The Excavations at Tel el Hesi
(1890 -93)
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Though better known by the general public as the father of Egyptology Sir William Flinders Petrie made an equally strong contribution to Palestinian Archaeology.
His excavations at Tel el-Hesi conducted for the Palestine Exploration Fund in 1890 were perhaps even more pioneering than those at the earlier Egyptian sites, because it was here that he first applied the principles of stratigraphic excavation and ceramic typology and seriation to the material. These methods of digging and organising the ceramic material to form linear sequences through time, or 'chronologies' have become the back-bone of modern archaeology world-wide.
The excavations at Tell el-Hesi, which lies on the southeastern coastal plain of Palestine, were continued in the second and third seasons by the American,
F. J. Bliss, still under the auspices of the PEF.
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Two views of Tell el-Hesi taken in 1890 by Sir William Flinders Petrie. |
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Examples of Late Bronze Age (c. 1600 - 1200BC) pottery from the cemetery at Tell
el Hesi, some of which are now in the archaeological collections of the
Palestine Exploration Fund
Photographs by Sir William Flinders Petrie, from the archives of the Palestine Exploration Fund |
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