Page "Flinders Petrie" Paragraph 8

By the end of the Tanis dig he ran out of funding but, reluctant to leave the country in case this was renewed, he spent 1887 cruising the Nile taking photographs as a less subjective record than sketches.

During this time he also climbed rope ladders at Sehel Island near Aswan to draw and photograph thousands of early Egyptian inscriptions on a cliff face, recording embassies to Nubia, famines and wars.

By the time he reached Aswan, a telegram had reached there to confirm the renewal of his funding.

He then went straight to the burial site at Fayum, particularly interested in post-30 BC burials, which had not previously been fully studied.

He found intact tombs and 60 of the famous portraits, and discovered from inscriptions on the mummies that they were kept with their living families for generations before burial.

Under Auguste Mariette's arrangements, he sent 50 % of these portraits to the Egyptian department of antiquities.

However, later finding that Gaston Maspero placed little value on them and left them open to the elements in a yard behind the museum to deteriorate, he angrily demanded that they all be returned, forcing Maspero to pick the 12 best examples for the museum to keep and then returning 48 to Petrie, which he sent to London for a special showing at the British Museum.

Resuming work, he discovered the village of the Pharaonic tomb-workers.