience bowl with figures of frogs over surface

Tell el-Yahudiyeh

Petrie excavations at the site: 1905-1906

Publications: Petrie 1906

Main features at site: (1) large mound variously interpreted as military or religious, dated by Petrie to the Second Intermediate Period, by others later; (2) extensive cemeteries particularly of the Second Intermediate Period, New Kingdom, Third Intermediate Period; (3) palace of Ramesses III, famous for its polychrome faience tiles, mainly stripped away from the site during agricultural clearance in the mid-nineteenth century; (4) Hebrew temple of God established by the high priest Onias under the protection of Ptolemy IV in the late third century BC. A variety of Second Intermediate Period pottery, with distinctive forms and white-painted incised motifs on black surface, is known as Tell el-Yahudiyeh ware after this site, on account of the large cemeteries of the period here, but it was not produced at this site; it is a characteristic of late Middle Bronze Age Syrian-Palestinian production, and perhaps represents combined storage and display forms for small quantities of liquid or semi-liquid materials (precious oils?) traded from the Levant.

Highlights of the Petrie excavations:

• intact burials, recorded in photograph and line-drawing, of Second Intermediate Period immigrants and their descendants ('Hyksos' kingdom)
• discovery of the site of the Hebrew temple of God of the third century BC, retrieval of architectural fragments

Saft

Petrie excavations at the site: 1905-1906 (supervised by J Garrow Duncan)

Publications: Petrie 1906

Main features at site: site of ancient Egyptian city named Per-Sopdu 'House of Sopdu' (a god depicted as a mummiform falcon, associated with the east), principal city of the 20th province of Lower Egypt; New Kingdom to Roman Period cemeteries; a cemetery of the same date range 1-2 km south of Saft was named after a local village Suwa by the excavators, and 3-4 km farther south-east on the same outcrop of sand and rock was a New Kingdom cemetery named by the excavators after the local village Ali Marah

Highlights of the Petrie excavations: pottery figure of musician (Petrie 1906, pl.37B, top left)

Shaghanbeh

Petrie excavations at the site: 1905-1906 (supervised by J Garrow Duncan)

Publications: Petrie 1906

Main features at site: fortified settlement, most remains dating to the Third Intermediate Period

Highlights of the Petrie excavations: double-sided trial piece (Petrie 1906: pl.39L no.18 = Boston MFA 07.309); calcite jar of an elite woman (Petrie 1906: pl.39L no.16 = Petrie Museum UC 16046)

Gheyta (site also known as Tell Yehud, to be distinguished from Tell el-Yahudiyeh)

Petrie excavations at the site: 1905-1906 (supervised by J Garrow Duncan)

Publications: Petrie 1906

Main features at site: fortified settlement, date uncertain, with nearby extensive Roman and Byzantine Period cemeteries

Highlights of the Petrie excavations: two inscriptions in Greek script but unknown language (Petrie 1906, pl.48)

Sinai

Petrie excavations at the site: 1904-1905 (EEF)

Publications: Petrie 1906

Main features at site: inscriptions by Egyptian mining and trading expeditions, mainly of the Old Kingdom on the Wadi Maghara rock-face, mainly of the Middle and New Kingdoms at the Hathor temple at Serabit el-Khadim

Highlights of the Petrie excavations:

• metalworking evidence (such as crucible for copper UC 8901)
• non-Egyptian inscriptions in an alphabetic script ('Proto-Sinaitic), contemporary with the late Middle Kingdom to New Kingdom expeditions, apparently ancestral to the Phoenician alphabet, and hence to all modern alphabets (one of the most important of these inscriptions is a small red sandstone sphinx now preserved in the British Museum)
• New Kingdom votive offerings to Hathor (such as the faience plaque UC 35347 and the relief polychrome faience vessel British Museum ESA 41787)

Memphis and pyramid fields

Iunu (in Greek Heliopolis, modern Matariya in northern greater Cairo)

Petrie excavations at the site: 1912

Publications: Petrie 1915

Main features at site: city of Iunu, around the temple of the sun-god Ra/Atum, one of the three most important religious centres in Egypt (the other two being Thebes and Memphis), with a great platform supporting the area of the temple; only fragments of temple sculpture survive, and the date of the platform remains disputed

Highlights of the Petrie excavations: fragments of an obelisk of Thutmose III (now in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, CG 17013)

Gizeh

Petrie excavations at the site: 1880-2, 1906-1907

Publications: Petrie 1883, Petrie 1907

Main features at site: the main Fourth Dynasty royal burial place, with the Great Pyramid of king Khufu, the Second Pyramid of Gizeh, of king Khafra, and the Third Pyramid of Gizeh, of king Menkaura, together with the associated temples, the Great Sphinx, and the extensive cemetery fields for the elite of the Fourth Dynasty and later in the Old Kingdom, and of the Late Period; temple in front of the Sphinx with New Kingdom royal and non-royal monuments; to the south, elite tombs of the First Dynasty, one of which was excavated by Petrie in 1906-7.

Highlights of the Petrie seasons: the Petrie 1881 survey of the Gizeh pyramids, of outstanding accuracy; drill cores demonstrating advanced stoneworking but apparently from Fourth Dynasty work at the Gizeh pyramids, notably UC 16036 (date not certain); earliest ostracon with numerals, from a First Dynasty burial excavated in 1906-7 (UC 27388)

Memphis

Petrie excavations at the site: 1908-1913

Publications: Petrie 1909, Petrie 1910, Petrie 1911, Petrie 1912, Petrie 1913

Main features at site: effective capital of Egypt in the Old and New Kingdoms, and again in the Late Period; temple of Ptah (under village of Mit Rahina?), temple of Ramses II in the Ptah domain, with Third Intermediate Period princely burials in precinct; temple of Hathor; palace of Merenptah (excavated after Petrie by University of Pennsylvania expedition); palace of Apries (Late Period centre of government); late Middle Kingdom to New Kingdom levels excavated by Egypt Exploration Society expedition in 1980s-1990s; Late Period to Roman Period industrial areas partly cleared under Petrie

Highlights among the finds of the Petrie excavations:

• part of a Middle Kingdom annals inscription (now in the Ramesses II colossus museum on the site)
• statue of Amenhotep, high steward of Amenhotep III, inscribed (Petrie 1913, pl.79, now in Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)
• finds in the palace of Apries - Achaemenid Iranian (?) armour, Aramaic dockets, Late Period seal impressions
• Late Period calcite vessel production area
• faience vessel kilns of the late Ptolemaic to Roman Period
• series of Late Period to Roman Period plaster moulds (context uncertain)
• series of Late Period to Roman Period terracotta figures (context and provenance uncertain)

Dahshur

Petrie season at the site: 1887

Publications: Petrie 1888

Main features recorded in the Petrie season at the site: survey of southern pyramid of Sneferu

Mazghuneh

Petrie season at the site: 1911

Publications: Petrie/Wainwright/Mackay 1912

Main features at site: two late Middle Kingdom pyramids; series of small Old Kingdom to Roman Period cemeteries, which the excavators named after the nearby villages of Abu Shalbiya, Bernasht and the Arabic names of prominent hills, Kom al-Hawa, Kom es-Sunt and Kom Sheikh Karamid

Highlights of the BSAE excavations: intact early Roman Period burial (finds preserved in the Petrie Museum, UC 16345-16354)

Tarkhan (with Kafr Ammar)

Petrie excavations at the site: 1911-1913

Publications: Petrie 1913, Petrie 1914, Petrie/Mackay 1915 (for burials later than First Dynasty)

Main features at site: extensive cemeteries, mainly with tombs dating to the First Dynasty, late Old Kingdom, and Third Intermediate Period (Petrie published material later than First Dynasty as 'Kafr Ammar', but the tombs are intermingled in one series of cemeteries); these may be the cemeteries for the principal town of the 21st province of Upper Egypt, apparently a double settlement called in Egyptian Shenakhen and Semenuhor - the town has not been identified on the ground. The First Dynasty tombs include several massive elite niche-bricked mastabas; the index cards on which Petrie recorded the finds provide one of the best early archaeological records for an Egyptian site.

Highlights among the finds from the Petrie excavations:

• earliest depiction of the god Ptah, identified by name in hieroglyphs, on a calcite bowl from tomb 231, of the First Dynasty, about 3000 BC (preserved in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, inventory number 1912.574)
• magnificent ivory spoon from tomb 1023, of the early First Dynasty, about 3000 BC (now in Cairo)
• upper part of a pleated linen dress from a cache of linen in a pit in mastaba 2050, and perhaps of First Dynasty date, UC 28614bI

Gerzeh

Petrie excavations at the site: 1910-1911 (supervised by Wainwright)

Publications: Petrie/Wainwright/Mackay 1912

Main features at site: predynastic cemeteries between Tarkhan and Meydum, roughly due west of Atfih

Highlights of the BSAE excavations: intact predynastic burials (for some decades the late predynastic was named Gerzean, after this cemetery; outstanding finds include the cow-headed pottery horn Petrie Museum UC 10736, and the earliest iron beads Petrie Museum UC 10738-10740)

Riqqeh

Petrie and BSAE excavations at the site: 1912-1913

Publications: Engelbach 1915

Main features at site: cemeteries between Tarkhan and Meydum, roughly due west of Atfih, with some First Dynasty tombs but mainly Middle and New Kingdom, including one monumental tomb of a mayor of Meydum named Ipy; the northern cemeteries are part of the Gerza series

Highlights of the BSAE excavations: plundered but wealthy Twelfth Dynasty burial, one of the bodies found being that of a tomb-robber crushed by the collapse of the burial chamber roof (finds preserved in the Manchester Museum; intact though waterlogged burial of a Twelfth Dynasty temple staff controller Sawadjyt (finds preserved in the National Museum of Ireland, Dublin)

Meydum

Petrie excavations at the site: 1890-1891, 1909-1910

Publications: Petrie 1892, Petrie/Mackay/Wainwright 1910

Main features at site: pyramid complex of Sneferu (?) of the Fourth Dynasty, with elite burials and chapels of same date; Eighteenth Dynasty burials

Highlights of the Petrie excavations: discovery of Pyramid Temple, with inscriptions left by New Kingdom visitors; retrieval of painted blocks from offering-chapels of Nefermaat and Itet, Fourth Dynasty; Fourth Dynasty pyramid quarry marks (selection in Petrie 1910

Shurafa

Petrie excavations at the site: 1911 (supervised by E. Mackay)

Publications: Petrie/Mackay 1915

Main features at site: town, fort and cemeteries of the Roman, Byzantine and early Islamic Periods, about 30 km north of Atfih (Atfih was main town of the 22nd province of Upper Egypt); this was the Roman army base for the Seventh Wing of the Sarmatians (east European soldiers of Iranian origin); the stonework had been burnt for lime, the fate of disused limestone buildings throughout Egypt

Highlights of the Petrie excavations: ivory and bone carvings; rock crystal Germanic ornaments from the cemetery (UC 8974, 71148)

Atfih

Petrie excavations at the site: 1911

Publications: Petrie/Mackay1915

Main features at site: site of the main town of the 22nd province of Upper Egypt; the Petrie excavation was cut short by an objection, from one J. de M. Johnson, to his permission to excavate, and published only the discovery and recording of the decoration of a painted Ptolemaic Period tomb for a sacred cow of Atfih named in the hieroglyphic inscriptions of the tomb as Isis-Hesat

Fayum

Biahmu

Petrie excavations at the site: 1888

Publications: Petrie 1889

Main features at site: platforms for two colossal monolithic quartzite statues of king Amenemhat III of the Twelfth Dynasty, with enclosure wall around each

Highlights of the Petrie excavations: fragments of the colossal statues (mainly left on site, some preserved in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)

Medinet el-Fayum (Arsinoe)

Petrie excavations at the site: 1888

Publications: Petrie 1889

Main features at site: main city of Fayum province, in the nineteenth century AD still with vast area of the Ptolemaic and Roman Period city, only a small part of which was investigated by Petrie; Ptolemaic Period (?) temple of Sobek and Horus, with Middle Kingdom sculpture (moved from other sites?); most of the site has now been built over in the expansion of the modern town

Highlights of the Petrie excavations: fourth century AD coin-making kit, perhaps of a forger (Petrie Museum UC 74813-74838)

Hawara

Petrie excavations at the site: 1888-1889, 1910-1911

Publications: Petrie 1889, Petrie 1890, Petrie 1911, Petrie/Wainwright/Mackay 1912

Main features at site: pyramid complex of Amenemhat III (the main temple for which has often been identified as the Labyrinth praised by classical Greek authors); cemeteries of Middle Kingdom, Late Period and Roman Period, with some material from other periods; burials of crocodile mummies

Highlights of the Petrie excavations:

• fragments from the sculpture of the Amenemhat III complex
• calcite offering-table of the king's daughter Neferuptah (preserved in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo)
• group of objects from a late Middle Kingdom burial, including a model bed
• Roman Period burials, 160 with encaustic panel portraits (the largest excavated group of such 'Fayum Portraits') and many others with gilt plaster and cartonnage head-covers on the mummified bodies
• group of objects from a fourth century AD burial, including a model bed, a painted pen-case, and a terracotta figurine (Petrie Museum UC 27995-28015)
• Greek papyri from the crocodile burials, from stray finds over the site, and a copy of the Iliad in one burial of a young woman

Lahun

Petrie excavations at the site: 1889, 1914, 1920-1921

Publications: Petrie 1890, Petrie 1891, Petrie/Brunton/Murray 1923

Main features at site: pyramid complex of king Senusret II of the Twelfth Dynasty; large late Middle Kingdom town next to Valley Temple, partly reoccupied in the New Kingdom and the Byzantine Period; Early Dynastic Period, Middle Kingdom, Third Intermediate Period and Byzantine Period cemeteries

Highlights of the Petrie excavations:

• only birth/healer mask from ancient Egypt, late Middle Kingdom (now preserved in the Manchester Museum)
• fragments of relief sculpture from the pyramid complex (a fine example with the face of a king or god is Petrie Museum UC 16149)
• uraeus (protective rearing cobra) perhaps from brow of mummy-mask or coffin of king Senusret II (Egyptian Museum, Cairo 5702)
• birth goddess (Ipy/Taweret) sculpture, late Middle Kingdom (now preserved in the Manchester Museum)
• only rat-trap from Egypt, probably late Middle Kingdom (now preserved in the Petrie Museum)
• largest groups of Middle Kingdom papyri (town papyri in the Petrie Museum, including the oldest surviving wills, mathematical and gynaecological papyri, and the only veterinary papyrus from ancient Egypt; temple business papyri in the Egyptian Museums of Cairo and Berlin)
• intact burial of king's daughter Sathathoriunet (most of finds now preserved in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)

Harageh

BSAE excavations at the site: 1913-1914 (supervised by R Engelbach)

Publications: Engelbach 1923

Main features at site: series of cemeteries around the southern edges of a large 'sand-island' in the Nile Valley east of Lahun; small late Middle Kingdom settlement at one part of the cemeteries

Highlights of the BSAE excavations: wealthy burials of the late Middle Kingdom, mainly plundered (outstanding jewellery includes the gold fish from child burial tomb 72, now preserved in the Royal Scottish Museums, Edinburgh, and the granulated gold cylinder, Petrie Museum UC 6482; statuettes and stelae include the stela of a woman named Iitenheb, and the stela of a treasury official and priest Nebipu, both now in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen); a Second Intermediate Period burial contained two pottery cups each with a painted copy of a ritual incantation for the burial or cult of the dead (Petrie Museum UC 16128-9)

Gurob

Petrie excavations at the site: 1889-1890, 1903-1904, 1919-1921

Publications: Petrie 1890, Petrie 1891, Loat 1905, Brunton/Engelbach 1927

Main features at site: small predynastic to First Intermediate Period cemeteries; New Kingdom palace, temple and town; New Kingdom and Ptolemaic Period cemeteries

Highlights of the Petrie excavations:

• 'burnt deposits' in New Kingdom town (for Hittite princess retinue?)
• elite domestic and burial goods of the New Kingdom (such as the rock crystal and resin heart amulet, Petrie Museum UC 12577)
• much of the papyrus- and linen-based cartonnage acquired by Petrie seems to come from Gurob, though the provenance is not secure
• two copies of a letter to king Amenhotep IV just before he changed his name to Akhenaten

Middle Egypt

Ihnasya

Petrie excavations at the site: 1903-1904 (EEF)

Publications: Petrie 1904

Main features at site: site of the main town of the 20th province of Upper Egypt, home of the northern kings in the First Intermediate Period (Dynasties 9-10) and a local kingdom in the late Third Intermediate Period; extensive Middle and New Kingdom temple elements (earlier items moved from other sites?); extensive Roman Period town quarters; currently being excavated by a Spanish expedition with focus on the First Intermediate Period elite cemeteries

Highlights of the Petrie excavations:

• Third Intermediate Period gold statuette of the main local god Heryshef dedicated by a king Neferkara Peftjauawybast (now preserved in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
• some Roman houses recorded in the excavation with their finds
• series of Roman terracotta figurines and lamps

Sedment

Petrie excavations at the site: 1903-1904, 1920-1921

Publications: Petrie 1904 (summary report only), Petrie/Brunton 1924 (2 volumes)

Main features at site: series of Early Dynastic Period to New Kingdom cemeteries along the desert edge west of Ihnasya, with numerous wealthy burials

Highlights of the Petrie excavations:

• wooden sculpture from tomb of Meryrahashtef, late Old Kingdom
• intact burial of Nakhtkau, First Intermediate Period (most of the finds preserved in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek)
• wooden gaming board, Middle Kingdom, Petrie Museum UC 31348
• 'cloaked figure vase', Middle Kingdom UC 18822
• ivory figure of Aha/Bes, late Middle Kingdom, Petrie Museum UC 16069
• Eighteenth Dynasty tomb-chapel 276 with painted stela and stelophorous statue, one of the few found outside Thebes (both preserved in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo)
• intact burials of the New Kingdom (see notably the cosmetic spoon Petrie and Brunton 1904, volume 2, pl.54, top right, today preserved in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen)
• inscribed elements from offering-chapels of the New Kingdom (example: Petrie Museum UC 14388, from chapel of general Sety, Nineteenth Dynasty)
• sarcophagi from burials of New Kingdom high officials
• Nineteenth Dynasty Books of the Dead (rare outside Thebes) of Ramose (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge) and Hepres (Petrie Museum UC 71000)

Deshasheh

Petrie excavations at the site: 1896-1897 (EEF)

Publications: Petrie 1898

Main features at site: Old Kingdom, New Kingdom and Roman Period cemeteries, with rock-cut elite tombs and chapels of the Fifth Dynasty, with excellent preservation of organic materials such as linen and basketry

Highlights of the Petrie excavations:

• intact Old Kingdom burials including examples of disarticulated skeletons (example: Petrie Museum UC 31180)
• linen cloth from Old Kingdom burials, including full garments (two conserved, Petrie Museum UC 31182-3)
• Old Kingdom broad collar found in one shaft (Petrie Museum, UC 25977)
• statue of Fifth Dynasty official Nenkheftka (preserved in the British Museum)

Oxyrhynchus

Petrie excavations at the site: 1896 (EEF), 1922

Publications: Petrie 1925

Main features at site: principal city of the 19th province of Upper Egypt; no remains earlier than the Roman Period, with Hellenised civic buildings of that date including theatre; the site is famous today for the mining of the largest number of ancient Greek and Latin papyri preserved in the form of waste-paper in the city rubbish dumps, which Petrie encountered in November 1896 (Petrie 1897, 1); the city remained important into the Byzantine and Islamic Periods; in 1922 Petrie excavated parts of the Roman and Byzantine Period cemeteries

Highlights of the Petrie excavations:

• late Roman and Byzantine sculpture from the cemeteries
• theatre plan (architectural fragments preserved in the British Museum)
• group of early Hebrew papyri (preserved in the British Library)
• Greek and Arabic manuscripts (in 1922 season mainly acquired by Petrie from local sellers rather than in excavation, and most of those sent to Washington University, St Louis, and to Ann Arbor University, according to Petrie 1925: 1; many Coptic and Arabic papyrus and paper manuscript fragments also in the Petrie Museum, and undergoing conservation in 2003 in a project funded by the Friends of UCL)

Amarna

Petrie excavations at the site: 1891-1892

Publications: Petrie 1894

Main features at site: royal Residence city founded by Akhenaten, with substantial remnants of much of city including palaces, temples, houses of various classes, though not the main royal palace at the northern end of the city and not the quayside with industrial heart of the city; abandoned after the reign of Akhenaten, but with substantial Byzantine Period reoccupation; extensively excavated after Petrie by German Oriental Society, and Egypt Exploration Society (1920s-1930s, and since 1975 again)

Highlights of the Petrie excavations:

• sculpture fragments and trial-pieces
• painted floor now in Egyptian Museum, Cairo with replica showing its appearance before its destruction
• wall-painting fragments from scene depicting the king with his wife and daughters, largest part now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
• glass factory (recently re-excavated by Paul Nicholson for the Egypt Exploration Society)
• part of the correspondence between the rulers of the Near East ('Amarna Letters') and identification of the Store-room of Letters

Northern Upper Egypt (Asyut to north of Luxor)

Rifeh, Zaraby

Petrie excavations at the site: 1907

Publications: Petrie 1907

Main features at site: cemeteries including rock-cut tombs, associated with the unlocated city of Shas-hotep, main population centre in the 11th province of Upper Egypt

Highlights of the Petrie excavations: intact Middle Kingdom elite burial, the 'Tomb of the Two Brothers' (finds preserved in the Manchester Museum); series of pottery Middle Kingdom offering-chapel models ('soul-houses'); eight Ptolemaic Period cartonnage head-covers, dismantled to reveal a series of Greek and demotic papyrus fragments, including parts of a census-style land register, and demotic literary fragments (one of the only contexted discoveries of cartonnage made of papyri)

Deir Balyzeh

Petrie excavations at the site: 1906-1907 (supervised by Rhoades, Mackay and Gregg)

Publications: Petrie 1907

Main features at site: early Islamic Period Coptic monastery and settlement in surrounding caves

Highlights of the Petrie excavations:

• tombstones with images in low relief (fine example Petrie Museum UC 14771)
• Coptic liturgical book fragments
• objects of daily monastic life, such as keys

Deir Ganadla (also known as Wadi Sarga)

Petrie excavations at the site: 1906-1907 (supervised by Rhoades, Mackay and Gregg)

Publications: Petrie 1907

Main features at site: early Islamic Period Coptic monastic settlement in caves (later excavated by Hogarth for the Byzantine Research Fund, most of the finds going to the British Museum, now preserved in the Department of Egyptian and Sudanese Antiquities)

Highlights of the Petrie excavations: Coptic tombstones

Qau and Badari

Petrie and BSAE excavations at the site: 1923-1925

Publications: Brunton 1927, Brunton 1928, Brunton/Caton-Thompson 1928, Brunton 1930, and (mainly for rock-cut tomb-chapels of Twelfth Dynasty governors) Petrie 1930

Main features at site: the modern village of Qau is in the area of the site of ancient Tjebu, main town of the 10th province of Upper Egypt; in this area stretching northwards to Badari is a series of predynastic to early Islamic Period cemeteries, mainly excavated by Guy Brunton and Gertrude Caton-Thompson, giving one of the most complete archaeological records for any district in Egypt; the cemeteries near Badari yielded evidence for the earliest farming communities in Upper Egypt (aroudn 5000-4000 BC), and this earliest Upper Egyptian farming and metalworking culture is known after this site as Badarian

Highlights of the Petrie excavations:

• sequence of burials (see site pages for more details)
• great bone deposits, apparently votive offerings to the local god Nemty associated with Seth and hippopotamus form
• fragments of Twelfth Dynasty statuary, relief and paintings, from the tomb-chapels of the local governors

White Monastery

Petrie excavations at the site: 1907-1908

Publications: Petrie 1908

Main features at site: the White Monastery was the base for Abba Shenute, outstanding figure in the history of the Coptic Church and one of the finest writers in the history of Coptic literature; the monastery is intact, incorporating many elements from earlier monuments; Petrie excavated a ruined Byzantine building on the south side (Petrie 1908: 13-15 and pl. 43, identifying it as the main early Christian structure, perhaps fourth century AD, dating the White Monastery itself to the next century, the period after the demolition of pagan temples of Theodosius and later

Hagarseh

Petrie excavations at the site: 1907

Publications: Petrie 1908

Main features at site: Old Kingdom rock-cut tombs and tomb-chapels

Atrib (Athribis of Upper Egypt)

Petrie excavations at the site: 1907

Publications: Petrie 1908

Main features at site: Ptolemaic and Roman Period temple and tombs, near Wanina to southwest of Suhaj (NB this site should not be confused with the great city of Athribis in the Delta, though the forms in Greek look identical: the ancient Egyptian name for the Delta Athribis was Hut-herib, while the original name for the Upper Egyptian Athribis was Hut-repyt).

Highlights of the Petrie excavations: recording of a Ptolemaic or Roman Period tomb with painted decoration including a zodiac

Abydos

Petrie excavations at the site: 1899-1904 (EEF), 1921-1922

Publications: Petrie 1900, Petrie 1901 (Abydos), Petrie 1903, Petrie 1925

Main features at site: key centre of kingship, at the centre of the development of a unified state in the late fourth millennium BC, main town of 8th province of Upper Egypt, with temple of Khentamentiu (from the Middle Kingdom named as Osiris); predynastic to Roman Period cemeteries; tombs of late predynastic, First Dynasty and two late Second Dynasty kings; temple, tomb and town of king Senusret III, Twelfth Dynasty; temple, tomb and town of king Ahmose I, Eighteenth Dynasty; temples for Sety I and Ramesses II, Nineteenth Dynasty; offering-chapels of Middle and New Kingdoms; the site is now being excavated by the German Archaeological Institute (royal cemetery) and the Yale-Pennsylvania expedition (temples, towns, cemeteries along edge of fields)

Highlights of the Petrie excavations:

• series of finds from the First and Second Dynasty royal tombs and their valley temple enclosures (see Abydos pages for more details)
• Early Dynastic Period and Old Kingdom votive offerings from the temple
• Middle Kingdom offering-chapel monuments (in the Petrie Museum see notably stela UC 14334)

Hu (Diospolis Parva)

Petrie excavations at the site: 1898-1899 (EEF)

Publications: Petrie 1901

Main features at site: on or near Hu was the main town of the seventh province of Upper Egypt; there are remains of a Roman Period fort and temple at the desert edge; nearby cemeteries range from the predynastic to the Roman Period

Highlights of the Petrie excavations:

• series of predynastic burials from which Petrie worked out his pioneering Sequence Dating system for the Naqada Period
• predynastic red-painted clay figurines of men (Petrie Museum UC 10791 and 10796, and Liverpool Museum 25.9.99.88)
• wealthy Middle Kingdom burials (see esepcially Petrie 1901, pl.26-27)
• burials of desert Nubians living in Egypt in the Second Intermediate Period ('Pan Graves': this was one of the earliest discoveries of such a cemetery)
• Roman Period plaster mummy-mask, the most southerly and one of the finest of the type (now preserved in the British Museum)

Denderah

Petrie excavations at the site: 1897-1898 (EEF)

Publications: Petrie 1900

Main features at site: Dendera was the main town of the sixth province of Upper Egypt, its principal temple dedicated to the goddess Hathor; the largest feature today is the late Ptolemaic and early Roman Period temple building, one of the best preserved in Egypt; around the temple are remains from the town and cemeteries from the Old Kingdom to the Roman Period

Highlights of the Petrie excavations:

• series of Old Kingdom and First Intermediate Period tomb-chapels, with many inscribed elements
• mummy-labels and the latest series of faience amulets in the Egyptian tradition, from early Roman Period burials

Koptos

Petrie excavations at the site: 1893-1894

Publications: Petrie 1896 (caution: many items published in this volume were acquired during the excavation but may come from other sites)

Main features at site: main town of fifth province of Upper Egypt, with extensive temple remains from late predynastic period to Roman Period

Highlights of the Petrie excavations:

• earliest colossal sculpture in form of ithyphallic Min (torsos preserved in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo and the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford) and recumbent lions (Petrie Museum and Ashmolean Museum)
• relief blocks from Twelfth Dynasty and Seventeenth Dynasty temple structures, preserved by reuse in later temple floor
• Old Kingdom pottery relief from lower part of pottery sculpture
• temple foundation deposits of Thutmose III (including unique pottery vessel incorporating cow heads and scorpions, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford E 4291)
• fragment of statue of high official of the Ptolemaic Period queen Arsinoe, Senusheri (Egyptian Museum, Cairo, 70031)
• Roman Period 'Tariff Inscription'

Naqada and Ballas

Petrie excavations at the site: 1894-1895

Publications: Petrie/Quibell 1896

Main features at site: key centre of kingship, at the centre of the development of a unified state in the late fourth millennium BC, prominent town in the fifth province of Upper Egypt; Eighteenth Dynasty temple of Seth; extensive cemeteries from predynastic to New Kingdom times; north of Ballas, at Deir el-Ballas is a Seventeenth and early Eighteenth Dynasty palace, town and fort, perhaps the Residence of the Theban kings Seqenenra Taa, Kamose and Ahmose I during their wars to expel the Hyksos from Egypt (excavated by George Reisner in 1900 and more recently by Peter Lacovara); the vast predynastic cemeteries are the reason why the Upper Egyptian predynastic from 4000-3000 BC is known in archaeology as the Naqara Period; the latest tombs of that phase include the earliest surviving niched brick monumental architecture in Egypt, a tomb from the reign of king Aha of the First Dynasty (excavated by Jacques de Morgan)

Highlights of the Petrie excavations:

• series of intact Naqada Period burials, initially identified by Petrie as foreign cemeteries of the First Intermediate Period, but explained by J de Morgan as prehistoric)
• late Middle Kingdom seal impressions and scarabs from the town
• New Kingdom faience votive offerings from Seth temple, notably a giant 'was' sceptre (preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 437.1895)
• sculpture from New Kingdom temple, notably the limestone lintel of Thutmose I (preserved in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo 31881)

Southern Upper Egypt (Luxor to Aswan)

Luxor and Qurna, Thebes West

(1) Ramesseum and temple sites

Petrie excavations at the site: 1895-1896

Publications: Petrie 1897, Quibell 1898

Main features at site: series of temples to New Kingdom kings who are buried in the Valley of the Kings; these lie in part over Middle Kingdom cemeteries, with Third Intermediate tombs and chapels then constructed around and over the ruined New Kingdom structures; apart from the Ramesseum (temple of Ramesses II, of sandstone), the temples were dismantled, and the limestone blocks burnt for lime after the Roman Period; the recycling of stone is a feature of all periods (already in the Nineteenth Dynasty, the temple of Merenptah constructed largely out of the ruins of the temple of Amenhotep III)

Highlights of the Petrie excavations:

• Middle Kingdom painted tomb discovered beneath the Ramesseum store-rooms
• late Middle Kingdom box of papyri (preserved in the Egyptian Museum, Berlin, and the British Museum) and associated finds (preserved in the Manchester Museum, the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge) from a tomb-shaft discovered beneath the Ramesseum store-rooms
• the 'Israel stela', a reused stela of Amenhotep III with inscription of Merenptah (about 1213-1203 BC) including the only surviving hieroglyphic writing of the name 'Israel' (with foreign people determinative), preserved in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, 34025
• statue of royal woman from reign of Ramesses II (preserved in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, 600)
• other sculpture and relief fragments from the temples of the kings (example: Petrie Museum UC 14373)
• unfinished stela of Eighteenth Dynasty high official Duarneheh (Petrie Museum UC 14462)
• Ramesside figured and hieratic ostraca (most in Strasbourg University Museum, others in Petrie Museum)
• Third Intermediate chapel and burial stelae
• intact Third Intermediate Period burial of Nakhtefmut (finds preserved in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge)
• group of iron tools with bronze bowl and 'helmet', dated by Petrie to the Assyrian invasions of 674-664 BC (Petrie 1897: pl.21, preserved in the Manchester Museum)

(2) miscellaneous sanctuary and cemetery sites

Petrie excavations at the site: 1908-1909

Publications: Petrie 1909

Main features at site: temples, settlements and cemeteries over wide area of West Bank, from which Petrie selected sites apparently at random in his 1908-1909 excavations, including a mountain-top chapel of Sankhkara Mentuhotep of the Eleventh Dynasty, and predominantly First Intermediate Period cemeteries at unspecified locations

Highlights of the Petrie excavations:

• inscribed fragments from the Sankhkara Mentuhotep chapel (now preserved in the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden)
• Second Intermediate Period bird-figure pottery vessel in Levantine tradition ('Tell el-Yahudiyeh ware'), Petrie Museum UC 13479
• intact burial of an elite woman of the Seventeenth Dynasty (finds preserved in the Royal Scottish Museums, Edinburgh)
• painted Seventeenth Dynasty tomb-chapel (painted walls now preserved in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)

Elkab

ERA excavations at the site: 1896-1897

Publications: Quibell 1898

Main features at site: prominent town in the third province of Upper Egypt with extensive town and temple remains, including great enclosure wall, and cemeteries from the predynastic to the Roman Period; the area is now investigated by a Belgian expedition

Highlights of the ERA excavations: Old Kingdom elite tombs and tomb-chapels (note the model granaries, preserved in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, E408)

Nekhen (in Greek Hierakonpolis)

ERA excavations at the site: 1897-1899

Publications: Quibell 1900; Quibell/Green 1902

Main features at site: key centre of kingship, at the centre of the development of a unified state in the late fourth millennium BC, main town of third province of Upper Egypt, on the west bank facing Elkab on the east bank; temple of Horus with remains going back to the Early Dynastic Period; cemeteries with cult-places for the dead at their greatest extent in the predynastic period, but including monuments of the Second Intermediate Period and New Kingdom; the site is now being excavated and monuments restored by the expedition led by Renee Friedman

Highlights of the ERA excavations:

• painted tomb chamber of a late predynastic king, preserved in segments in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo
• the Narmer Palette, earliest monument with depiction of the same king wearing White Crown and Red Crown (in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo), among the deposits of temple offerings
• mace heads of Narmer and/or other late predynastic-early First Dynasty kings, among the deposits of temple offerings

Shatt er-Rigal

Petrie season at the site: 1887

Publications: Petrie 1888

Main features recorded at site: desert route with rock inscriptions, recording quarrying expeditions principally of the Middle and New Kingdom, notably the great depiction of king Nebhepetra Mentuhotep between his parents king Intef and king's mother Iah, with the treasurer Khety (Petrie 1888: pl.16, no.489)

Aswan

Petrie season at the site: 1887

Publications: Petrie 1888

Main features recorded at site: rock inscriptions on First Cataract shores and land-road, recording passing expeditions principally of the Middle and New Kingdom

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