The photos from my original post of thirteen years ago have long since disappeared so I’ve reloaded them and expanded the text a bit.

There's a famous photograph of Flinders Petrie standing outside the tomb that he lived in for several seasons over the two years that he spent measuring the Great Pyramid and other features for his Giza survey. The results of his work were published in 1883 in his classic "The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh".



The photograph comes from his biography "Seventy Years in Archaeology" (1932) where he comments:

“After rigging up the rock-tomb with shelves, and re-making the old shutters and door, which had been left by Dixon, I found the place comfortable. The petroleum stove by the door cooked my meals, which I prepared at any time required by my irregular hours of work.”

A drawing, clearly based on the photograph appeared much earlier in "Ten Years Digging in Egypt" (1893). This small volume also contains the longest description he gave.



He doesn't say exactly where on the Plateau the tomb was but there is more to go on than just the photo as Petrie's "English engineer", mentioned in his text, was Waynman Dixon. Wayman Dixon worked with Colonel Howard Vyse and John Perring who all lived in tents on the plateau during 1837. It was during this period that Howard Vyse did the work that resulted in his three volume "Operations carried on at the Pyramids of Gizeh in 1837". They took over the tomb as a store room from an even earlier investigator Captain Caviglia. Indeed Howard Vyse actually complains that Caviglia didn't clear out the tomb when he left.

Piazzi Smyth was next when he came along in 1865 to start the survey that would lead to two works, his three volume "Life and Work at the Great Pyramid" and the single volume "Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid". He too lived in the tomb and specifically mentions "rediscovered, too, most of the wooden plugs inserted into the rock-walls of these convenient chambers; and driven nails or hooks anew into them, whereby to suspend both cleanly tapestry and curtain doors..." and gives an approximate location as the "East Tombs". With Smyth's approximate position and Petrie's photograph it's not difficult to find the tomb.

It would have been an easy walk for Petrie down the course of the, now destroyed, causeway of the Great Pyramid. This photograph shows the view looking back towards the Great Pyramid from the point just before you climb down to the tomb.



The tomb itself is just to the West and below the point where the causeway would have left the plateau. These days there's a small wall blocking the way as the area is not on the normal tourist routes.

I usually like to stay behind my camera but I couldn't resist this version of Petrie's photograph, courtesy of my self timer.



The wooden door and window frames described by Smyth have long gone and the tomb stands empty and open.



I'm fairly sure this is where Petrie laid his bed.



Lepsius worked in the area and illustrated it with a little poetic license. I think his designation for the tomb is LG66 although it's actual more than one tomb and includes LG65 as well.



Howard Vyse also published this view which shows the area below which Petrie describes as a beautiful view over the flood plain. The pyramids of Saqqara and Abu Sir are visible in the distance. They are still visible on a clear day from Giza but the air quality is usually too poor these days



The tomb is now within a few feet of the much higher wall that surrounds the plateau and my view as I stood where Petrie had, over a hundred years before, was very different.



There's little in the area that's beautiful now:





It's a sad experience looking at the houses of Mena village that crowd so close to the plateau and the mountains of rubbish that are tipped over the new wall onto the area in front of the tombs. I still enjoyed finding it though as it played an important part in the rediscovery of Giza during the 19th Century.

Jon Bodsworth

(Edited - typo - Hermione)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/11/2021 09:42AM by Hermione.