Petrie, William M. Flinders: Abydos: Part I: 1902 (London, 1902)

ABYDOS I.

has served as a nucleus for all other recent
excavators, as Dr. Reisner, at Grirgeh, has
drawn almost entirely on that centre, and the
German work at Abusir has used our trained
Quftis for headmen, to say nothing of the
Research Account work at El Kab, which has
depended on the same source. I have no doubt
other places would furnish equally desirable
workers, but when once a large party have been
trained, they are naturally sought for elsewhere.
It is needful, however, to carry on a continual
weeding of old hands, as the Egyptian always
becomes spoiled with prosperity; and some of
the boys, as they have grown up, have come
to the front line in their intelligence and
conduct. We also employed over a hundred
boys, from villages near the work, to do the
carrying.

Our camp was entirely fresh, as those who
were with us before had all passed on to other
work. Mr. Arthur Weigall came out for the
first time, and proved a most successful worker.
I greatly regret, for the sake of our work, that
I have to congratulate him on passing on at
once to a better position. He entirely super-
intended the men at the great southern tombs,
which I only visited to give general direction to
the region of work. He also looked after the

close of the temenos work, and drew some of the
inscriptions, the whole of which he comments
on in this volume. Mr. Laurence Christie, who
came for artistic copying, has done more than
four plates in this volume ; but most of his time
was given to copying selected sculptures in the
Sety temple for the Research Account. ' Ex-
cavations at the Sety temple, on the same basis,
were carried on by Mr. A. St. G. Caulfeild, who
also took many photographs, some of which
appear in this frontispiece. My wife was closely
occupied with drawing nearly all the season;
especially on the tedious figuring of nearly four
hundred flints, and the exact facsimile copies
of inscriptions. My own work lay in the
Temenos of Osiris, directing the diggers,
levelling and recording, and general manage-
ment and account keeping; for the season's
work involves some 40,000 entries of small
sums. I have also drawn thirty-seven of the
plates here, and taken the photographs. The
immediate production of a fully-illustrated
bulletin of the results of a season, before the
objects reach England, involves organizing all
the copying on the spot; but the advantages of
quick publication make it well worth while to
carry out this system, as we have now done for
three years.

to:

■1!

rliest royal
is that

70l

jrffem

the series

id in the last vu

fitoin the cham

i of cylindrical ji

with cross-lii

, Such jars a

t prehistoric pottery,

t date 78 in that sc

bjjis are inscriptions, r

rush; and on co]

. have succeeded i:

are copied in pi;

to be all of two

■J one for his que*

**st hieroglyphic ins

l% back in tl

serve our closes

Jst snapes of the

^writing m

:^as freely

^ pottery jars

^ the He

^;andonplal

. fte Horns IT
g at ^at age

^g!