Morph,

I don't think Jon was pointing out anyone but instead was pointing out the factual context of Petrie's work and the most common distortions they endure. Anyone who does not account for the actual facts, those that are known, is just asking for someone else to slap them down. So, in any case where truth is substituted with over the top imagination and creative thinking that has no practicable basis the lines of reality become quite blurred. Scholars trend towards indoctrination not necessarily by choice but by environment, negative analysis is more prosperous than positive in the feild of research, much easier to stand back and say "no that's wrong, because of this and that". Funny how so many remarkable discoveries have been made by the non-scholar/layman class that Byrd brushes to the side. As I recall Petrie, let alone really anyone else at the time was not an "archeaologist" or an Egyptologist, come to think of it Mark Lehner wasn't one either when he first arrived at Giza looking for the lost "Hall of Records".

A quote we should post on this sites banner:

"A theory should stand on its own merits, irrespective of the reputation of its propounder. There is no need here to explain the bearings of; and reasons for, all these theories; most of them stand self-condemned at once, by the actual facts of the case. Others, framed on the real dimensions, will bear the first and indispensable test of measurement, which is but the lowest class of the evidences of a theory." W.M. Flinders Petrie

The key phrase is the last one..."measurement, which is but the LOWEST class of evidence of a theory".

Everyone should remember that - the first place you go blind is right in the eye; perhaps the long lost words of Horus.

Best Regards,

B.A. Hokom