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Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, London
Museum, Museums outside Egypt · also called Petrie Museum, UCL Petrie Museum, Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology, Flinders Petrie collection
The Petrie Museum at University College London holds more than 80,000 objects from Flinders Petrie's excavations, and much of what is written on them is everyday: stelae, labels, letters and accounts. Kings appear on temple reliefs from Koptos, among them Senusret I before the god Min and a slab with the name of Pepi II.
Point your camera at the signs
Signs to look for
- Head and neck of a canine F12wsr The head and neck of a canine is wsr in Senusret's name on the Koptos relief.
- Stool Q3p The stool is p. It stands twice in the cartouche of Pepi II.
- Cartouche V10 The cartouche marks a king's name on the temple reliefs, the quickest way to date a block.
- Bread on an offering mat R4ḥtp Bread on a mat (hotep) opens the offering formula on the stelae in the inscriptions aisle.
Names you can find here
The story of Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, London
Amelia Edwards gave the first collection when UCL founded its chair of Egyptology in 1892. Petrie, its first professor, kept finds from his digs for teaching and sold his collection to the college in 1913. Cases are packed tight in the old style, so the museum rewards slow looking.
Writing runs through everything here. Petrie dug at Koptos in 1893 and 1894 and brought back reliefs from the temple of Min, the god of the eastern desert roads. At Lahun in 1889 he found papyri from a Middle Kingdom town: letters, accounts, medical and mathematical texts and hymns to Senusret III. They are written in hieratic and are fragile, so only a few are shown at a time.
A small stone with year-by-year records of early kings is also here: the London fragment of the royal annals better known from the Palermo Stone. Some of the most famous pieces carry no text at all, such as the Koptos lions of the early First Dynasty and a linen dress from Tarkhan, one of the oldest woven garments known.
Inscriptions to see
Senusret I before Min
A limestone relief from Koptos (UC14786). The king, in the red crown, holds an oar and a ritual object before Min, in a scene tied to his jubilee festival. The text above names the offering of the oar.
Slab of Pepi II
A relief from Koptos with the cartouche of the 6th Dynasty king Pepi II (UC14281). His name is written with two stools and two reed leaves.
London fragment of the royal annals
A small piece of the same Old Kingdom annals as the Palermo Stone (UC15508), inscribed on both faces with year boxes for early kings.
Papyri from Lahun
The world's oldest gynaecological papyrus (UC32057), from the reign of Amenemhat III, is part of the town archive. Ask whether a papyrus is out when you visit.
Stelae and the inscriptions aisle
Rows of tablets and stelae in hieroglyphs, hieratic, Greek and Arabic, many with the offering formula and the names of people who paid for them.
Reading the hieroglyphs here
- The cases are dense and lit unevenly. Hold the phone square to the glass and box one sign at a time.
- Some reliefs and stelae sit low in the cases. Kneel to read them straight on: the carving is shallow and side views flatten it.
- Papyri and single objects rotate or go on loan, so check before you go if you want to see one.
Hiero Lens boxes the signs and names them, on your phone; nothing is uploaded. On worn stone, trace a sign over the photo.
Questions
What is the Petrie Museum famous for?
It is one of the largest collections of Egyptian and Sudanese archaeology outside Egypt, much of it from excavations with a known findspot. It has the Koptos lions, the Tarkhan dress, papyri from Lahun and Roman mummy portraits.
Who was Flinders Petrie?
A British archaeologist who dug at many Egyptian sites from the 1880s and was the first Edwards Professor of Egyptology at UCL. He made recording small finds and pottery a standard part of excavation.
Can you see hieroglyphs at the Petrie Museum?
Yes. Temple reliefs from Koptos, stelae and inscribed tablets carry hieroglyphs, and the papyri show hieratic, the handwriting of scribes.
Where it is
Open in OpenStreetMap · Written from published sources and not yet checked on site by our team: displays and open tombs change.