Artefacts of Excavation

This is the first season that Petrie lacks EEF sponsorship, he concentrates on the rock inscriptions in the Aswan area. On his way, he also stops at Dashur and Thebes for other surveys.

Petrie is working side-by-side with Griffith whom he praises greatly and with whom he shares the publication of inscriptions--Griffith will publish the tomb ones. Three more people accompany them, from Minieh to Aswan: two known reises, Said and Muhammad el Gabri, and a young man called Abd el Minm. 

The inscriptions published by Petrie include the area behind the houses of the town of Aswan, also those to its south, the rocks of Elephantine, those on the road to Philae, and on granite masses known as Konosso. The inscriptions include mainly Middle Kingdom to New Kingdom (21st-11th century BCE) royal tablets, private inscriptions with king names/dates, but the majority consists of funerary stelae. Petrie notes how the granitic area would not allow burials with traditional pits and stelae, therefore the local choice of using rock inscriptions instead. A few inscriptions still bear yellow and red paint remains.