Naqada and Ballas

Facsimile edition of the 1974 reissue of Flinders Petrie's 1896 account of the excavation, mainly, of tombs in the area around Ballas and Naqada on the edge of the Egyptian desert, 30 miles north of Thebes. Several areas of the ancient towns of Deir and Nubt, the latter identified as the center of Set worship, and more tombs were investigated. At each cemetery, traditionally furnished Old and Middle Kingdom tombs were examined and many proved to have been plundered and reused in antiquity. Petrie named these later burials as of a New Race and describes them in detail at Ballas and Naqada. A collection of mostly Palaeolithic flint artifacts is also described. AUTHOR: Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie (1853-1942) was a pioneer in the field of 'modern' archaeology. He introduced the stratigraphical approach in his Egyptian campaigns that underpins modern excavation techniques, explored scientific approaches to analysis and developed detailed typological studies of artefact classification and recording, which allowed for the stratigraphic dating of archaeological layers. He excavated and surveyed over 30 sites in Egypt, including Giza, Luxor, Amarna and Tell Nebesheh.