Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology

• Name — Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology • Established — 1892 • Location — London • Collection Size — Over 80,000 objects • Website — Official website

• Illustration — Upper part of a statuette of an Egyptian woman and her husband. 18th Dynasty. From the Amelia Edwards Collection now housed in the Petrie Museum The museum was established as a teaching resource for the Department of Egyptian Archaeology and Philology at University College at the same time as the department was established in 1892. The initial collection was donated by the writer Amelia Edwards. The first Edwards Professor, William Matthew Flinders Petrie, conducted many important excavations, and in 1913 he sold his collections of Egyptian antiquities to University College, creating the Flinders Petrie Collection of Egyptian Antiquities, and transforming the museum into one of the leading collections outside Egypt. The collection was first put on display in June 1915. Petrie excavated dozens of major sites in the course of his career, including the Roman Period cemeteries at Hawara, famous for the beautiful mummy portraits in classical Roman style; Amarna, the city of king Akhenaten; and the first true pyramid, at Meydum, where he uncovered some of the earliest evidence for mummification. The collection and library were arranged in galleries within the main building at the university and a guidebook was published in 1915. Initially, the collection's visitors were students and academics; it was not then open to the general public. Petrie retired from University College London (UCL) in 1933, though his successors continued to add to the collections, excavating in other parts of Egypt and Sudan. During the Second World War (1939–1945) the collection was packed up and moved out of London for safekeeping. In the early 1950s it was moved into a former stable, where it remains adjacent to the UCL Science Library, DMS Watson Building.

• 1948–1963: Anthony J. Arkell • 1963–1970: Harry Smith • 1970–1978: David M. Dixon • 1984–2001: Barbara Adams • 1999-2013: Stephen Quirke • 2013–2016: Alice Stevenson • 2017–present: Anna E. Garnett

Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology is established in GND (German National Library) under 810288-0. Established in Library of Congress under no2003031064. Associated with United Kingdom.

• Illustration — Display case at previous entrance to the Petrie (prior to refurbishment), with figurines and statuettes The museum's entrance gallery was renovated in 2019 and reopened to the public in 2020. It provides an insight into the history of the museum, its collections, and notable figures, including Petrie, Amelia Edwards, Ali Suefi, and Violette Lafleur. The entrance also contains a small gift shop. The museum is split into three galleries. The main gallery (housed above the old stables) contains many of the museum's small domestic artefacts, mummy portraits and cases, and the Inscriptions Aisle. The Inscriptions Aisle displays tablets, including Pyramid Texts, written in hieroglyphics, hieratic, Greek, and Arabic, and organised according to material type. Another gallery (the pottery gallery) contains many cabinets of pottery, clothing, jewellery, and shabti figures, arranged chronologically. The entire collection has been digitised and the catalogue can be browsed and consulted online.

• Illustration — Limestone head of a king. Thought by Petrie to be Narmer, based on the similarity to the head of Narmer on the Narmer Palette. According to Trope, Quirke & Lacovara, the suggestion that it is Narmer is "unlikely". Alternatively, they suggest the Fourth Dynasty king Khufu. Stevenson also identifies it as Khufu. Charron identifies it as a king of the Thinite Period, but does not believe it can be assigned to any particular king. Wilkinson describes it as "probably Second Dynasty". • Illustration — This is a reconstructed glazed floral necklace with 8 rows of beads now in the Petrie Museum of London, Britain. It bears the cartouche of Tutankhamun. The museum contains over 80,000 objects and has been designated as a collection of national and international importance by the Arts Council England. There are significant holdings of Egyptian costume, including a piece of Egyptian linen from around 5000 BC, one of the earliest known, and the Tarkhan dress from the fourth millennium BC, the world's oldest known woven garment As of 2016. The collection also includes material from the Ptolemaic, Roman and Islamic periods. This includes Britain's largest collection of Roman period mummy portraits. There is a substantial archive held in the museum, including excavation records, correspondence and photographs relating to excavations led by Flinders Petrie. There are additionally documents relating to the distribution of finds from fieldwork to museums worldwide between 1887 and 1949.