In 1888 W.M.F. Petrie excavated in Hawara and at the cemetery he found a lot of small interesting objects. For example, beneath a woman’s head he found the second book of the Iliad. But what I do like the most, are his drawings of the (sometimes) simple objects of everyday life like a sock for instance. “Knitted woollen socks occurred with separate great toes, in order to allow of a sandal strap; These anticipate the rise of the knitted stockings in the sixteenth century.” And speaking of toes : “Dummy mummies were made. One coffin that I opened contained a tiny child’s figure: I wished to preserve the painted cartonnage, but on pulling away the dummy sandals, I found no infantile toes, but a man’s knee joint. It seems that the undertaker had not troubled to mummify the little brat at all, but had picked up three old leg bones and an old skull of mud, and the rascal had done them up tidily to satisfy the parental feelings, and put on a little gilt headpiece and sandals to look proper”. The woollen sock is now at the Petrie Museum UC 16767. The drawing is from Petrie’s book Hawara, Biahmu and Arsinoe. p. 12, pl. XVIII (bottom) Source : Petrie , William Matthew Flinders, Seventy years of Archaeology, p. 88-89.
Posted on: Wed, 10 Jul 2013 02:23:31 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015