Portrait of Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie (1853-1942), British archaeologist and Egyptologist. From 1881 he began excavations in Egypt, first at the Great Pyramids of Giza, followed by many of the important archaeological sites in Egypt. He made valuable contributions to the techniques and methods of field爀xcavation燼nd invented a sequence燿ating爉ethod that made possible the reconstruction of爃istory from the remains of ancient燾ultures. In 1894 he founded the British School of Archaeology in Egypt. He discovered the earliest known Egyptian reference to營srael爋n the stele (a stone slab monument) of燤erneptah, king of燼ncient Egypt爁rom 1213 to 1204燘CE. He quickly appreciated advantages of x-rays revealing information of bony structures, publishing a picture of an ancient Egyptian mummy (1898) within 3 years of the discovery by R鰊tgen.