Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology

The Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology is a university museum in the London Borough of Camden, United Kingdom, owned by University College London. Founded in 1892, it houses over 80,000 objects, making it one of the world's largest collections of Egyptian and Sudanese material outside Egypt. The museum is designated under the Arts Council England Designation Scheme as being of 'national and international importance.' Its holdings span from prehistory through the Islamic period, with particular strengths in everyday objects, early textiles, Roman mummy portraits, and archaeological archives.

The museum was established in 1892 as a teaching resource for the newly created Department of Egyptian Archaeology and Philology at University College London. The initial collection came from a donation by the writer Amelia Edwards. In 1913, William Matthew Flinders Petrie, the first Edwards Professor, sold his collections of Egyptian antiquities to UCL, creating the Flinders Petrie Collection of Egyptian Antiquities and transforming the museum into one of the leading collections outside Egypt. The collection was first put on display in June 1915, with a guidebook published the same year. Initially, visitors were limited to students and academics; the galleries were not open to the general public. Petrie retired from UCL in 1933, though successors continued to expand the collections through excavations in Egypt and Sudan. During the Second World War, the collection was evacuated from London for safekeeping. In the early 1950s, it was moved into a former stable adjacent to the UCL Science Library, where it remains. The entrance gallery was renovated in 2019 and reopened in 2020.

The museum's collection emphasizes objects of daily life rather than monumental art, spanning from Egyptian prehistory through the Islamic period. It is particularly noted for numerous 'firsts': one of the earliest known pieces of Egyptian linen from around 5000 BC, the oldest known woven garment (the Tarkhan dress from the fourth millennium BC), the oldest Egyptian metal objects, the earliest wrought iron pieces, the oldest glass artifacts, and the oldest Egyptian seals from around 3500 BC. The collection also includes the oldest known papyrus will, the oldest gynecological papyrus, the only known ancient Egyptian veterinary papyrus, and the oldest architectural drawing, depicting a temple from around 1300 BC. The entire collection has been digitized and is accessible through an online catalogue.

Significant holdings include Britain's largest collection of Roman period mummy portraits, known as Fayum portraits from the first and second centuries AD, surpassed in number only by the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The costume collection features a beadnet dress of a dancer from the Pyramid Age around 2400 BC, two long-sleeved dresses from the same period, armor from the palace of Memphis, and Roman period socks and sandals. The museum holds two lions from the temple of Min at Coptos, belonging to the first group of monumental sculpture from around 3000 BC, and a fragment of the first Egyptian calendar from around 2900 BC. A substantial archive contains excavation records, correspondence, and photographs from Petrie's excavations, along with documents relating to the distribution of finds to museums worldwide between 1887 and 1949. The museum also holds a fragment of the Annals Stone of the Fifth Dynasty, designated P1 by specialists, which may belong to the same significant annals stone as the Palermo Stone and Cairo fragments, containing royal names from predynastic times through the Fifth Dynasty (2504-2347 BC).

The museum is located at Malet Place, near Gower Street and the UCL Science Library in the London Borough of Camden. It occupies a former stable building, where the collection was moved in the early 1950s. The museum is divided into three galleries. The main gallery, housed above the old stables, contains many small domestic artifacts, mummy portraits and cases, and the Inscriptions Aisle. The Inscriptions Aisle displays tablets including Pyramid Texts written in hieroglyphics, hieratic, Greek, and Arabic, organized by material type. A second gallery, the pottery gallery, contains cabinets of pottery, clothing, jewelry, and shabti figures arranged chronologically. The third gallery is accessible by stairs. Some collections are kept unlit for preservation purposes, and visitors are provided with torches to view them. The entrance gallery, renovated in 2019 and reopened in 2020, provides insight into the history of the museum, its collections, and notable figures including Petrie, Amelia Edwards, Ali Suefi, and Violette Lafleur, and contains a small gift shop.

The Petrie Museum is part of University College London Museums and Collections and is owned by University College London. It is open Tuesday through Saturday, with free admission. The museum runs an exhibitions and events programme for adults and families. A Friends of the Petrie Museum charity supports the museum's activities. The museum's website is https://www.ucl.ac.uk/culture/petrie-museum, and its full catalogue can be browsed online. Notable curators have included Anthony J. Arkell (1948-1963), Harry Smith (1963-1970), David M. Dixon (1970-1978), Barbara Adams (1984-2001), Stephen Quirke (1999-2013), Alice Stevenson (2013-2016), and Anna E. Garnett (2017-present). Published works associated with the museum include 'Living Images: Egyptian Funerary Portraits in the Petrie Museum' (Left Coast Press, 2007), 'Archaeology of Race' by Debbie Chalice (Bloomsbury Press, 2014), and 'The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology: Characters and Collections' (UCL Press, 2015), edited by Alice Stevenson and available in print and free open access.