the biography of a collection: the sir flinders petrie palestinian collection and the role of...

Museum Management and Curatorship,Vol. 17, No. 4, pp. 351–399, 1998 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reservedPergamon

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The Biography of a Collection: The SirFlinders Petrie Palestinian Collectionand the Role of University Museums

Peter J. Ucko

Introduction

The Sir Flinders Petrie collection of Palestinian antiquities is the most importantcollection of its kind outside Palestine itself. It deals with many phases in the devel-opment of one of the most important regions in the history of the world…The Collection is unique, and if not suitably housed in the very near future willalmost certainly be lost to Great Britain, since offers from abroad are alreadyunder consideration.1

(Extracts from documents prepared by R. E. M. Wheeler, F.S.A., the then HonoraryDirector of the Institute of Archaeology (hereafter, IoA), which were discussed bythe “appropriate body of the University of London” on 26 July 1934, and sent onto others in September 1934).

William Matthew Flinders Petrie (born 3 June 1853, died 28 July 1942) (Fig. 1)was by all accounts a most extraordinary individual (e.g. see Callaway, 1980)—variously referred to (e.g. Albright, 1960, p. 29, p. 38) as “genius”, “brilliant”,“revered Nestor of archaeologists”—who is all too often only remembered todayeither as the Egyptologist who had amassed the superb Petrie Museum of Egyp-tian Archaeology (hereafter, PMEA) (bought by, and housed in, University Col-lege London (hereafter, UCL) and recently Nationally Designated as an outstand-ing collection), or for his ‘invention’ of the so-called Sequence Dating methodfor prehistoric pottery for which he has been described as “one of the greatapplied mathematicians of the nineteenth century” (Kendall, 1971, p. 215), orfor his insistence on stratigraphic recording (e.g. Janssen, 1992, p. 25; but seeDrower, 1995, pp. 388–89), or for his attempts to have his skull preserved forever as an example of a typical Britisher (Drower, 1995, p. 424: and see Appen-dix A). He was knighted by King George V in 1923; to celebrate his Centenaryin 1953, it was proposed that a “blue and white plaque” should be erectedon his last residence in Hampstead, London, with the inscription: “He raisedArchaeology to a Science”.2

What follows starts as a case study regarding the Petrie Palestinian Collection(hereafter, the PPC), and how it passed from one university collection toanother. While revealing what, retrospectively, must surely be judged to be mis-management of Petrie’s (strictly, the British School of Archaeology in Egypt’s

352 Biography of a Collection

1. Sir Flinders Petrie (1853–1942) photographed c. l939.

(hereafter, the BSAE) Palestinian Collection3) it can also serve to remind us ofthe importance of Petrie’s work outside Egypt—“Egypt over the border”(Glanville, 1953, p. 1045)—for Petrie impacted hugely on the archaeology ofPalestine following his return there after an absence of some 37 years (e.g. seeHarden, 1953, p. 109). But, in addition, the PPC can be seen to have been thecatalyst which allowed the IoA (since 1934 only an independent ‘paper Institute’(Evans, 1987, p. 1) of the University of London) to secure in 1937 its first physi-cal home of its own, in St. John’s Lodge (a handsome eighteenth-century house),The Inner Circle, Regents Park, London NW1 (Wheeler, 1955, p. 83; Evans,1987, pp. 6–7). Finally, the case study raises some important questions of prin-ciple regarding the curation of large collections of archaeological material whichare housed within universities.

353Peter J. Ucko

Excavations from Which the Collection Derived

Under Petrie’s leadership, the BSAE—founded by him in 1905—sponsored aseries of excavations between 1926 and 1938 in Wady (Wadi) Ghazzeh (now,Wady (Wadi) Nahal Besor) in southwest Palestine. Wady Besor is the largestdrainage in the northern Negev desert, running westward from the Beershebaregion and emptying into the Mediterranean Sea near Gaza. These excavationswere directed by Sir Flinders Petrie and several colleagues. As already noted,Palestine was not new to Petrie who had already excavated there (at Tell el-Hesi/Tell el Hesy) from 17 April to 31 May in 1890. He returned to avoid newrestrictions in Egypt which prevented antiquities being removed from there(Drower, 1995, p. 356), and Petrie now involved the BSAE in excavations atthree large sites bearing on the nature of Egyptian–Palestinian interaction in thesecond and first millennia BC. The excavations exposed fortified, planned townswith monumental buildings and a number of cemeteries rich in grave goods.

Tell Jemmeh. (Gerar4) (Petrie, 1928, 1931, pp. 257–261), south of Gaza, wasexcavated by Petrie in 1926–1927 and revealed “a heavily fortified town forsomething like a thousand years” (Drower, 1995, p. 366). According to Kenyon(1979, p. 331), “the importance of the excavations lies not in the remainsuncovered, but in the continuous succession of strata…”. From this materialPetrie established “seven hundred forms of pottery [which] were obtained anddrawn… The recording was on a new system of making the plans of each leveland the drawings of each object completely linked together, and finishing therecord ready for publication as the work went on. Thus five months from closingthe work I could put the whole results in the printer’s hands…” (Petrie, 1931,p. 257). The material included smelting furnaces for iron, or possibly copper(Wright, 1962, pp. 197–198), and the site is particularly important for thearchaeology of the Late Iron Age. It also contained a cylinder seal and character-istic pottery of Assyrian date (possibly evidence for an Assyrian garrison associa-ted with brief attacks on Egypt), as well as later Greek wares. Since Petrie’stime, the Assyrian occupation has been further investigated by the van Beeks(e.g. van Beek and van Beek, 1990). A Philistine presence is suggested by potterytypes and names on ostraca.

Tell el-Far’ah (Tell Fara; Tell Far’a) South. (Beth–pelet; Beth–Pelet) (Petrie,1930a, 1931), excavated in 1928–29 (and see Price Williams, 1973), is believedby some to be the location of “Sharuhen” (Kempinski, 1974; but see e.g. Ryholt,1997, p. 132, Notes 463–464 for references to recent discussion). If it is cor-rectly so identified, it was a city described in Egyptian New Kingdom texts asthe refuge of the Hyksos after expulsion from Egypt, and subsequently the targetof a successful three-year siege (or three successive campaigning seasons) bythe Egyptians (e.g. Wilson, 1955, p, 233; Wright, 1962, pp. 56–57). A fortifiedsettlement was established here in the early to middle second millennium BC(Middle Bronze Age), with a great gate flanked by towers, smooth plasteredslope and ditch, and three cemeteries in use. The site was also occupied in thelatter part of the Late Bronze Age between 1,300–1,150 BC with four cemeteriesin use, including several types of elaborate subterranean chamber tombs. Onthe mound itself, the Egyptian Pharaohs of the Late Bronze Age (Dynasties


XVIII?–XIX) built a garrison (“Egyptian Governor’s Residence”)—“a large square-plan public building divided into storerooms and courtyards” (Tubb, 1998, p.82) which used typical Egyptian methods of construction, such as massive, deepbrick foundations, and “paired external walls with a channel between them…”(Tubb, 1998, p. 84); the building was burned between 1,100–1,000 BC.

The importance of this site, and in particular the quality of some of its Middleand Late Bronze Age funerary remains (e.g. “two dozen large graves [contained]more than a hundred scarabs” (Petrie, 1931, p. 264)), from more than 70 fullyexcavated tombs (Price Williams, 1977, p. ix), can be seen from Albright’s (albeitcritical) description of “a [Persian] tomb containing a bronze bed and stool ina remarkable state of preservation, together with a beautiful fluted silver bowland dipper, the handle of which is a slender [swimming] nude maiden [Petrie,1930a, p. 14]. It was as usual dated much too high by Sir Flinders, for whenthe pieces were cleaned, several incised Aramaic letters of the Persian periodwere found” (Albright, 1960, p. 145; and see Stern, 1982, p. 143, pp. 146– 147).The Tell el-Far’ah cemeteries also revealed burials of the Early Iron Age, datedby Petrie to the 14th Century BC. The painted pottery evidence for so-calledPhilistine occupation of the site (e.g. Kenyon, 1979, p. 325) and use of iron isnow more usually dated from c. 1200–1000 BC. These tombs also containedanthropomorphic clay sarcophagi, while burials of the Late Iron Age (c. 1000–850 BC) included pots of “phoenician” type along with a seal inscribed in Heb-rew. The earliest material on the site included important lithic assemblages,“chalcolithic” pottery, querns and carved limestone bowls (Petrie, 1930; Pers.Comm., Price Williams), and the latest material was of Roman date.

Tell-’Ajjul (Tell-El-Ajjul; Tell Ajjul). (Ancient Gaza) (Petrie, 1931, 1931–34, 1952)was a large city of some thirty-three acres inside its fortifications, excavated in1930–1934 (see Fig. 2) and 1938, which lay at the Palestinian end of a desertroute from what is believed to have been the Hyksos eastern Delta town ofAvaris (e.g. Wright, 1962, p. 57), to the Asiatic part of the Empire. Stratificationat the site was particularly complicated. Petrie dated its beginnings to c. 3,500–3,200 BC (supposedly on the basis of parallels with Egyptian material of the VthDynasty); today a date of c. 2,000 BC is preferred. He believed that the mostimportant city dated to c. 2,600–2,400 BC; today the site’s apogee is consideredto have been between 1,750–1,500 BC (Middle Bronze Age to the beginning ofthe Late Bronze Age), “when it was defended by a great fosse of the typeascribed to the Hyksos” (Kenyon, 1979, pp. 315–316). The city was plannedaround cobbled streets flanked by houses and monumental buildings, of whichso-called ‘palaces’ I–III were the most impressive. According to Albright (1960),p. 92, “the largest palace…, including the interior court occupied about 2,000square metres; its exterior wall was a metre thick, built of mud brick on the(characteristic) high stone socle”.

Extensive cemeteries from the period included underground “chamber tombsusually containing individual skeletons and many grave goods including cer-amics, metalwork and personal ornaments. Some of the more elaborate tombsappeared to have been graves of elite warriors. A special group were the so-called ‘donkey burials’, which consisted of chambers containing several alcovescarved in the walls, within which individual humans were laid out on platforms.In the central space of each tomb lay a single articulated skeleton of an equid

355Peter J. Ucko

2. Sir Flinders Petrie at Tell Ajjul (1931) which he excavated in 1930–34 and 1938.Ancient Gaza, Tell Ajjul proved to be one of the richest sites in Palestine and yielded

numerous scarabs and gold objects.


(donkey), a pattern of burial unusual in Palestine but documented at Tell-ed-Da’ba (Avaris) in the Nile Delta” (Wright, n.d., p. 5). Tell el-’Ajjul has producedthe largest assemblage of scarabs and, not least from the last excavation seasonin 1938, the largest collection of gold objects—“showing refined techniques ofgranulation and repousee” (Tubb, 1998, p. 65)—from any site in Palestine(Drower, 1995, p. 399, p. 415). Analysis of scarab styles and co-occurrence ofEgyptian royal names with the gold objects in the tombs suggests that some (ifnot all) of the gold was made in Egypt and probably in Avaris. One of theseroyal names is that of Apophis, the last Hyksos king before the founders of theNew Kingdom expelled the Hyksos from Egypt (c. 1,550 BC). Avaris was theHyksos capital of Egypt during Dynasty XV, and Tell el-’Ajjul is often thoughtto have been under direct Hyksos control.

Overall, Petrie’s statement (1934, p. 19) to conclude his major seasons ofexcavations at Tell Ajjul can still stand for all this work outside Egypt:

For the history of Palestine our work has been fundamental as, in place of vagueages of bronze and iron, we have it stabilised by the scale of the Egyptian dyn-asties…

The early history of Palestine itself is the clearer for the exploration of Gerar, Beth–pelet, and ancient Gaza…

Sir Flinders’ Role in the Strange Beginnings of London University’s Instituteof Archaeology

Sir Flinders Petrie was the holder of the Edwards Chair of Egyptoloqy at UCLfrom 1892 until 1934, keeping much of his excavated Egyptian material storedin College. He was someone whom people would only choose to underestimateat their peril: he would fight to gain his way, and was used to winning (and seee.g. Petrie, 1931; Appendix B; Appendix C; Drower, 1990, 1995). Also, asalready seen, and as is reflected from the publication dates referenced above,one of Petrie’s positive characteristics was to publish fast (and see Kenyon,1953, pp. 5–6); however, as Albright (1960, p. 22), put it, his “haste” frequentlyled to “lack of care”. Petrie himself appeared aware of this and recognized theimmense potential importance for further study of the excavated material cul-ture objects themselves (and see below): particularly striking was his view ofthe significance of pottery:

Pottery is one of the expressions of art which can show the finest and most graciousforms, or the most clumsy and hideous. It expresses the qualities of a race in theirartistic sense, mechanical perception, utility, adaptability, and response to othercivilisations… (Petrie, 1930b, p. 3)

All the more important, therefore, is the fact that Sir Flinders eventually (in1935) was seen to ‘give’ to the IoA (a research institution of the University ofLondon, which was only to become part of UCL much later, in 1986) a largeselection of his excavated material from all three sites mentioned above: some20,000 individual items in all comprising mainly sherds, as well as several hun-dred complete pots, the contents of several complete sets of grave groupsincluding gold jewellery, faience and scarabs, thus providing the IoA with auniquely important research collection.5 It is instructive to review the conditions

357Peter J. Ucko

under which this collection went to the IoA, as well as Petrie’s hopes for itsfuture.

The narrative can begin with Janssen (1992, p. 20), who records that:

The future of his Palestinian material was to perturb Petrie during the last years ofhis tenure of the Edwards Chair.6 It had to be stored in crates in the basement ofUCL… [“stored away in packing-cases and basements, and is entirely inaccessiblefor inspection and study” (Wheeler, 1934); “nearly a hundred boxes of Palestineantiquities were lying in the cellars of the College” (Petrie, 1931, p. 263)]. Noexisting museum was prepared to house and display this unique and very represen-tative assemblage…

…All he could do was to make his need widely felt. Later [in 1934, it becameknown that] an anonymous donor, revealed after her death7 to have been Mrs MaryWoodgate Wharrie, [had] made him the promise of £10,000. This Petrie made overto his old friend and colleague…, the archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler, for anarchaeological institute for which he had been enlisting support since 1927. Thecondition was that Petrie’s Palestinian collection should be housed and displayedthere [my italics]…

By the end of 1934, a further two-years of fund-raising had proved successful [£6650(Memorandum by the Principal, 14/12/34)].8

What is of the utmost significance in this story is that Petrie was on the vergeof departing the country as these negotiations were continuing. He must havebeen feeling deeply anxious, knowing how important they were, since heexpected to leave England in August for Jerusalem “probably not to return”(Flinders Petrie to Wheeler, 17/7/34), “…my return to England seems verydoubtful” (Flinders Petrie to Wheeler, 27/8/34). Wheeler and the supporters ofthe IoA must have felt equally anxious, since without Mrs Wharrie’s initial£10,000 (and therefore also the PPC), there was no question of being able toobtain what they wanted so badly, their first physical location: St John’s Lodge(Fig. 3), which was on offer for only a limited time. “Old friend and colleague”that Wheeler may have been, this did not prevent Petrie, even after he had leftthe country writing some pretty stiff letters and conditions about his collectionbefore it would become part of the IoA in its proposed new premises. By January1935 he was already objecting violently to any suggestion that his collectionmight be dispersed, suggesting instead that the collection should be given onloan to the IoA, and that once “duplicates (especially in the pottery)” had been“weeded out” for dispersal between the BSAE and those museums and otherswho had previously supported his work, nothing else should ever be allowedto be removed from the collection (Flinders Petrie to M. Wheeler, March 1935;Unsigned copy of letter from Petrie (“Yours obediently”) to Lord Macmillan, 2October 1935).

In late July, Petrie was claiming to Wheeler that the only way that he knewwhat was going on with regard to St John’s Lodge was through what he readin The Times; furthermore, he threatened not to add new finds to his PalestinianCollection, including his recently acquired share of 130 small gold pieces, alabas-ter vases and weights from ancient Gaza, and he even questioned whether the£10,000 donation was being properly used. Above all, he insisted on being toldthe nature of security in St John’s Lodge, and whether it would apply equally


3. St. John’s Lodge, Regents Park, London, in 1934 at the time of the negotiations toacquire the lease for the future Institute of Archaeology.

to any new additions to the collection. On 30 August 1935 he wrote from theAmerican School of Research, Jerusalem:

My dear Wheeler,

Thanks for your letter of 8 Aug, and its assurances of goodwill on the part of theUniversity. You do not take into account, however, my last two letters… [seeAppendix B and Appendix C for the texts of two of his letters at this time]

…Here [in my collection] there is the type collection of Palestine antiquities, corre-sponding to the corpus of 5500 forms published. No one can deal with it who isnot thoroughly conversant with the subject, and I ask for a guarantee of a familiarknowledge of the Gaza collection, to begin with, for weeding duplicates, by oneof the persons to be named by me, and after that a guaranteed inviolability ofthe series.

These are my essential conditions, which were ignorantly overlooked, when it wassuggested giving powers of dispersal to the University…

The guarantee which I expect from the University is

1.That the selection of the series from the general mass shall be placed in the handsof someone to be named by me, already thoroughly familiar with the Gaza series.

2.That after that selection has been made, it shall be as inviolable as any NaturalHistory type series, and inseparable.

3.…

359Peter J. Ucko

The acceptance of these safeguards as to the management is essential, as they arethe minimum requirements for such a series. Moreover I should cease to add furtherdiscoveries to the Collection, without this security.

Yours very sincerelyF.P.

By the end of September, Wheeler (27/9/35) had written two reassuringresponses, telling Petrie that:

The University has no intention of dispersing your collection, and entirely realizesits fundamental importance… The ‘violability’ of the collection need not, as I say,cause you any anxiety, since nothing short of substantially advanced knowledgeand a further accession of evidence in detail would be likely to induce any desireto modify the collection in any respect…

In fact, and apparently without Petrie realizing it, all his objections were muchtoo late, since already in December 1934 the IoA had persuaded Mrs Wharrie’ssolicitors to make the gift of £10,000 unconditional, “in particular as regardsthe length of tenure of St. John’s Lodge”. As Wheeler (18/12/34 to Mr Taylor)had put it:

If by some extraordinary stroke of luck the University found itself financially ableto enlarge the scope of the collection and to give it even more ample and centralhome before the end of the [lease] period, it would (I feel sure the Donor wouldagree) be a thousand pities if it were absolutely barred by conditions as to tenurefrom proceeding with so useful a development.

In the event, Mrs Wharrie’s deed of gift stated that the University shouldindeed have unfettered discretion regarding all matters relating both to the Build-ing and the Collection (including its division or dispersal or other modification),“this unfettered discretion, however, will be used only as the occasion or necess-ity arises”. What Petrie also did not know was that on 11 March 1935 the Univer-sity of London’s Court had already negotiated with the BSAE that the agreementabout Petrie’s Collection was for an unconditional offer, “for use at the Univer-sity’s own discretion in respect of housing, exhibition or dispersal of the wholeor of any part of the Collection”. Even when he had learnt of the details of whathad happened, Petrie continued to complain (“I was abroad, however, whenthe resolution was passed, and the necessary course for management was notenquired or prescribed, the details of the case not having been entered on bythe Committee” (Unsigned copy of letter from Petrie (“Yours obediently”) toLord Macmillan, 2 October 1935)) and, unsuccessfully, to seek reassurancesabout his basic conditions.

The Collection in St John’s Lodge

By September 1936, Petrie had agreed to trust Kathleen Kenyon with theremoval of his collection from various parts of UCL to the IoA in St John’s Lodge:“All the boxes from cellars at Univ. Coll. will need months of sunshine and air,to remove the fustiness. Plenty of formaldehyde solutiori [sic] will purify pottery,you will find” (Flinders Petrie to Miss Kenyon, 23/9/36). By the end of 1936the collection was awaiting unpacking at St John’s Lodge (Fig. 4) to be displayed


4. The Petrie Palestinian Collection in its cases awaiting unpacking in St. John’s Lodge(1935).

in several rooms, including the former Ballroom of this handsome new homeof the IoA (Fig. 5), itself being formally opened as “a laboratory of archaeologicalscience” by the Chancellor of the University of London in April 1937 (Childe,1950, p. 57). For this occasion Petrie (29/4/37) sent his congratulations. Heexpressed his pleasure that the collection now had a permanent home: “in spiteof all difficulties our treasures have now an abiding-place worthy of them”. Hewent on to stress that actual objects were just as important as books and,indeed, that:

vast accretions… of physical knowledge of man’s works may be preserved andbecome the basis of a new literature of history. Archaeological objects revise theimperfect literary material, and open up whole dynasties of which the record hasperished. (Petrie 29/4/37)

Specifically regarding his Palestinian Collection, he wrote:

This Collection of antiquities having found a home, it will now be a great task toarrange all the material here according to its historic order and place of discovery.The annual printed publications will be the basis for arrangement, but for correctdisplay there will be needed the elucidation by the memory of the former workerson the excavation sites for they alone know the objects. When placed accuratelyin their connected order, the long series from each site will make this the Meccafor all students of Palestine and the necessary centre for researches and teaching.

During 1938 the collection had been arranged for display (Figs. 6 and 7) andwas in good order for study. However, Petrie was still writing to reassure himselfregarding availability of space for further additions (especially of whole vases)to his collection, and about how the collection was being displayed in the IoA,

361Peter J. Ucko

5. Refurbishing one of the principal rooms in St. John’s Lodge prior to the display of thePetrie Palestinian Collection in them (1936–37).

and how (night) security was being organized, before he would send over findsfrom his more recent excavations (Flinders Petrie to Kathleen Kenyon, 18/6/38).Kenyon (30/6/38) reported to Petrie:

The finds from the Neolithic settlements at Tell Fara are not arranged under glass,but are in trays completely accessible to students, all sorted into their differentgroups and levels and arranged so that each individual sherd is visible on pullingout the trays…

Of the Ajjul series, 40 tomb groups and vessels from 5 Palace levels are in glasscases, these being 2 69349 cases and 6 3932960 ones…

With regard to the pottery… we can certainly find room for a considerable numbermore of type forms and dated groups. We are hoping to get a capital grant fromthe University for the purpose of supplying more cases and we have still plentyof space…

Meanwhile, also, a large number of the pottery types were being drawn andphotographed, and analyses begun of cylinder seals and weapons. Both Petrieand Kenyon were particularly worried about security if large numbers of goldobjects were to be added to the Collection (Unsigned letter from Kathleen Ken-yon to Sir Flinders Petrie, 30/6/39).9

Then, in sharp contrast to everyone’s hopes, the realities of the Second WorldWar period meant that in 1939, all the IoA collections had to be packed awayin St John’s Lodge’s basement.

The Secretary reported that during August 1939, the Institute had been closed…The policy acted upon had been that the collections should be protected as far as


6. Ceramics forming part of the Petrie Palestinian Collection exhibited by the BritishSchool of Archaeology in Egypt in the refurbished rooms of St. John’s Lodge (1938–39).

possible in the basement. It was not considered necessary to remove them fromLondon, since though as a collection they were irreplaceable, most of the objectswere not intrinsically of such value as to justify it. All the exhibition objects weretherefore stored in the metal cabinets which were stacked in a well-protected roomin the basement, while the trays for the cabinets were stored separately. All theglass cases were also stored in the basement. Further, it was considered probablethat the building would be commandeered, so everything was packed up and storedunder lock and key either in the basement, or in about one small room on eachfloor. (Minutes of the IoA Management Committee (hereafter, IMC), 30/4/40)

After the War

IoA collections were again brought out of the basement and partially re-arrangedduring 1945 (Minutes of the IMC, 4/4/45). A (largely negative) Inspectors’ Reportin 1949 advised that “Steps should be taken forthwith to provide the necessaryqualified staff to catalogue and display the many important specimens [in all itscollections], not as a museum, but as teaching collections available to archaeol-ogical students throughout the country. No definite plans appear to have beenformulated for this work up to the present time”. In October 1949, the AcademicBoard of the IoA (hereafter AB) “unanimously resolved that to secure the scien-tific value of the content of the IoA’s growing collections and to maintain theirutility for teaching & research a regular register clerk was essential”, and later,

363Peter J. Ucko

7. Ceramics forming part of the Petrie Palestinian Collection exhibited by the BritishSchool of Archaeology in Egypt in the refurbished rooms of St. John’s Lodge (1938–39).

in November, a new accessioning system was agreed,10 and half the time of theIoA’s “instructor in drawing” was allocated to work on the IoA’s collections.

But the lease for St John’s Lodge was due to expire in 1951 (extended in1950 to 1953, in 1952 to summer 1955, and in 1954 to April 1956); it was againan acutely worrying time for the IoA as it searched for alternative accommo-dation. Nevertheless—and despite the then current acute lack of space—the IoAcould not resist the offer of the Lachish collection from the Wellcome–MarstonArchaeological Research Expedition (Childe, 1950, p. 59), which was to occupynine rooms, including two in the basement. What is so significant, however, isthe IoA’s acceptance in that connection of the importance of securing adequatespace for artefacts in any new IoA building:

That your Committee note that the acceptance of the benefaction would involvethe provision of space for it in any building acquired as a permanent home for theInstitute of Archaeology; and that the moral obligation of making the collectionsavailable for study would probably involve the services of additional staff at theInstitute. (Minutes of the IMC, 7/2/50)

Corroboration that the IoA of that time did indeed recognize the importanceof its PPC is afforded by its willingness, in 1953, to set up a parallel exhibitionto one mounted by UCL to celebrate Petrie’s Centenary, the former to focus onPetrie’s Palestinian work—“…the best collection of Palestinian antiquities in thiscountry” (Anon, 1953, p. 30)—and the latter on his Egyptian material (Anon,1953). The Institute’s “little sideshow to [UCL’s] great Petrie Centenary” (V.


Gordon Childe to Emery, 22/5/53) was opened by Sir Thomas Kendrick on 22June, and remained open until September; its exhibition catalogue (Kenyon,1953) was intended to “serve as an outline of the Archaeology of Palestine foruse by students” (Minutes of the IMC, 6/10/53), while also guiding the readeraround chronologically sequenced exhibition cases.

By 1954 the IoA had commissioned a survey of the future desirable storageand display needs of the PPC with a view to the whole IoA being moved awayfrom Regent’s Park.11 In this survey it is said that the collection (“in room num-bered 26”) “enjoys considerable prestige in the IoA as it was one of the firstand the largest bequest of this type”. The expectation was that the space in anynew building “would result in the provision of twice the amount of storagespace now used by IoA collections, and this should satisfy all requirements[admittedly also to house the Wellcome–Marston material from Lachish]”(Minutes of the IMC, 11/10/55).

The Collection in Gordon Square

Before the end of October 1957 Kathleen Kenyon had finished packing up mostof the Palestinian Collection: the IoA started to move to its present premises in31–34 Gordon Square, London WCI on 3rd March 195812, and the official open-ing of the IoA took place on 29 April. The second floor Palestinian Gallery dis-played the collection of pottery mainly in tomb groups in glass fronted cabinets,with sherds in cardboard trays on shelves in the lower parts of the cabinets.Everything appeared satisfactory. Neither the IoA’s Development Policy docu-ments for 1962–67 nor that for 1967–72 made any special mention of the PPC.

Nevertheless it was in 1969 that the ‘Palestine Gallery’ was converted intolaboratories/offices, and most of the Palestinian material moved into the base-ment.13 According to the Director:

students of Palestinian archaeology need not be alarmed by the change since thatpart of the Palestinian collection which is not retained on the second floor will beorganised as an accessible unit in the basement. Miss Phillips, who has charge ofthe collection records, will have a small office in the collections room, where shewill be available to help students as necessary. (W. F. Grimes to President of theStudent’s Union, 23/6/69)

All this rearrangement was undertaken against the strenuous objections of DrKathleen Kenyon (by then based at St. Hugh’s College, Oxford), ending in anacrimonious exchange of letters and documents circulated with the Agenda ofthe IMC of l/12/7014, a meeting which concluded:

that the material from the Palestine Collection was being adequately cared for andwas accessible to scholars when required…. There was no question of dispersingthe material.

Yet, some twenty years later, by 1990 (four years after the IoA had becomepart of UCL), the IoA had taken the decision to sell at least a part of the PPCto the Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities of the British Museum(hereafter, BM). Indeed, it was only towards the end of 1990 that, at the verylast moment, a halt was called to all the PPC continuing to be kept in the ‘Renta-crates’ in the IoA’s basement hired by the BM to take the material down to its

365Peter J. Ucko

stores. Instead, the crates (equal to some 50 tea chests) were carefully loadedup by a member of staff and students and driven by them to a Gospel Oak store.

To conclude this part of the story, in late 1991 the boxed material was col-lected and brought back to the IoA (Pers. Comm., Dafydd Griffiths)15, and by1994 just a small part of the Palestinian Collection remained in teaching room209, with the bulk of the Collection located in the IoA’s basement ArtefactStore.16 (Figs. 8–10)

The Recent Past

From the vantage point of the late 1990s, all this may seem quite unbelievable.The impression is undeniable from the Minutes of the IMC and Heads of Aca-demic Departments’ meetings of the 1970s that there was already then a verysignificant lessening of interest in the IoA’s teaching and research with artefac-tual collections. Indeed, “At the end of the session [1977] Judy Phillips retiredfrom the post of Collections Clerk. Her departure severs almost the last remain-ing link with the Institute’s Regent’s Park days… Her post will not be filledbecause of the financial situation” (General and Staff Matters, 1976/77; and refer-ences in Minutes of Heads of Department meetings, to collection problems,9/5/77, 5/10/77). Some (e.g. Pers. Comm., Jonathan Tubb) would also claimthat it was changes in teaching methods and degree structures which led to theimportance of the PPC being seriously neglected for both teaching and research.Others (e.g. Pers. Comm., Peter Parr) deny any less specialist teaching overallin Palestinian archaeology, rather pointing the finger at lack of teaching space—and the basement location of the material—as the cause of the ensuing dimin-ution of the importance of the collection, and still others (e.g. Pers. Comm.,Kay Prag) blame the arrival of undergraduates in the IoA as the cause of theacute pressure on space which led to the highly unsatisfactory relocation inthe basement.

Anyway, by 1980 the IoA had already been busy divesting itself of severalcollections, such as palaeolithic flints from Baker’s Hole in Kent, which itdonated to the BM, but also the very significant Lachish Collection (also fromPalestine, but not formally part of the PPC) which it sold to the same museumfor £15,000. The reasons given for these actions in the Minutes of the IMC of18 November 1980 are worth further consideration:

(NOTE: the Institute has neither the space, nor can it provide the security, to displaythis material, which has now been fully published. If it were to be deposited inthe BM it would still be available for study. Approaches have been made to theInstitute for its return to Israel).

Recommended: i. that the material be passed to the BM rather than be returnedto Israel;ii. that the material be offered for sale, rather than presented, because of the con-

siderable cost incurred by the Institute in maintaining the collection over theyears;

iii. …

Resolved: that the Court Department be approached for permission to sell thematerial to the BM for the sum of £15,000.


8. Part of the Petrie Palestinian Collection housed in the basement Artefact Store of theInstitute of Archaeology, London (1998).

By 1985 (and despite Childe, 1950, p. 59), the IoA was also actively consider-ing allowing the BM’s Oriental Antiquities Department to acquire its holdingsof four Harappan seals, plus the bulk of its Harappan pottery.

Perhaps, therefore, the early 1990s decision was not so extreme as it might

367Peter J. Ucko

9. Large ceramic vessels forming part of the Petrie Palestinian Collection in the over-crowded storage facilities provided by the basement Artefact Store of the Institute of

Archaeology, London (1998).

now appear. IoA Committees (e.g. the AFPC [Academic and Financial PlanningCommittee, constituted in 1986 to take over from the Heads of AcademicDepartments meetings] Working Group on Archaeological Materials in the Insti-tute’s Care) were still in a world which “thought that [the Petra collection]would soon be a ‘dead archive’ and that it could possibly be sold to a museum”,and that “weeding” and “further weeding” of collections was acceptable. Indeed,the above Working Group could refer to a report of 10 years earlier (apparentlywritten by P. Parr in 1984) which had stated “that some groups of material couldbe relinquished, although ideally the Institute should keep it all”. However, theredoes appear to have been a new element, namely that the space judged to berequired by Scientific Archaeology within the IoA should take priority over thespace (and therefore over the intellectual?) needs of Artefactual Archaeology.First, in order to clear space for the construction of scientific laboratories, manyof the artefacts stored in the IoA’s basements were to be moved out to storagein the BM; second, most or much would then be purchased by the BM. Thus(D. Harris to J. Tubb, 4/7/90):

…in due course part of [the Petrie Collection at the Institute of Archaeology] (tobe decided by discussion between representatives of the BM and the Institute) maybe purchased by the BM.

…the BM will in due course return to the Institute part of the collection for pur-poses of teaching and/or display…


10. Small finds forming part of the Petrie Palestinian Collection and in poor conditionstored loose in steel drawers at the Institute of Archaeology, London.

That staff and students of the Institute will have right of access for the purposesof study to any parts of the Petrie Collection that may be permanently acquired bythe BM.

The above should not be interpreted as implying that those artefacts whichwere still to be retained within the IoA were not to be cared for. Indeed, insome ways the building of the Wolfson Laboratories could be seen to haveallowed planning for the better curation and storage of the remaining materialsin the artefact store, and indeed a Working Group on Institute Collections wasestablished (and see Director’s Memorandum to all staff, 1/12/92, where it ismade explicit that “When the Wolfson laboratories were designed, one of theprincipal aims was to create a secure store for the research collections for which

369Peter J. Ucko

the Institute is responsible”). However successful any plan for improved collec-tions care may or may not have been—after all the IoA still did not have anylong-term policy for care of its collections in late 1991 (Minutes of the AFPC4/6/91), and still in 1993 had “no member of staff responsible for the collectionsand no systematic curation of them” (Director of IoA to College CollectionsCommittee Working Party [Strategic Plan] (hereafter, CCCWPSP), 24/6/93)—itis also necessary to understand the context of many of these suggested changesand activities in the early 1990s, namely, that the IoA was under considerablepressure to set up an IoA company to offer a wide range of commercial services.It was only later that the IoA in London and other archaeologically-related organi-zations in Oxford and elsewhere turned their backs on paid authentication anddating work. Pressure on the Institute to derive income by means of its archaeol-ogical collections also decreased from then onwards.

Early in 1993 the Working Group on Institute Collections had come up withrecommendations to AFPC, namely that the major objective at present was tosave space in the Artefact Store, and to achieve this, all teaching materials wereto be removed from the Store, non-teaching material should be assessed rigor-ously either to “remain in the Store or be thrown out/given to small museums”,and objects should be packed more efficiently (“Resolutions taken at the Meetingof the Working Group on Institute Collections, Monday 18 January 1993”).Shortly thereafter, the Director, Professor D. R. Harris, “proposed that the PPCshould become part of the College Collections, which might in the long runsecure better storage and display conditions for it” (Minutes of the AFPC,18/5/93; 16/6/93).

The Present

Contrary to almost all Petrie’s hopes for his Palestinian collection, and contraryto Wheeler’s (1934, see above) written expectations—namely that the collectionwould come to the IoA “provided that it can be housed and displayed under theideal conditions present at St John’s Lodge”—and contrary to the IoA’s avowedintentions for its artefactual collections in its promised new building, a consider-able part of the collection remains in poor conditions of storage, only poorlyconserved and catalogued (but see below for recent activity to improve thesituation), and almost inaccessible (see e.g. Price Williams, 1977, pp. 5–6),“messy and impenetrable” (Pers. Comm., Kay Prag) , almost entirely similar tothe situation pre 1934 (and see Arnold-Forster, 1989, pp. 12–13).17 This is allthe more tragic since Petrie’s excavated material may well be the best availablefor study for the foreseeable future; however, although two of the sites havebeen very badly damaged in recent years (Wright, n.d., p. 9, p. 10), and thecosts of any modern excavation at this scale, are likely to be prohibitive (PriceWilliams, 1977, p. ix) Tell Fera is currently the focus of new enquiry throughboth surface and excavation activity.

Since 1996, the IoA’s conservation teaching has included a new (second year)course on Collections Care. As a result, over the past two years or so, someconservation of the pottery and (particularly copper alloy and ferrous) metalsmall finds has been undertaken as part of undergraduate and Master’s Conser-vation exercises and training, as well as some repackaging as part of Master’sMuseum Studies training (and see Arnold-Forster, 1989, p. 13) (Figs. 10 and


11). Typically such conservation work has involved the reversing of previoustreatments which have proved to be unstable—such as, on an open-mouthedearthenware vessel from Tell Fara, the taking down of joins to remove deteriorat-ing adhesive, subsequently to clean it, to test for salts and desalinate wherenecessary, and finally to reconstruct the vessel with any necessary gap-filling. Itis important to realize that “the adhesive chosen for reconstruction was cellulosenitrate (HMG)… chosen because… the Petrie Collection store may have fluctu-ating temperature and relative humidity, and this adhesive is suitable enough towithstand these fluctuations” (Muros, 1998) (Fig. 12). Most of these undertak-ings have served useful functions, such as cleaning and stabilisation of materials,but (as with any set of student exercises) there have also been some unfortunateshortcomings, such as accession numbering being removed from objects duringtreatment, and being written instead on packaging, which itself has then provedunsuitable for the available storage space. In this way some objects, laterremoved from the packaging, have ended up without their original identifi-cation.

Perhaps somewhat ironically as the IoA has been teaching Museum Studiesfor some time, it has taken until 1998 for the IoA to attempt to catch up withother UCL departments in formulating ethical and practical positions regardingthe acquisition, documentation and publication of its collections, quite apartfrom determining attitudes towards loans and disposals of objects. Indeed, it isa new experience for most of the IoA’s prehistorians, heritage and MuseumStudies staff to learn that their colleagues in sub-disciplines such as Classicaland Egyptian Archaeology, do not necessarily share their view that, almost bydefinition, personal collecting, exchange and even sale of items should be seento be illegitimate practice, no longer to be considered appropriate behaviour.

The Future

UCL has now agreed to support the IoA in its recognition of the urgent actionneeded to curate the PPC adequately, by supplying the funding for a totally newdisplay racking system (£14,000) which will enable most of the collection tobe viewed behind glass in store, and with a selection on display in a secure areawithin the IoA. This racking will be capable of being dismantled and re-erectedin any new building which it is hoped the College will secure for the displayand storage of the PMEA, where it would ideally be joined by the Palestinianmaterial and other of the IoA’s important collections.

As when Petrie (1930b) and Duncan (1930) concocted their Palestinian Pot-tery Corpus, so today many of the same problems obtain (i.e. that there aresome 66 large vessels, 270 medium-sized vessels, bowls and chalices, 4000 smallexamples—to say nothing of 14,000 or so individual sherds and flints—as wellas 75 equid and other bones, and some 4200 small finds).

When only a few groups of remains are known, a complete publication of eachgroup is practicable. When hundreds of tomb-groups have to be dealt with, suchcomplete visualising is impossible… There is, then, no re-source for publicationexcept a corpus of forms… Beyond this lies the method of detailed study of eachpot on a larger scale, with a full description; this is very desirable, but the spaceof these full requirements renders it impossible to use such an account for regis-tration of form every day in field and camp. (Petrie, 1930b, p. 3)

371Peter J. Ucko

11. Improved storage conditions achieved for small finds, in the Petrie Palestinian Collec-tion, after interventions by students as part of their Collections Care and Master’s Conser-

vation courses at the Institute of Archaeology, London, since 1996.


12. Published plan of Tell Fara tomb 1026B and location of open mouthed earthenwarevessel within it (Starkey and Harding, 1932, pls. 45, 83); and vessel 1026B before and

after recent conservation (1998) at the Institute of Archaeology.

373Peter J. Ucko

The problem is that, whereas Petrie’s point may well have considerable meritwhen limited to an observation regarding the situation in “field and camp”, itcamouflages a much more important point of methodological principle whenextended to the mode of publication and analysis used in archaeological classi-fication of pottery. Thus, Petrie’s and Duncan’s Corpus adopted a methoddesigned to deal with large numbers of objects and, by denying the importanceof individual examples, and by ignoring the evidence for variety, managed to‘cope’ with the archaeological evidence enough to be able to suggest chrono-logical developments and typological change. The approach was one based ongross distinctions between ‘what looks similar’ or ‘dissimilar’, thereby under-playing the potential importance of analysis of ‘variety’ (and see below).

College has now also raised funds to employ a specialist cataloguer foreighteen months to work through the Palestinian material object by object, col-lating the documentation on the objects themselves with the written material(publications, tomb and site card indexes, notebooks, letters, photographs, etc)and to enter this onto a computer database to improve on existing paper andcard records (Fig. 13).18 The aim of the work will be first to produce a publish-able hand list of the material, showing what is held by the IoA and by the BM,with excavation and publication details. During this documentation researchphase, detailed information will be sought about the dispersed parts of the orig-inal PPC and, while so doing, a conservation condition survey will be under-taken. At the moment it is only through reports from the Department of Conser-vation of the BM (because of the “permanent loan” status of those parts of thecollection given to them by the PMEA in the 1960s and 1970s, and see below)that it is known that some of the copper objects currently located in the BMhave active corrosion and/or are fragile, but even this information is only of ageneralized kind.

As a result of the generosity of the Stockman Family Foundation, digital imageswill be made of each object in the PPC, and these will be linked to the databaseto complement the textual data. The finished database, complete with pictureswill, in turn, be distributed via the Internet. Provided that other museums’ col-lections are recorded and combined with the IoA’s digital archive, this shouldbecome a truly comprehensive and international resource from whichresearchers will be able to see images. As a result, tomb groups which maycurrently be housed in two or more separate museum collections will be ableto be searched, via a shared Internet database, as if they were part of a singlecollection. It may also be possible to ‘virtually’ reunite objects that belongtogether through searching and querying this combined digital catalogue, thuscreating a “virtual teaching collection” (Boast and Lury, 1996). It is around thisproposed renewed activity regarding the documentation, conservation and sub-sequent display of the PPC that a series of international colloquia are currentlybeing planned on “Aspects of the Material Culture of the Bronze Age: a studyof the PPC”. One result may be the creation of a touring collection—both ofreal objects and virtual ‘reproductions’—demonstrating the importance of thearchaeological heritage of the whole Palestinian region, and how much futureinvestigation is still necessary to capitalize as fully as possible on Sir FlindersPetrie’s pioneering work in the region.


13. Wooden cabinet with Sir Flinders Petrie’s original tomb cards currently housed inthe Artefact Store in the basement of the Institute of Archaeology, London.

375Peter J. Ucko

14. Commemorative plaque dedicated to the memory of Mrs Wharrie in Room 209 ofthe Institute of Archaeology, Gordon Square, London.

Discussion

Museum collections often represent the generosity of past and current generations.Donations, bequests and other acquisitions are made in the expectation that theywill be preserved in perpetuity. As a key function of a museum is to preserve acollection in perpetuity, there is a strong presumption against the disposal of anyitem from a museum’s permanent collection.

However, there are circumstances in which disposal may be appropriate. Forexample, certain objects might be more appropriately transferred to anothermuseum for reasons of care, access or context. In such circumstances, the disposalwould be in the public interest…

Today’s ‘orthodoxy’, in the form of the above Museums Association Codes ofEthics (Museums Association, In Press, p. 9), can act as a convenient startingpoint to show how the example of the PPC raises a series of wide, interestingquestions which deserve further discussion. Perhaps sometimes it takes scaressuch as that over the PPC for progress to be made. However it must be stressedat the outset that this is not the place to consider whether, and/or in what way,universities in general may be considered to be, or are in fact, public institutions.Nor is this the occasion to try to generalize from the case of the PPC to alluniversity museums/collections, whatever their size or resource base. Indeed itwould be stupid to attempt to do so, not least because the nature of the legalownership of specific collections will differ from case to case and, as will beseen below, in many cases may not even have been established at this time.Nevertheless, consideration of some of the issues concerning the PPC are ofmore than local interest and indeed may serve as something of a corrective to thespate of current Codes and Guidelines which appear to promote retrospectivedefinitions of such things as ‘collections’, ‘museums’—and their perceivedfunctions/duties—as if such pronouncements may serve to solve problems nowor in the long term future. Thus, for example, the archaeological material housed


in the IoA may be seen by those such as the Museums Association as ‘collec-tions’, as opposed to forming part of a University ‘Museum’, but such a distinc-tion cannot be allowed to detract from the point at issue in this case study,namely that it was Petrie’s conviction that the core of his Palestinian Collectionshould be safely housed in the IoA for posterity; Petrie’s perception was clear,that a University Collection afforded more protection than a Museum such asthe BM.

Are the Supposed Interests of ‘Perpetuity’ less likely to Concern Managers ofUniversity-Based Collections/Museums than Managers of Other Kinds ofMuseums?

At the time of Wheeler’s reassurances of September 1935 (see above), he wroteas Director of the IoA:

…the University would not, I think, have been prepared to tie itself down in per-petuity by conditions which, however just at the present time, might in futuregenerations become a handicap rather than a help. We have all of us had bitterexperience of the difficulties inherent in the attachment of rigid conditions to largeand important collections: and in the present instance I must beg of you with allassurance to place your trust in the honesty and common sense of a Universitybody which includes the heads of the principal Colleges, the principal teachersof archaeology within the University, and a number of distinguished “outsiders”.(Mortimer Wheeler to Flinders Petrie, 27/9/35)

In fact it is clear that Petrie was far from falling for Wheeler’s appeal, he wassimply forced by circumstances to comply.19 Should he have done so? And, hasanything really changed with UCL’s restructuring of its collections’ responsi-bilities?

Over the past twenty years or so UCL has struggled to develop policy guide-lines regarding the ethics of selling objects/paintings/specimens through its Col-lege Collections Committee (hereafter, CCC: see Smith, 1993 for the Commit-tee’s history). During 1992 and 1993 a CCCWPSP was “to draft a joint StrategicPlan for all the College’s museums and collections under the Chairmanship ofSir David Wilson” (Smith, 1993, p. 4). Judging from the Minutes of the AFPCfor 20/l/93 and 18/5/93 CCCWPSP’s assumed remit to survey all of IoA’s collec-tions for itself—despite the CCC’s previously Minuted opinion (7/12/92, 7(f))that:

some collections in the IoA are not relevant to the remit of the Working Party orthe Committee, as they are the direct responsibilities of the Director of the Institute

was deeply resented. Indeed the CCCWPSP’S own Minutes record (27/4/93)that:

The Institute of Archaeology was not making progress with its [own, internal]review and had not submitted any information to the Working Party, [and itresolved] that information concerning the Institute of Archaeology Collections besubmitted to the Working Party.

But, presumably, the greatest threat perceived by the IoA—the still relativelyrecent recruit to UCL—was Sir David Wilson’s barely concealed conviction(even before any discussion had taken place) that:

377Peter J. Ucko

The Strategic Plan should seek to recommend that those collections which arecurrently under the control of individual Departments ought to be regarded as Col-lege properties and that their disposal and dispersal should be carried out in accord-ance with commonly accepted museum ethical principles [, and] that a structureshould be established which removes control of the Collections from the Head ofDepartment… (Minutes of the CCCWPSP, 20/1/93, 3(1) and 24/4/93, 3)

Despite such internal UCL difficulties, and the failure to have the view(27/4/93) accepted by higher bodies “that a structure should be establishedwhich removes control of the Collections from the Heads of Departments andpasses it to a Trust”. Acquisition and Disposal policies do now exist for thePMEA, as well as for College’s zoological, geological, comparative anatomy andart collections. Indeed it was the fact that the IoA had joined UCL in 1986(with the concomitant questions as to who was responsible for Departmentalcollections) which in 1993 (no doubt also influenced by Arnold-Forster’s (1989)highly critical comments on the management and condition of the IoA’s collec-tions within her report on the collections of the University of London as awhole) which prevented the dispersal of the PPC to the BM.

In the event UCL decided against a system of independent management ofthe collections by Trustees, and has created a Centre for Museum, Conservationand Heritage Studies which is responsible for management of the College Col-lections as well as co-ordinating interdisciplinary teaching and research in thesefields. The Centre has a College-wide brief and employs a Curator of Collections,to whom curatorial staff jointly report as well as to the relevant Heads of Depart-ments. In addition, a new Committee structure facilitates greater Protection andfurther development for collections including, especially, scrutiny of any sug-gested disposals, and reporting to the UCL Council.

Although ultimately the UCL Council (the collections’ “governing body”)could take a decision to dispose of material, some colleagues would argue thatbecause any such a decision would now go through a series of proceduresapproved by the museums profession as a whole, the situation is acceptable.Others would strongly disagree that the measures taken are really sufficient.Some University museums, galleries and collections have been a source of con-cern to other museums, galleries and libraries because of their apparent attitudeto the collections they hold. Recently, some universities, it seems, have viewedtheir collections as assets that can, on occasion, be sold to fund other edu-cational initiatives (see e.g. Chong, 1995). This is exemplified by the sale byNewcastle University of its ethnographic collections, by London’s Royal Hol-loway of some of its paintings, and most recently by Keele University ofimportant mathematical books from a bequest. The embarrassing questionremains whether such sales would have been prevented by any different univer-sity structure short of independent Trustees being the legal owners of suchuniversity collections. It is difficult to think in the instance of the PPC (or, forthat matter, the PMEA) that it can really be claimed that there has been anyadvance on Wheeler’s plea, quoted above, to trust in the quality and honestyof a University body.

Distrust of a University’s ‘guarantee’ cannot, on its own, be sufficient reasonfor university collections to be passed over to non-university museums. In thefirst place, many local museums have disposed of collections by some meansor another and, as is well established, the Acts and Charters of national museums


can be modified. The world of the national museum is also one of permanentloan, exchange, losses, even, sometimes, mismanagement and lost accession rec-ords (for striking evidence of this with regard to museum curation of humanskeletal remains, see Fforde (1992), and Appendix A). In many of the instancesreferred to in the PPC case study, it was problems of space20 and/or securitywhich led to trouble. Petrie’s attempts to secure adequate space and securityfor his Palestinian collections in St John’s Lodge led him to a distrust, whichresulted first in one further dispersal of his pottery collections in Jerusalem, andeventually to Lady Petrie’s reluctant donation of gold artefacts to severalmuseums whose security was not suspect. It is of course a sad commentary onthe state of affairs even in the 1950s that the IoA had not managed to come toterms with the security ‘needs’ of its own archaeological collections—thus lead-ing, eventually, to ‘permanent loans’ of some Palestinian and other excavatedmaterial to the BM.

So far, therefore, in this discussion perhaps all that can be concluded is thatin the future universities (like all other institutions having collections) shouldput in place checks and balances to ensure that collections managementdecisions, and in particular those concerning disposals, are taken collectivelyand with appropriate impartial advice (and see Warren, n.d. 1999; MuseumsAssociation, In Press, p. 9). But if the above is really the whole story, in caseswhere (local or national) museums can offer more security and have morestorage/exhibition space available than does a university, is there any good rea-son why the collection(s) concerned should not simply be handed over (therebysaving the university both space and staff salaries)? For one IoA Director, atleast, the answer appeared clear:

As for collections, the Institute cannot and should not compete with national orlocal museums. The complete assemblage from scientifically excavated sites shouldbe kept intact at the nearest efficient museum or in a national museum. So that ingeneral the Institute does not aim at assembling such a body of pottery, flints orbronzes as would in itself form a fit subject for a doctoral dissertation. To thisthere is, however, one exception. The Institute possesses the most representativePalestinian collection in Europe…

For the rest, the Institute’s aim has been to assemble teaching collections of sherds,implements and ornaments sufficient to familiarise students with the look and thefeel of the types discussed in the lectures… (Childe, 1950, pp. 58–59)

Most academics usually refer to both literature and actual practice in stressingthat they need collections both for teaching and for research (and see Arnold-Forster, 1989, pp. 4—6). Indeed, in the mid 1950s, the teaching argumentappeared to have been accepted for it was the Universities Grants Committeewhich was actually insisting that university teaching collections should not beallowed to grow into museums!

However, one of the problems with the teaching argument is that educativeaims and methods have a habit of changing. As has been seen, it may well bethat it was changed methods and teaching emphases which led to a vibrant,“virtually daily” (Pers. Comm., Kay Prag) use of the Palestinian collections inthe 1950s and 1960s turning later into only sporadic use of the archaeologicalmaterial. No longer was the same detailed examination of Palestinian artefactsjudged to be essential. Changes in teaching methods may have profound ramifi-

379Peter J. Ucko

cations (and see Arnold-Forster, 1989, p. 4). Thus, while a ‘hands on’ approachto teaching about the past remains popular (at least for primary and secondaryschool, and informal teaching), this does indeed distinguish the BM from, forexample, UCL’s PMEA. One day, however, the BM may modify what it offersand make new use of old space in appreciation of such teaching, and this distinc-tion may then disappear. Alternatively, UCL may come to agree with those who,in the university context, may question whether it should be the role of a uni-versity museum at all to concentrate time and space to the education of non-adults. Another problem with the teaching argument for universitymuseums/collections is that it can be used in two ways, with opposite results.On the one hand, for example, UK archaeologists of the 1950s argued that uni-versity students needed to be able to study full sequences of materials (whetherfrom tomb groups, or ‘representatives’ of typological development). On theother, Petrie and other influential archaeologists of earlier times used the argu-ment that to disperse items from collections was a good educational strategy.

(Nowadays, emphasis on the teaching, as opposed to research, role of univer-sity collections might well argue in favour of keeping material unaccessioned(and see Besterman, 1992 for much relevant discussion); this might lead to lackof protection but it would allow for the flexibility which (as Wheeler hadwarned so many years earlier) is essentially necessary to be able to provide forthe kinds of changing teaching priorities reviewed above.

Of course, most academics would agree that any rigid distinction betweenteaching and research cannot be maintained, and indeed the wholeresearch/educational relationship may become convoluted and complex. Thiscan be seen by another example of strong disagreement between Kathleen Ken-yon and IoA’s Directors. In opposing the sale of the IoA collection from Lachish,Kenyon made two claims: first, that to retain it would make the IoA the bestresearch centre in Europe for the study of the archaeology of Palestine and,second, that type specimens from that collection should be kept together, wouldfill Late Bronze Age gaps in material already held in the IoA, and that the wholematerial should be made available to students in London. Ironically, at least inthe context of the discussion which follows in the next section, at the sametime Kenyon also favoured using ‘duplicates’ and ‘unimportant’ groups forexchanges with other museums/collections in order to make teaching andresearch collections more representative.

Perhaps the essential problem with any argument dependent on the needs ofteaching and/or research is that so much depends on matters of judgement. Forexample, in 1959, the then IoA Director, Professor W. Grimes wrote (to SirHenry Dale, 16/10/59):

to say that we are all agreed that it would be a good thing that the [Lachish ancient]Letter should be transferred to the BM which is the appropriate place for it. TheInstitute’s attitude to collections of this sort is that only teaching material is relevantto its purpose and we would not wish to keep anything that would be more appro-priately placed in a public museum.

If therefore in the course of dealing with this material other objects should befound which ought to be at the BM we shall be very ready to part with them…


For at least three reasons, it is very doubtful that one would find such an easyconsensus today. To begin with, many believe, rightly or wrongly, that it ismuch more likely for a researcher to obtain permission to carry out scientificanalysis of material held in university museums than for material in other kindsof museum. Second, the ‘fashion’ of today would rather be to recognize theuniqueness of early archaeological collections, and that they will never be ableto be repeated. Indeed, Nick Merriman (Pers. Comm.) warns: “The pendulummay be swinging back again toward artefacts studies and the study of the historyof collections, and those universities that have got rid of their teaching collec-tions may come bitterly to regret it”. Third, Merriman continues, universitiesneed to adopt a long-term view of their collections as potential assets; there isevidence that only now do those responsible for university museums appear tobe realizing the potential benefit that such collections may be to communityinvolvement in university affairs.

What Units of Material Culture Should be Kept Together as MeaningfulComplexes in Museum Displays and/or Stored Collections?

In several of his early volumes Petrie (e.g. Petrie, 1930a, 1931–34) lists thoseinstitutions to which he had sent archaeological material from the three mainsites discussed above. In several cases, tomb groups were not kept intact (e.g.Price Williams, 1977, p. 1). One of the largest collections—apart from his ownin St John’s Lodge—was that deposited originally in the Palestine ArchaeologicalMuseum (now the Rockefeller Museum, part of the Israel Department ofAntiquities). Other objects were distributed widely, between a considerablenumber of museums in Scotland and England, in New York, Dallas (Texas) andGreenville (South Carolina), in Sydney and Melbourne (Australia), and in Kyotoand Tokyo (Japan) (but see Price Williams (1977, p. 3) for details of inaccuraciesof some of these published distribution lists, and Harden (1953), p. 10) for whatmay happen to such distributed collections). Dispersal in this way could be laidat the door of attempting to guarantee ongoing financial support for the nextseasons’ work. Equally, however, it was based on the notion that there wereancient objects of material culture which could be considered, and thereforetreated, as ‘duplicate material’ and thus—by dispersal—facilitate education inmany different parts of the world. The notion of ‘duplicates’ depended onPetrie’s and others’ concept of ‘pottery type’ (the approach to which may wellhave derived from 19th Century botanical, biological and geological clas-sification systems, and also from the classification practices of Pitt–Rivers (Pers.Comm., Tim Schadla–Hall).

For Petrie and others of his colleagues and disciples (including not leastKathleen Kenyon in the 1950s), the ‘type series’ was seen as what Tim Schadla–Hall (Pers. Comm.) has characterized as “the core which needed to be kept—rather like books in a library—as a key reference—a distillation of knowledge atthe time: as a cornerstone of knowledge”. Petrie saw his Palestine Collection as:

a case parallel with the great type collections of zoology or botany which are scien-tifically inviolable. (F. P. to M. Wheeler, 30/8/35)

It would be wrong to suggest that there is consensus amongst archaeologistsregarding the nature of what constitutes a (pottery) ‘type’, those that still make

381Peter J. Ucko

use of the term do so with a rather different meaning from Petrie’s. Thus, forClive Orton, who sees the idea of ‘type’ as an indispensable tool in archaeolog-ical research (Orton, 1996), the definition of types depends on the questionsbeing asked and the variables thought to be of interest. In other words, in anycorpus of materials there is no single immutable type series, but potentiallydifferent type series created by different people for different purposes. Toaccept such an approach should—in an ideal world with unlimited staff and allthe space that one could wish for—imply that everything should be preserved,so that those who come after will be able to record the variables that they thenconsider relevant.21

Others would disagree with the relevance of the mathematical approach towhat constitutes a ‘type’ and they consider each individual material object asbearing a uniquely individual witness of the past, whether by virtue of its ownidentity, the technology involved in its manufacture, its ‘style’, or even by thevery fact of it being ‘similar’ to other objects of the ‘same kind’. These colleaguesapproach every pot on the assumption that, by definition, it is unique, and thatsuch uniqueness is itself of the utmost importance. To which Orton responds:

Yes, there is a sense in which every pot is unique. If we search we can always findminor differences to distinguish one from another. But what do such differencesrepresent? In many cases, they may be just the ‘natural’ variability inherent in ahuman-made product, even in the present day. (Pers. Comm., Clive Orton; and seeOrton, 1980, p. 29)

But here, too, if one accepts that no object is ‘redundant’, superfluous in termsof its variety, its uniqueness in the archaeological record, one is surely forcedto conclude that if all is special, then the implication must be that all shouldbe retained.

The same conclusion derives from the recognition by many archaeologiststoday that the questions which archaeologists ask of their material culture dis-coveries are framed by the interests of the present (and therefore continuallyopen to change and modification). All material therefore needs to be carefullypreserved, none to be consigned to a ‘duplicate’ category of the potentiallydisposable. As already recognized, there are practical reasons (such as cost,space, etc.) why this has not generally happened. All the more important, there-fore, are the new techniques outlined above which should be able to achievesomething to counteract Petrie’s view of the nature of material culture whichallowed both for dispersal and sale (see next section) yet at the same time asaffording him the possibility of insisting on the inalienable nature of any ‘typeseries’, and which resulted (for both educational and financial reasons) in objectsbecoming scattered ‘freely’ all over the world.

Today’s question which needs to be answered is whether the currentapproach can really be condoned when it has led to archaeologists in somecountries such as the United Kingdom22 disposing of some classes of archaeolog-ical evidence—for example, animal bones, what are considered to be ‘repetitive’assemblages such as tiles, bricks, kiln waste23 some flint waste—presumably onthe assumption that all is already known of any interest from ‘type collections’of such material, while ‘small finds’ tend to be seen as ‘unique’.

However dubious such practice may be, it is perhaps potentially less danger-ous than what may be the consequence of one side of a current theoretical


debate. This debate focuses on whether or not it should really matter if amaterial culture object, or archaeological site, is lost or destroyed. On the onehand, there are those who believe that the past is not a renewable resource,and therefore that sites and objects should be preserved and conserved ‘forposterity’ (whether all, or just those judged by some means to be the ‘mostimportant’). On the other, there are those (e.g. Holtorf, In Press) who point outthat whenever some object or site has been lost or destroyed, theirsignificance(s) have in fact not been lost to the society concerned, merely trans-ferred to another object (whether of similar or different form or characteristics)or on to another site.

On this basis it might be argued about the PPC that even if it were to bedestroyed, whichever/whatever ‘present’ happened to be concerned would fab-ricate its own tangible material culture as evidence of the Philistines, or who-ever. Such a consequence would run counter to what many academic and muse-ologist colleagues believe: that (museum) collections will be made use ofaccording to the “paradigms of the times (socio-economic, intellectual, etc) inwhich they are made, and that we can respect these—and leave their results inplace as far as possible” (Pers. Comm., Tim Schadla–Hall).

Nothing better can be chosen to demonstrate the various complexities whichhave been reviewed above in this section than what must be the most ironicof all the developments regarding the PPC—the role (no doubt unwittingly)played by UCL.

It is clear that Petrie—in addition to keeping the bulk of his collection inUCL’s basements until he could find a secure home for it—kept other examplesof his excavated material (including objects from Tell Jemmeh, Tell Fara andTell Ajjul) within the PMEA.24 It is likely that these were those items that Petriethought of as “duplicates” (Flinders Petrie to Mortimer Wheeler, 17/7/34).

When the IoA became part of UCL in 1986 one might have imagined that atleast these two parts of the PPC could now be united. Not so, for the time beingat least, as all25 the Palestinian items housed in UCL’s PMEA were transferred‘on permanent loan’ to the BM’s Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities intwo batches, in 1965/1966 and 1976.26 The only reason known for the firsttransfer (“whether permanent loan or gift, or even sale, if it were necessary”(R. D. Barnett to W. B. Emery, 30/3/65)), was that “it would appear that thismaterial is not of great interest to your [Egyptology] Department, but would bevery valuable in this Museum, where we are receiving increasing numbers ofstudents wishing to study Palestinian antiquities, and we are making arrange-ments to open a Palestinian Room in the near future” (R. D. Barnett to W. B.Emery, 30/3/65). The official reason for the later transfer had been “that theDepartment of Egyptology was not fully competent to deal scientifically withits small collection of material from Palestinian sites and that there was no likeli-hood of [it] being able to do so in the near future” (H. S. Smith report 19/3/76).

Ironically, this latter material had first been offered to, and refused by, theIoA (Pers. Comm., Harry Smith). Even more ironical, perhaps, is the currentinterpretation of what can and should be done: “in law there is no such ideaas permanent loan—indeed the material can be taken back if anyone so wishes”(Pers. Comm., Tim Schadla–Hall).27 In a strange way it may be somewhat reassur-ing that things are indeed changing with regard to the curation of archaeological

383Peter J. Ucko

material culture collections: ‘permanent loan’ may imply all measure of things,that is excluding ‘permanency’!

Should (genuine) Antiquities never be Sold?

It is no secret that Petrie saw nothing wrong in selling (what he consideredto be ‘duplicate’) material from his excavations in order to provide for futurearchaeological activity or merely to survive (e.g. Petrie, 1931, pp. 132–133;Drower, 1995, p. 332, p. 374), especially during:

the lean years (for want of a better term) from 1887–1891, which were lean in thesense that Petrie had to rely throughout on the private support of friends and oncontributions in return for antiquities from his excavations…

He carried on his work from year to year on a very small private income… [derivingin part from] the fruits of the lucky dip which any season’s excavations must be.(Glanville, 1953, ms 6, p. 28)

What is much less well known are the complex negotiations which often hadto take place (sometimes necessitating hiding the nature of a sale under theguise of a ‘grant’, or whatever). For example, in December 1948, Lady Petriewrote to those museums in the United Kingdom which, she believed, had pre-viously financially supported Petrie’s activities, listing objects from Egypt avail-able for distribution in return for further financial support, but also saying, “Ifyou are interested in Palestine, I have Gaza small bronzes, potsherds, etc atInst. Archaeol. Regents Park, similarly awaiting distribution…”. We know fromcorrespondence that it was in this way (i.e by ‘grant’ of £20) that the Depart-ment of Antiquities, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, acquired a “parcel of [5 scar-abs] and [15 alabasters] waiting a long time to [be] collected from the Anti-quaries…” (D. Harden to Lady Petrie, 13/l/49), that the Fitzwilliam Museum,Cambridge, paid “£110 as a subscription to the London School of EgyptianArchaeology” for 6 pieces of Hyksos jewellery, and that the Department of Egyp-tian and Assyrian Antiquities of the BM bought “29 articles of jewellery fromTell el-Ajjul for £367”.

Petrie and others would no doubt have considered debate about the ethicsof the sale of antiquities to be a sterile waste of time: ‘duplicate’ objectsabounded, there to be exploited to assist being able to afford to live, as a meanstowards meeting the costs of future publication and future archaeological inves-tigation, and no doubt to assist education about the past (but see Harden, 1953,p. 110). However, at least by selling items “out of the public domain”, by sellingthem from the IoA premises which itself housed many collections—and possiblyalso by not devoting money raised by their sale exclusively to the acquisitionof further objects for, or conservation of, the PPC—at least Lady Petrie wouldhave to be judged out of order by today’s standards of the Museums AssociationEthics Committee (Museums Association, 1996). Nowadays, collections are seento be cultural, not cash assets.

Maybe, but the PPC case study raises some important questions at least aboutrecent practice, reveals some of the complexities of sales and acquisitions, andit has certainly highlighted the fact that the sale of excavated antiquities is partof a long established tradition: it is anything but a new phenomenon of the1990s. Take for example the IoA’s dealings with the BM over the material from


Lachish—which it sold for £15,000 “because of the considerable cost incurredby the Institute in maintaining the collection over the years” (see above for fullquotation and source); and yet this material had been given to it as a ‘gift’ fromThe Wellcome Trust (and see Childe, 1950, p. 59). Indeed the status of ‘gift’seems to have worried the then Director of the IoA, Professor John Evans, whenhe successfully received permission for the sale from The Wellcome, and hadalso successfully completed negotiations with the BM:

The money we shall receive from the BM will be only a fraction of the currentmarket value of the collection, but our main concern was to find a suitable homefor it, and we should certainly not have considered selling it on the open market.(J.D. Evans to P. 0. Williams, 11/12/80)

The current orthodoxies (as represented by Registration Guidelines(Museums & Galleries Commission, 1995) and/or the Museums Association(1996)) about the disposal (or deaccessioning) of (genuine) antiquities agreethat decisions to dispose of items should not be made with the principal aimof generating funds, for whatever purpose. Both agree also that once a decisionto dispose of an item has been taken, the priority should be to retain the itemwithin the public domain. However, thereafter, there may be differences ofemphasis: Registration Guidelines (Section 4.2.5.e) state “and with this in viewit will be offered first, by exchange, gift or sale [my italics] to Registeredmuseums before disposal to other interested individuals or organizations is con-sidered”, while the Advice from the Museums Association Ethics Committee(Museums Association, 1996, Section 5D), is that “the sale of items from museumcollections is not recommended, even if the sale is to a registered museum”.

Sales of items between museums or universities emphasise the financialdimension of the material concerned rather than their academic importance.28

As Besterman (1992) has argued, ethical considerations regarding disposals ofobjects from museum collections are at least as important as are practical con-siderations. This argument gains added emphasis within the context of effortsto address the problem of the looting of sites and the international antiquitiestrade: in such a context it would be counter-productive for archaeologists andmuseum curators to be seen to ‘sell’ collections to other institutions, howeverlegitimately ‘authentic’ the material.

A further fear is that any acceptance of the legitimacy of sale of antiquities(even to and from museums) focuses attention on ways to price such objects.Of course, this is not the only field of monetary matters into which archaeol-ogists have entered (e.g. see Carver, 1996; Carman et al., In Press), and thesenon-museum/collection-based examples may also be worrying. Thus, it is nowalmost commonplace for archaeologists to assume that it is indeed their job torank the relative importance of archaeological sites according to non-archaeolog-ical criteria such as aesthetics, rarity, and so on. If the legitimacy of such relative,qualitative, assessments, regarding ‘importance’ are to be accepted, then it issurely inevitable that this will come also to colour attitudes towards the disposalof objects, and vice versa (and see Besterman, 1992). Indeed, questions aboutintrinsic as opposed to contextual value were already appearing (withoutdiscussion) as the basis of (in)action regarding insurance and protection of thePPC at the beginning of the Second World War: “as a collection they were irre-

385Peter J. Ucko

placeable, [but] most of the objects were not intrinsically of such value as tojustify” special protection (see full quotation and source, above).

There may be a further potential danger. If non-archaeological criteria are tobe accepted as the basis for assessing the importance of the various kinds ofevidence that comes from the past, then especial guard must be taken againstany monetary value imposed on objects unconsciously also colouring views oftheir importance for interpreting the past. Care must be taken that what isconsidered to be the relative importance for archaeological interpretation of,for example, pottery as compared to small finds, for example, does not becomecompromised by supposed financial value.

Final Remarks

This review of the history and varied happenings which have characterizedhandling of the Petrie Palestinian Collection has raised several important mattersfor debate. But the vagaries recounted above do not represent the end of thematter, neither for the IoA nor for Near Eastern collections.

Indeed, several Near Eastern archaeologists would claim that the IoA’s collec-tions contain material from, for example, Syria and Jordan which is even moreimportant than the PPC (Pers. Comm., Peter Parr). Some of this material derivesfrom surveys and others from recent excavations. The claim would be that muchof this material is contextually much better documented than the PPC canever become.

The first point to be noted is that Petrie’s problems regarding the funding offieldwork for future years and post-excavation analyses, is no less a problemtoday. What is perhaps remarkable is that the ‘sale’ of objects, as in the pastoften hiding the nature of such sale under the guise of ‘grants’ or promisedstudy arrangements, continue unabated today. Thus, for example, Parr’s recentexcavations at Tell Nebi Mend in Syria were financed in part from the Universityof Melbourne’s payment of £12,000 which afforded that University access tomaterial for a postgraduate research student, as well as final disposal in its collec-tion of some of the excavated Tell Nebi Mend material.

Second, the legal ownership of some of these collections could probably notbe easily established (and see Arnold-Forster, 1989, p. 13), any more perhapsthan could the legal ownership of the PPCS. In some cases it is not knownwhether the country of origin does, or does not, expect that material willeventually be returned to it.

Third, several of these collections are relatively large and available IoA storageand/or display space for artefacts is relatively small. Currently at least the exca-vator of Tell Nebi Mend is simply assuming on the basis of his experience ofthe IoA’s past attitude to its collections, that the IoA would not wish to becomeresponsible for the long term curation of this collection; indeed he hasapproached the BM to take it (Pers. Comm., Peter Parr)! Unlike so often in thepast with regard to the BM, there is no financial aspect to the proposed arrange-ment: meanwhile, however, the material itself and an associated researcheroccupy considerable IoA space.

Thus, far from being a dead issue of the 1930s, of the 1950s, or even of theearly 1990s (e.g. Arnold-Forster, 1989, p. 13), the very same problems, contradic-


tions (e.g. Childe, 1950) and concerns which surrounded the PPC appear tocontinue today and into the new millennium.

It is apparent that there is no agreed policy on disposals… [The Lachish sale set]a precedent that may have widespread implications for all university collections…The British Museum is an appropriate home for collections of this kind but disposalsof any sort raise important questions in relation to the future of all university collec-tions. (Arnold-Forster, 1989, p. 13)

Nothing qualitative seems to have been resolved regarding either the aims orthe circumstances of university collections versus museums. The hope is thatthis article will be the catalyst for a debate which will facilitate reasoneddecisions to be taken as to how best to ensure the ongoing curation of large,often very important, archaeological collections which deserve to be used bothfor effective teaching and for ongoing research.

Acknowledgements

Many people have helped me during the hectic, and all too short, period duringwhich I have written this article, notably including James Conolly and JimMower. Especial thanks are due to Barbara Adams, Chris Gosden, David Harris,Jane Hubert, Nick Merriman, Clive Orton, Peter Parr, David Price Williams, TimSchadla–Hall, Thurstan Shaw, Harry Smith, and Jonathan Tubb for having readand commented on the manuscript at different stages.

I am particularly indebted to Nick Merriman and Clive Orton for observations,references to literature, and discussion about draft codes of practice.

Very grateful thanks are also recorded to Barbara Brown, Ian Carroll, RobertKirby, Stuart Laidlaw and Sally MacDonald for having sought out archivalmaterial of various kinds.

Without Marilyn Gallyer, the UCL current initiatives would almost certainlynot have come about. Without Robert Kirby’s special assistance, the proposedcataloguing project would be an even greater nightmare. Without SimonChaplin, there would not have been informative Appendix A. Without ChrisGosden, the title of this article would not have emerged in its present form.

Footnotes

1. In his autobiography, Petrie (1931, p. 263), makes it clear that the USA was the potential over-seas destination.

2. In the event, UCL’s Press Release (10/6/53) regarding the wording of the inscription was notrealized. There were discussions whether “Made Egyptology a Science ” might be a more accept-able form of words (B. Ifor Evans (Provost, UCL) to Miss Radley, 19/8/53), but finally, to “attractthe casual passer-by” and to make the plaque “more attractive and striking”’ the London CountyCouncil decided on “a brief inscription” (Clerk of the LCC to Lady Petrie, August 1953), onlyrecording Petrie’s dates of birth and death, that he had lived in that house (5 Cannon Place,Hampstead), and that he had been an Egyptologist (and see Janssen, 1992, p. 64).

3. Curiously, Petrie (1931, p. 281), autobiography contains a notice which is entitled differently:“British School of Egyptian Archaeology. The school was developed by Professor Flinders Petrie,twenty-six years ago, from a small student fund [the Egyptian Research Account] begun elevenyears earlier…”.

Throughout this article, the term “Palestine” is used in its geographic sense, to indicate theregion of modern Israel, the Gaza strip, the West Bank, Jericho, etc.

4. Several scholars believe that the site is not ancient Gerar, but Yurzaa (e.g. Drower, 1995, p.365) or Arsa (Wright, n.d., p. 10).

387Peter J. Ucko

5. Rights over excavated material and their subsequent disposal were of the utmost concern toPetrie, apparently a major contributory reason for him eventually switching his work away fromEgypt to Palestine (e.g. see Harden, 1953, p. 109). In Egypt “before the discovery of the tombof Tutankhamen, the Antiquities Law gave an accredited excavator the legal right to one halfof the objects found and this enabled Petrie to raise funds… by the presentation of objects tomuseums and individuals who gave financial support to his research”. (Emery, 1953)

As for Palestine, it appears that where there was any control at all (e.g. see Roshwalb, 1981,pp. 4–5; and see Appendix D, below), first distributions of excavated material took place there,with a division being agreed between the museum authorities and Petrie. Thereafter, Petrie’s‘share’ was further dispersed by him to his financial supporters all over the world (see Glanville,1953 ms 14, and below). As Kenyon (1953, p. 16), explains, the reason that the IoA’s collectionis not particularly rich in EBA material is simply that Petrie’s excavations did not in fact producemuch rich material of that date.

6. Petrie had made up his mind to retire in 1932 (see Janssen, 1992, p. 25).7. In fact it is quite clear that there had been no real secret about the identity of the donor during

Mrs Wharrie’s lifetime. She was the daughter of Sir Henry Harben and wife of Thomas Wharrie,her name (and two addresses) being freely mentioned in correspondence at least from July 1934onwards. Indeed, when in January 1935 the IoA wished to know whether her name could beconveyed “to the University so that it may be recorded in association with her gift”, the answercame that “Mrs Wharrie is quite willing that her identity should be disclosed to the Institute,but she would still desire, if possible, that her name should not be made public”; in fact, asDrower (1995, p. 380) records, a tablet was erected in 1937 in the IoA in her memory (Fig. 14and see below).

Apparently the sum later included “a further £5000 given in two stages by Mrs Wharrie”(Evans, 1987, p. 8), which had already been the subject of negotiations with Mrs Wharrie’ssolicitors in January 1935, and named as “Mrs. Wharrie’s Donation—£15,000” in the IoA’s “Capi-tal Received” for 1935/6. However, see also Appendix D regarding contradictory evidence aboutthe exact amount.

8. The post of Principal was removed from the University of London Statutes in 1994, and the lastincumbent (Peter Holwell) retired in 1997 (Pers. Comm., Susan Johnson).

9. In the event it appears that it was only in 1952 that “By subsequent agreement [with the thenDirector of the IoA, Professor Gordon Childe], it was decided that the Gaza goldwork couldnot be adequately housed in the Collections with sufficient protection, and this has been lodgedinstead, in the BM for the most part, and remainder in [the] Ashmolean and FitzwilliamMuseums” (Undated “Memorandum on Palestinian Collections of B. S. A. E.”, by H. F. P.).

10. At a meeting (those present including Professors Mallowan, Wheeler, Zeuner and Childe) on18 November 1949 it was agreed “after long discussion… that all specimens as received shouldbe given an accession number of the type 47/xyz and entered in a central register giving num-ber[,] mode of acquisition, provenance, and provisional description and ”disposal“; the registerto be in charge of Director and to be kept by special clerk; after registration the object shouldbe handed over to relevant Department for accommodation and indexing. The Departmentconcerned to be free to add special numbers if desired. Labels should be kept with the objectsin traits [sic] to indicate character and location”.

11. The Collection’s accommodation in St John’s Lodge at that time consisted (in addition to somespecial items such as 6 Small Finds cabinets) of 1194 sq ft of drawer space with 4. inchesclearance, 365 sq ft with 1.0 inches clearance, 141 sq ft with 1.6 inches clearance and 60 sqft with 2.6 inches clarions. It is clear from the Minutes of the AB of 14/11/55, that Dr. Kenyon,already then, had strong doubts about the proposed arrangements for storage of the Palestinianand Cypriot collections in the new building.

12. The Minutes of the AB for 16/10/56 record how worried the Director, Professor W. Grimes,was already then about the space taken up by IoA collections. At that time he was anxious todifferentiate between “IoA-owned” archaeological material and temporary research material (andequipment) currently stored in the IoA.

Those parts of the PPC destined for a large second floor room (opposite the emergency doorof the Examination Halls) were transported to the new premises five days later (while Kenyonwas out of the country excavating in Jericho). Director Grimes had obtained permission fromthe University to use the Examination Halls to unpack the Palestinian material prior to it beingdisplayed within the reserved second floor spaces (W. Grimes to K. Kenyon, 10/2/58). Mean-


while, packing cases of material destined for storage in the basement (which may have includedsome items of the PPC) arrived a few days later.

13. This included most of the material from the Gallery and from Room 210 (where the especiallylarge pots had been kept), as well as from the Cypriot Room which had contained material fromTell Jemmeh. In the basement they were displayed in their original St John’s Lodge cabinets, andeven had a partition wall and door constructed around them (Pers. Comm., Peter Parr). Mean-while, some pottery and small finds had been taken along the corridor to teaching Room 209(where a commemorative plaque to Mrs Mary Woodgate Wharrie is still to be seen, having beenrescued by Parr from the basement and placed on the wall of Room 209 in about 1972) (Fig. 14).

14. In view of the subsequent history of the Collection within the IoA, these two documents areincluded here as Appendices D and E.

15. The Minutes of AFPC of 1/7/91 and 25/9/91, as well as a memorandum from the Director toall staff of 1/12/92, reflect problems and delay in the arrangements for the return of the material,which in any case would no longer see the collection housed within a specially partitionedarea. Problems continued even after the material had been returned but before a Schlage securitysystem could be made operative, since during that time “the Store has quite frequently beenleft unlocked and objects other than research material have been deposited in it” (and possiblyobjects casually removed from it). It is even alleged that some material never returned from thestore (Pers Comm., Peter Parr) and, indeed, on a recent inspection, two boxes of ?Amazoniansherds were found left behind in the store, despite all the care taken in the original removals(Pers. Comm., Dafydd Griffiths).

16. Currently the Collection occupies racking on the immediate left and right walls at the entranceto the store ( 5 247 drawers), bays 14, 16–18 ( 5 208 drawers), bay 30 ( 5 4 shelves withlarge vessels (over 30 cm high) sitting in buckets), floor space ( 5 1 vessel which is too largefor the shelves standing in a tripod, and Bisley file ( 5 135 drawers of small finds) (Figs. 8–10).

17. It is remarkable that somehow or other, the potential importance of the PPC has not beenaltogether forgotten over the years. Thus, in 1953, for example, the Israeli Governmentrequested the loan of seven objects from it to be displayed in an exhibition — Land of theBible — destined for the Metropolitan Museum, New York (and later extended and augmentedfor display in 1954 in the BM, and extended again in 1955 for exhibition in Oslo and Paris). Inthe same year, Manchester University approached the IoA about a loan of Petrie Palestinianobjects, as did the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, in 1965 for the loan of a burial group fromTell Fara. Also in 1965 the Palestine Exploration Fund included objects from the PPC in itsCentenary Exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum on the World and the Bible. Each yeara few scholars from different countries have visited — and continue to visit—the IoA in anattempt to study this material, much of which still remains to be published in full.

In 1985 German colleagues were still seeking access to records to attempt to clarify the exactnature of the archaeological contexts from which derive some of the very important finds ofscarabs in the excavations of Gaza. In 1994 and 1995 Israeli and American colleagues were stillattempting to track down whether published scarabs were physically in the IoA, the PMEA orthe BM! As a BM Assistant Keeper wrote despairingly about one of them, “The missing scarabcould be anyplace?”.

Despite claims in 1995 by the IoA’s then curator of the PPC that a review of policies, pro-cedures and conservation was underway, until now the IoA has not developed a formal policyabout photographic and publication access. In practice, at least in the case of postgraduateresearch theses (e.g. Epstein (1962, 1966) on bichrome wares in Palestine, Izon (1970) on“Philistine” pottery from all three sites, Quarmby (1997) on bronzes from Tell Ajjul, Laemmel(1998) on ceramics from Tell Fara, Sparks (1998) on stone vessels from all three of the sites,and Bergoffen (1989) on Cypriot pottery), access has always been provided as freely andefficiently as physical conditions in the basement have allowed. This year the IoA has beenapproached with a request to provide a teaching collection of sherds from Petrie’s excavationsat Tell el-Fa’rah and Tell Jemmeh; again, no IoA formal policy regarding such loan enquiriescurrently exists.

18. For a summary of the documentation available from Petrie’s Tell Fara excavations, see PriceWilliams (1977, p. 4).

There has been some confusion about the nature of an ‘original’ Petrie Palestinian ‘catalogue’;some of this confusion may be semantic. Price Williams (1977, pp. 6, 18) certainly refers to (atleast) one catalogue. In fact what exists, in addition to the original tomb cards from the three

389Peter J. Ucko

sites concerned (Fig. 13) (now safely xeroxed and stored in central College archives as well asin the IoA), is a brown A4 ringbound “Index to the Contents of the Cases in the PalestinianCollection, 1962”, almost certainly compiled by K. Kenyon (Pers. Comm., Peter Parr).

19. In fact, Mrs Wharrie and/or Petrie could have put up a separate Trust, which Wheeler could,in theory, have chosen to support (Pers. Comm., T. Schadla–Hall).

20. And see Smith, 1993 for an example of how a change to an internal university resourcing (andspace) model may threaten the whole of the situation regarding the scale and nature of thecurating of a university’s collections.

An important question which cannot be considered here is whether such internal changesof resource models could likewise affect institutions such as the Ashmolean, Hunterian andFitzwilliam Museums (and see Arnold-Forster, 1989, p. 4).

21. About the concept of the ‘total record’ (and thus, also, the concept of ‘total retention’), CliveOrton (Pers. Comm.) warns that, in practice, the way that any pieces of pottery, or whatever,has been treated prior to storage and/or analysis will almost certainly have removed, or at leastseverely damaged, the evidence of exactly those variables (such as residues, or the soil samplesneeded for dating) likely to be of interest to the future archaeologist.

22. Although apparently not in several other countries, such as Argentina.23. It is interesting to note that draft standards under discussion by the Medieval Pottery Research

Group recommend that all archaeological pottery be retained “with the exception of largequantities of kiln waste, for which a sampling policy should have been established before exca-vation”.

24. Presumably this is what Petrie is referring to in his remark, “The remainder at University College,London” (Petrie, 1930a, p. 32), material which he considered available for sale or gift. However,perhaps the most bizarre of such ‘transfers’ concerned the Koptos Lions which were ‘sold’ byPetrie in 1927 (for £125) to the Wellcome Museum from which they were eventually ‘returned’to UCL (see Adams and Jaeschke, 1984, p. 9, for details).

25. Except for two pottery vessels from Tell Fara (both deriving from the Wellcome Collection)which, for reasons which remain obscure, remain in the PMEA (UC 38047 and 38048) (Pers.Comm., Stephen Quirke).

26. The former group forms BM loan items L.112–1151 from all three of the sites being discussedhere, and the latter—apparently mainly deriving from the Wellcome Collection—are Loan Regis-ter, I, items L.1171–1236 from “Tell Farah”.

27. “…Long loans should be subject to fixed terms which should be periodically reviewed. Theterm ‘permanent loan’ is ambiguous and should be avoided. Museums should operate an effec-tive collections management regime which includes auditing loans on a regular basis. It is alsoadvisable to review periodically the terms and conditions relating to all loans” (RegistrationGuidelines, Museums and Galleries Commission, 1995).

Those who (e.g. Chris Gosden, Pers. Comm.) wish to see and analyze ‘gifts’ between museumsas a kind of ‘gift exchange’ creating ties and obligations between individuals and institutions,may or may not wish to distinguish between ‘gifts’, ‘permanent loans’, and ‘loans’.

28. As the Museums Association Ethics Committee (Museums Association, 1996, Section 5D) putsit: “Society benefits from the long traditions of mutual co-operation between museums. Thesale of items to other registered museums jeopardises this tradition”. It may also give the wrongmessages to potential future donors and benefactors (and see Chong, 1995, p. 164).

BibliographyAdams, B. and Jaeschke R. (1984) The Koptos Lions. The Milwaukee Public Museum, Milwaukee.Albright, W. F. (1960) The Archaeology of Palestine. Pelican Books, London.Anon (1953) Flinders Petrie Centenary Exhibition 1953, 18 June–31 August. Museum of Egyptology,

University College London.Arnold-Forster, K. (1989) The Collections of the University of London. A report and survey of the

museums, teaching and research collections administered by the University of London. LondonMuseums Service, London.

Van Beek, G. and Van Beek, O. (1990) Tell Jemmeh. Biblical Archaeologist, 53, 205–209.Bergoffen, C. J. (1989) A comparative study of the regional distribution of Cypriot pottery in Canaan

and Egypt in the Late Bronze Age. Unpublished PhD thesis, New York University.Besterman, T. (1992) Disposals from museum collections: ethics and practicalities. Museum Man-

agement and Curatorship, 11, 29–44.


Boast, R. B. and Lury, S. J. (1996) Teaching with objects. Analecta Praehistorica Leidensra, 28,475–481.

Callaway, J. A. (1980) Sir Flinders Petrie—Father of Palestinian Archaeology. Biblical ArchaeologicalReview, 6, 44–56.

Carman, J., Carnegie, G. D. and Wolnizer, P. W. (In Press) Is archaeological valuation an accountingmatter? Antiquity, 73, 143–148.

Carver, M. (1996) On archaeological value. Antiquity, 70, 45–56.Childe, V. G. (1950) University of London. Institute of Archaeology. The Archaeological News Letter,

3, 57–60.Chong, D. (1995) The (Un)Making of Thomas Holloway’s picture collection. Museum Management

and Curatorship, 14, 149–168.Drower, M. S. (1990) W. M. Flinders Petrie, the Palestine Exploration Fund and Tell el-Hesi. Palestin-

ian Exploration Quarterly, 122, 87–95.Drower, M. S. (1995). Flinders Petrie. A life in archaeology. The University of Wisconsin Press,

Madison. (First edition, London 1985).Duncan, J. G. (1930) Corpus of (Dated) Palestinian Pottery. British School of Archaeology in

Egypt, London.Emery, W. B. (1953) The Founder of Egyptian Archaeology. Genius of Flinders Petrie. The Times,

June 8.Epstein, C. (1962) The origin and development of bichrome ware in Palestine. Unpublished PhD

thesis, Institute of Archaeology, University of London.Epstein, C. M. (1966) Palestinian Bichrome Ware E.J. Brill, Leiden.Evans, J. D. (1987) The First Half-Century—and After. Bulletin of the Institute of Archaeology, 24,

1–25.Fforde, C. (1992) English Collections of Human Remains: an introduction: The “Williamson Collec-

tion”; The Royal College of Surgeons of England: a brief history of its collections and a catalogueof some current holdings; The Posthumous History of William Lanne. World Archaeological Bull-etin, 6 and 14, 20–52, 63–69.

Glanville, S. R. K. (1953) A Great Archaeologist (being a shortened version of his Petrie CentenaryLecture of 17 June 1953, ms) The Listener June 25, 1045–1046.

Harden, D. B. (1953) The Centenary of Sir Flinders Petrie. The Museums Journal, 53, 107–110.Holtorf, C. J. (In Press) Is the past a non-renewable resource? In The Destruction and Conservation

of Cultural Property, eds. R. Layton, N. Rao, P. Stone and J. Thomas. Routledge, London.Izon, V. (1970) The Archaeological evidence of the Joshua and Judges period. Unpublished MPhil

thesis, Institute of Archaeology, University of London.Janssen, R. M. (1992) The First Hundred Years: Egyptology & University College London, 1892–

1992. University College London, London.Kempinski, A. (1974) Tell el-Ajjul—Beth-Aglayim or Sharuhen? Israel Exploration Journal, 24,

145–152.Kendall, D. G. (1971) Seriation from Abundance Matrices. In Mathematics in the Archaeological

and Historical Sciences, eds. D. G. Kendall, F. R. Hodson and P. Tautu, pp. 215–252. EdinburghUniversity Press, Edinburgh.

Kenyon, K. (1953) The Archaeology of Palestine. An exhibition in commemoration of the centen-ary of the birth & Sir W.M. Flinders Petrie. June 23rd to August 31st 1953. Institute of Archae-ology, Occasional Paper No. 10, London.

Kenyon, K. (1979) Archaeology in the Holy Land, 4th Edn. Ernest Benn Ltd, London.Laemmel, S. (1998) The Nature of the Ceramic Material from the 900 Cemetery at Tell el-Far’ah

[South). Unpublished MPhil dissertation, Faculty of Archaeology, University of Oxford.Muros, V. (1998) Open-mouthed Earthenware Vessel (No. 6968)—Conservation Report, Institute

of Archaeology.Museum & Galleries Commission (1995) Registration Guidelines. Registration Scheme for

Museums and Galleries in the United Kingdom, London.Museums Association (1996) Disposal. Guidance on the ethics and practicalities of disposal. Ethical

Guidelines. Advice from the Museums Association Ethics Committee 2.Museums Association (In Press) Codes of Ethics, 3rd Edn. Museums Association, London (In Press).Orton, C. R. (1980) Mathematics in Archaeology. Collins, London.Orton, C. R. (1996) Underpinning the discipline: one hundred years (or more) of classification in

archaeology. Archeologia and Calculation, 7, 561–577.

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Petrie, W. M. F. (1928) Gerar. British School of Archaeology in Egypt, London.Petrie, W. M. F. (1930a) Beth-Pelet I (Tell Fara). British School of Archaeology in Egypt, London.Petrie, W. M. F. (1930b) Introduction: a note on method. In Corpus of (Dated) Palestinian Pottery,

ed. J. G. Duncan, Vol. 3. British School of Archaeology in Egypt, London.Petrie, W. M. F. (1930) Beth-Pelet I (Tell Fara). British School of Archaeology in Egypt, London.Petrie, W. M. F. (1931) Seventy Years in Archaeology. Sampson Low, Marston & Co, London.Petrie, W. M. F. (1931–1934) Ancient Gaza I–IV Tell el Ajjul. British School of Archaeology in

Egypt, London.Petrie, W. M. F. (1952) Tell el Ajjul. In City a Shepherd Kings, and Ancient Gaza, eds. E. J. H.

Mackay and M. A. Murray, pp. 3–19. British School of Egyptian Archaeology, London.Price Williams, D. (1973) Preliminary Report on the Environmental Archaeological Survey of Tell

Fara. In Archaeological Theory and Practice, pp. 93–216.Price Williams, D. P. (1977) The Tombs of the Middle Bronze Age II Period from the ’500’ Cemetery

at Tell Fara (South). Institute of Archaeology, London.Quarmby, O. A. (1997) Bronze Work and Trade at Tell el’Ajjul. A reassessment of the daggers.

Unpublished MA dissertation, University of Edinburgh.Roshwalb, A. F. (1981) Protohistory in the Wadi Ghazzeh: a typological and technological study

based on the Macdonald excavations. Unpublished PhD thesis, Institute of Archaeology, Universityof London.

Ryholt, K. S. B. (1997) The Political Situation in Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period c,1800–1550 B.C. University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen.

Smith, H.S. (1993) The College’s museums and collections: a liability or an asset? UCL Newsletter,20, 4–5.

Sparks, R. (1998) Stone vessels in the Levant during the Second Millennium BC, PhD thesis, Schoolof Archaeology, Classics and Ancient History, The University of Sydney, Australia.

Starkey, J. L. and Harding, L. (1932) Beth-Pelet Cemetery. In Beth-Pelet II, pp. 22–32. British Schoolof Archaeology in Egypt, London.

Stern, E. (1982) Material Culture of the Land of the Bible in the Persian Period 538–332 B.C. Arisand Phillips, Warminster.

Tubb, J. N. (1998) Canaanites. British Museum Press, London.Warren, J. (n.d.) Legal Status of Museum Collections. Museum and Galleries Commission, London

(In Press).Wheeler, Sir M. (1955) Still Digging. Michael Joseph, London.Wilson, J. A. (1955) Egyptian Historical Texts. In Ancient Near Eastern Texts relating to the Old

Testament, ed. J. B. Pritchard, pp. 227–264. Princeton University Press, Princeton.Wright, G. E. (1962) Biblical Archaeology. Duckworth, London.Wright, K. (n.d.) The Petrie Palestinian Collections. Unpublished ms, pp. 1–12.

Appendix A

Report by Simon Chaplin. Senior Curator, Museums of The Royal College ofSurgeons of England

Donation of Remains of Sir William Flinders Petrie

It was apparently William Flinders Petrie’s wish that after his death his skull bepreserved for posterity as part of the human osteological series at the Museumof The Royal College of Surgeons of England. He is reported to have made thiswish clear to medical staff when he was first admitted to hospital in Jerusalemin 1940 with malaria, and to have reiterated it several times thereafter beforehis death in 1942.

The exigencies of war appear to have delayed communication of Petrie’sdecision to the College. Writing to Sir Arthur Keith in 1944, Hilda Flinders Petrie


said “I have several times heard a desire expressed by Flinders Petrie with regardto [The Royal College of Surgeons] and have recently asked a scientist to com-municate with you. I cannot write more on a [postcard]…” (Archive of theMuseum of The Royal College of Surgeons of England, file on donation ofremains of William Flinders Petrie (hereafter RCSMA/FP) Hilda Flinders Petrie,postcard to Sir Arthur Keith, 25 May 1944). Shortly afterwards, Keith receiveda more detailed letter from W E Thompson, a doctor at the Government Hospitalin Jerusalem. Thompson described Petrie’s wish that his skull be donated to theCollege as a “typical British” specimen. Thompson reported that “the night[Petrie] died, Dr Krikorian, Chief Bacteriologist to the Department of Health,and I removed the head after injecting Muller’s Solution and to be sure thesolution had been effective in the brain tissue, the vault was taken off”(RCSMA/FP W E Thompson, letter to Sir Arthur Keith, 9 October 1944). In hisletter Thompson also referred to the potential for histological examination ofthe brain to “reveal some of the reasons for the remarkable capacity and reten-tive memory [Petrie] had, even up to the very day he died”. It is not clearwhether this was also a wish of Petrie, although his widow and others wereaware of the decision—Thompson’s letter was copied to both Lady Petrie andRobert Hamilton, the Director of Antiquities in Jerusalem. In subsequent corre-spondence between Lady Petrie and the College, as well as within the College[and even more recently, e.g. Drower, 1995, p. 424] the terms "head" and "skull"appear to have been used interchangeably, and this may have added to sub-sequent confusion over the identity of Petrie’s remains. Regardless of Petrie’sintentions as to the subsequent destiny of his brain, it is likely that the immediatepreservation of the entire head for transfer to the College for preparation wouldhave been regarded as preferable to any attempt to prepare the specimen in Jeru-salem.

In the event the preserved head remained in store in Jerusalem until the endof the War. Keith passed details of the offer on to Professor A. J. E. Cave, theAssistant Conservator of the Museum (RCSMA/FP Arthur Keith, letter to A. J. E.Cave, 31 October 1944; A. J. E. Cave, letter to Arthur Keith, 1 November 1944).In January 1945 a letter was sent to Thompson accepting the offer of “the skulland brain” on behalf of the College (RCSMA/FP RCS, letter to W. E. Thompson,24 January 1945). The date of the actual arrival of the specimen is uncertain,but the Scientific Report of the College for 1944–5 mentions that “The late SirFlinders Petrie desired that his skull and brain should find a permanent restingplace in the Museum, and arrangements have been made to comply with thisrequest” (RCS Scientific Report for the Year 1944–1945: p. 12), and the follow-ing year the “head and brain of the late Sir Flinders Petrie, F. R. S.” appear asAccession Number A 46/2b in the list of additions to the Anatomical Series (RCSScientific Report for the Year 1945–1946: p. 7). There was evidently a delay incommunicating this news to Petrie’s widow, for in November 1948 Lady Petriewrote asking for confirmation of its arrival (RCSMA/FP Hilda Flinders Petrie,postcard to RCS, 29 November 1948). The President of the College, Lord Webb–Johnson, wrote in reply “I am sorry you have not been informed that the headwhich your distinguished husband left to the College arrived safely soon afterthe end of the war”. He added that “its arrival coincided with a change of Pro-fessor in the Anatomy Department, and you will be pleased to hear that Professor

393Peter J. Ucko

[Frederick] Wood–Jones is now in charge” (RCSMA/FP Lord Webb–Johnson,letter to Hilda Flinders Petrie, 2 December 1948).

In fact the arrival of Petrie’s head from Jerusalem coincided with a period ofconsiderable upheaval at the College. The College had suffered heavily as a resultof bombing on the night of 10–11 May 1941. Over two-thirds of the Museumcollection was destroyed, including a large proportion of the human osteologyseries. Sir Arthur Keith—who was both a friend of the Petries and a supporterof the physical anthropology collections—suffered from ill-health, and playedan increasingly distant role within the College. Frederick Wood–Jones, who alsohad strong interests in physical anthropology, was replaced as Professor of Anat-omy within four years. Within the College priority was given to the creation oftwo teaching museums of anatomical and pathological material, and most of theremaining human osteology specimens were transferred to the British Museum(Natural History) and the Duckworth Laboratory in Cambridge (Royal Collegeof Surgeons of England Scientific Report for the year 1950–1951: pp. 3–4). Itappears that as a result of this changing climate the planned preparation of theskull and brain was never undertaken, although some investigation did takeplace, for when the head was re-examined in the 1970s a piece of paper markedwith the accession number was found inside the cranium (Bari Logan, Pers.Comm. to Simon Chaplin).

The head was apparently then overlooked until 1977 when it was seen byBarbara Adams, then assistant to the Curator of the Petrie Museum at UniversityCollege London. On re-examination, some doubt was raised as to its authenticity(RCSMA/FP Elizabeth Allen, letter to Barbara Adams, 6 July 1977; Barbara Adams,letter to Elizabeth Allen, 10 November 1977). The preserved head has a full darkbeard and dark but receding hair and appears on first examination to be thatof a younger man, albeit one with a distinct resemblance to Petrie. Such doubtswere reiterated in subsequent press coverage, which in turn generated a numberof conflicting and largely unsubstantiated first and second-hand accounts fromthose present in Palestine during the Second World War. They included a formermatron of the Government Hospital in Jerusalem who recalled Petrie as being“clean shaven with white hair” (RCSMA/FP Constance M. Nasr, letter to RCS,13 November 1987), although the head matches a description given by a doctorwith the Overseas Medical Service who was shown Petrie’s head by Krikorianin Jerusalem in 1944 (RCSMA/FP Robert Hennessy, Pers. Comm. to ElizabethAllen, 5 November 1987). More recently it has been suggested that at the post-mortem only the brain was removed; it is possible that this is correct and thatdecapitation took place after the official post-mortem (Eliezer Oren, Pers.Comm. to Peter Ucko).

Recent examinations have provided answers to some of the confusion sur-rounding the head’s physical appearance. Muller’s fluid is regarded as a "gentle"embalming agent (which leaves tissues relatively soft and thus easier to removefor osteological preparation). It contains potassium dichromate and is knownto cause discoloration of hair, skin and other keratinous structures. Tests carriedout in the College have produced similar darkening of white hair, especiallywhen Muller’s fluid is used in high ambient temperatures (RCSMA/FP MartynCooke, letter to Bernard Simms, 17 July 1996). The fluid, like many embalmingagents, also has a hydrating effect on tissues which may account for the appar-ent rejuvenation.


The head also possesses a number of distinguishing features, some of whichcan be matched against surviving photographs or accounts. As well as showingevidence of the post-mortem removal of the vault there is a much older scar onthe right temple, alleged to have been caused when Petrie was young, and vis-ible in some later portraits (for an apparent account of the cause of this scarsee Callaway, 1980, p. 46). The style of the hair and beard match those of Petriepictured in his old age. The head also possesses what appear to be a full set ofdentures, although thus far no dental records for Petrie have been traced.

On the balance of evidence it is virtually certain that the head in the Museumcollection is that received from Palestine in late 1945 or early 1946, and that itis highly unlikely that this head is other than that of William Flinders Petrie.Certain proof may be provided by DNA testing, although attempts to carry outsuch tests in the early 1990s proved unsuccessful as a result of the tissue fixativeused and the absence of a suitable descendant donor.

Appendix B

Letter from Flinders Petrie to Mrs. Wheeler

Beaumont House Jerusalem 2 Feb 1935

Dear Mrs. Wheeler,

I am astonished at the resolution proposed by Miss Murray and seconded byMr Mackey, making an unconditional gift of the Palestine Collection to the Insti-tute which may easily pass into very different control. The University is quitecapable of putting some Renaissance man in to their control some day. To leavepowers of disposing/dispersal of the whole collection in such an uncertain ten-ure seems madness, knowing how UC management has cold-shouldered archae-ology. As this resolution stands the whole Palestinian results may be sold up toget cash for a rococo scheme. There is no security.

A just & generous settlement would be“The British School of A. in E. offers the loan of the Palestine Collection to

the University of London Institute of Archaeology, subject to agreement withthe Eventual Trustees of a Public Museum at St. John’s Lodge for its exhibition,and as to disposal of duplicates. Such duplicates to be defined by some studentwho has worked at the discovery of the objects, chosen by the Director orAssistant Director of the School”. That would leave the security to be framedwhen there are permanent Trustees to pledge it. Are two people who havenever given a month to Palestine, to dispose of eight years of hard work thereof myself and students? I trust that this dangerous proposal will be righted as Icannot consent to it.

Yours very sincerely,

Flinders Petrie

P.S. I have not yet heard about the subventing which is offered for manage-ment of my collections

Is it to cover the Egyptian material also?

395Peter J. Ucko

Is it lodged with any one at present?What conditions are attached to it?Who is in touch with the donor?Is it to be managed by a Trust ad hoc? or by the College, or by the University?or by the Institute of Archaeology?

Appendix C

Letter from Flinders Petrie to Mrs. Wheeler

EL ARISH SINAI EGYPT address 8 March 1935

Dear Mrs. Wheeler,

Many thanks to you for your explanatory letter. But I dread the idea of housingany collection at the costly site of Bloomsbury. It is unreasonable to expect thatspace, costing many pounds a square foot, is suitable for housing the archae-ology of any country. We need to keep so much that is required for archaeologic[sic] comparison of series, which is not possible to find thousands of pounds ofstore room for. Bloomsbury, in Brit. Mus. or elsewhere, would strangle scientificarchaeology, as it has done fatally in the past. It is only fit for costly or beautifulspecimens, and such are all that is now in Brit. Mus.

It is not the honesty of purpose of the University authorities that I impugn,but their total comprehension of the nature of the case. They have only seenshow museums, and have never dealt with a serial collection. For instance Iwas glibly told that our Egyptian collection would easily be compressed intohalf the space; yet, desperately crowded as it is, the pottery of the whole riseof the dynastic period (S.D. 63–78) still lies heaped in a box, and no one hasseen it for years, as a complete blank in the development of the country.

The state of archaeology—with all Woolley’s Ur invisible in boxes, exceptshow pieces,—is like a Chemistry restricted to scents and fine colours, and ban-ning “stinks”. By all means have teaching central in Bloomsbury, but study col-lections cannot be kept there, and certainly will not until such collections arecropped and mutilated. There is not a single Museum where the bulk of typesof even ordinary Greek or Roman pottery can be found. Yet such ordinary stuffis essential to have in series dated, as a basis of Oriental archaeology.

All the unique steel tools of Greek sculptors from Naukratis were given tothe Brit. Mus. and then thrown away as “ugly things”; so it will be with any realseries which goes into the costly custody of Bloomsbury. Brit Mus cases cost£40 a square foot for site and capitalisation of maintenance.

The conditions of the gift of Palestine collections to London, which, if notstated in time, I must petition the University to recognise, are:-

1. The weeding out of duplicates should be done by someone who is personallyacquainted with the discovery and meaning of the things. (Five such Icould name)

2. That such rejected material remain at the disposal of the British School forits subscribers who have paid for it and Museums.

3. That the collection shall be kept where it has the freest space for its exhi-


bition. St John’s is essential for bulky collections, and I hope the pottery ofthe Egyptian collection will be transferred there, if not all the rest. It shouldbe the successor[?] for the throttled[?] collections of the Brit. Mus.…

4. With regard to the resolution on the presentation, why bring in the disposalof the collection, if such is never intended? I have seen three provincial col-lections dispersed, when the space was wanted for a more popular subject.There is no guarantee what may be the dominant interests of the managementin the next generation. To suggest dispersal in the fundamental gift, is saying“don’t nail his ears to the pump”, and an insult to those who have found£20,000 to dig up the collection, & to the many who have given years ofwork to the process. I cannot imagine a harmless meaning to the word.

We must always look ahead in an endowment, for there is nothing so tempt-ing to hungry claimants: a fundamental security of terms & not of transientmanagers, is necessary to delay the process of diversion.…

Yours very sincerely,

Flinders Petrie

P.S. Please pass on the enclosed sheet to the authorities who deal with thelegal aspect of the collection. I wish to see the final draft.F.P.

Appendix D

Letter from Dr. K. M. Kenyon to Lord Fletcher

Copy of letter from Dr. K-W. Kenyon, St. Hugh’s College, Oxford to LordFletcher, dated 13th October, 1970

In March I wrote to you about my anxieties about the important Petrie collec-tion of Palestinian pottery at the Institute of Archaeology. My anxieties havebeen further confirmed, and I have been pressed by a number of people inter-ested in this collection as research material to try to have steps taken to preventits use for this purpose impaired.

The Director of the Institute replied to my letter of November 18th, 1969, ofwhich you have a copy, that pressure on space at the Institute was such thatthey could no longer house large collections as such and must think of whatwe have in terms of their teaching value. This is a change brought about byundertaking undergraduate teaching, and is a change, to my mind a sad change,from the time when the Institute concentrated on research and postgraduateteaching. It was on this concept the Institute was founded and built up. Butpresumably this turn-over to undergraduate teaching at the expense of researchwas the result of an informed decision by the Management Committee of theInstitute, and must be accepted.

I am only concerned now that irreparable harm to research on Palestinianarchaeology is not done. The PPC is unique. It belongs to a period, which will

397Peter J. Ucko

never recur, in which there was no restriction on the export of finds from digs.Both T. Fara and T. Ajjul produced a large number of tombs which provide keyevidence of pottery and other objects, for periods from the beginning of MiddleBronze Age I, c. 1900 B.C., to late in the Iron Age, at least c. 700 B.C. As Iexplained in my letter to the Director, the publication is most unsatisfactory,and almost impossible to use. The value of these tomb groups lies not in singletombs but in their combined evidence as a sequence. Even if the collection isdispersed, with individual tomb groups going to different museums, the com-parative value is lost, as is all the present record of a type series based onexamples from many different groups. If the Institute cannot keep them, theyought all to go to one other place, or at very worst the whole of one site toone place.

I would not regard transference to a museum as at all a satisfactory alternativeto the Institute, since hours and conditions of work are so restricted, especiallyat the BM. However, the conditions at the Institute are now very unsatisfactory,as the tomb groups have been expelled from the Palestine Gallery and in thebasement they are accessible only with much difficulty, and no one can workthere as it is too cold.

I do therefore emphatically urge that the collection should not be broken upand should be kept in such condition that work can be done on it. If there isno prospect of this I would like to press most urgently on the ManagementCommittee that it is the duty of the Institute to publish the material beforedispersing it. The collection was the nucleus of the original Institute, and thewhole scheme only got off the ground because Mrs. Wharrie gave £17,000 toprovide a home for the Petrie material. If the interests of the Institute haveturned elsewhere and it is no longer prepared to do this, the very least that itshould do is to publish this as a whole, in a form acceptable by modern stan-dards. For this a research grant would be needed for probably two years for asenior research student. Room would have to be found for him or her to work.Since I understand that though the Palestine material has moved out of thePalestine Gallery, all the other Departments have refused to move their teachingcollections into it, it should not be too difficult to provide temporary spacethere.

I do hope so very much that you will treat this plea seriously and refer thematter to the Management Committee, the members of which I would like tosee this letter and my letter to the Director, of November 18th.

Appendix E

Director’s Comments on letter to Lord Fletcher

Director’s Comments on Dr. K. M. Kenyon’s letter of October 13th 1970 toLord Fletcher

Dr. Kenyon raised the question of the PPC some time ago. Then and later,by letter and in direct confrontation I assured her that no decisions had been,nor would be, taken without consultation with interested parties. This remainsthe position. At the same time I did not disguise my personal view that change


would have to come; and I also thought it my duty to emphasise that whateverthe consultations the final decisions must rest squarely with the Institute andnowhere else. On this as a teaching/research matter the responsibility for advis-ing the Committee of Management rests with the Academic Board. The questionhas not been considered by the Board, but it is quite clear that with continuingpressure on the Institute’s space discussion of the wider problem of the Insti-tute’s collections as a whole cannot be long delayed.

It should be added, since at times Dr. Kenyon’s letter appears to suggest other-wise, that these and all other decisions relating to the academic side of theInstitute’s work are only arrived at after full discussion in the Academic Board.They are not taken independently nor imposed by the Director.

On matters of detail:

1. (Para. 2). The institution of the first degree (which was a University decisiondiscussed and recommended by the Board of Studies in Archaeology) has nobearing on the PPC, nor has it affected research policy. The Institute’s intakeof research students is higher that it ever was: 67 last year as compared with21 in (for instance) 1956. The Institute s Bulletin habitually runs to 150 pagesor more as compared with half that number of pages in its predecessor theAnnual Report. Almost without exception the academic staff are activelyengaged in research, including work in the field.

2. (Para 3). It is inaccurate to imply that the PPC now at the Institute is insome way complete. My information is that a considerable part of the materialis in any case in Jerusalem, with small quantities very widely distributed else-where. These facts do not strengthen the case for maintaining the presentsituation if the progress of the Institute is impeded thereby.

3. (Para 4). It is arguable whether the collection would be better kept in amuseum rather than at the Institute, though my own views are definite onthe point. Dr. Kenyon has not informed herself accurately on the immediateintentions of the Institute, The collection has been moved to the basementas part of the re-organisation described later (vi [sic] below). It will be organ-ised as a unit and made readily accessible to anyone wishing to study it: itis accessible with only limited delay now, but Mr. Parr cannot deal with thisduring term because of his heavy teaching and supervision load. Dr. Kenyonchooses to overstate the difficulties. I work as do other of my colleagues,quite frequently in the basement; but in any case facilities elsewhere wouldbe readily provided for a researcher wishing to work on the material.

4. (Para 5). The need to get the collection properly published is unquestioned.I would be more than happy to provide the necessary space in the Bulletin,and to create whatever other conditions would be necessary (within reason)to enable this to be done. It should however be observed that Dr. Kenyonhad the opportunity of making good the deficiencies in publication whenfor fifteen years she had responsibility for the collection. The possibility ofa research student coming forward to undertake publication has been dis-cussed more than once in the Institute and is kept in mind.

5. (Para 5 [sic]). Dr. Kenyon had been wrongly informed on the deliberationsof the Academic Board. The other departments have not refused to movetheir collections into the former Palestine gallery. It has been agreed by theBoard that the room should become a collections room providing students

399Peter J. Ucko

with freer access to the collections than they enjoy at the present time andtherefore enabling fuller use to be made of the Institute’s facilities. The roomwill be overseen by the Collections Clerk who has been established in anoffice within it. The decisions as to what will go into the room are mattersfor the departments, but with all the other demands the changes will taketime to bring about.

It remains to be added as a matter of historical fact that the University declinedto be bound by any conditions when the PPC and the Wharrey [sic] Gift (para.5 of Dr. Kenyon’s letter) were accepted. This does not of course absolve theInstitute from its obligations. Any recommendations that emanate from the Aca-demic Board will be made out of a full sense of responsibility both for thearchaeological research requirements and for the safeguarding and well-beingof the collection. There should be no difficulty in reconciling these aims withthe Board’s duty to protect and further the interests of the Institute. The Boardis best placed to know what those interests are and is not likely to take kindlyto demands made by people who are now outsiders, unaware of the amount ofchange that has taken place and (in Dr. Kenyon’s case) out of sympathy withwhat the Institute is now doing.

W. F. Grimes

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