Message #105064

[Bianca]

In 1882 the Italian Luigi Vassalli (1855-1899) started his excavations in the area near the pyramid of Hawara, after having surveyed the site. Vassalli searched in vain for the pyramid's entrance. He also excavated across the Bahr Wahbi, in the village east and south of the Labyrinth and in the necropolis to the north of the pyramid (Vassalli 1867, pp.62-65; Vassali 1885).





The pioneer of systematic methodology in archaeology, Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie undertook the first large-scale excavations at Hawara in 1888-1889 and 1910-1911. He revealed attestations of human occupation and activity dating back from the Middle Kingdom to Coptic times.

The first object of Petrie’s archaeological work at Hawara was the study of the Middle Kingdom pyramid.

On the second place he was interested in the Labyrinth of the literary sources. Moreover he extended his activity area towards the area north of the pyramid where he discovered a huge cemetery. The most famous finds revealed by Petrie at the Hawara necropolis are the gilded masks and mummy portraits which he found in the late-Ptolemaïc and Roman tombs, e.g. the wooden panel of Hermione, the schoolteacher, being among the very few surviving examples of painted portraits from Classical Antiquity, the "Faiyum portraits".

In 1888 he first focused on the pyramid and the Labyrinth. He divided the necropolis north of the pyramid in chronological zones ranging from the Middle Kingdom to Byzantine times. Here he found the first Roman mummy portraits and masks.

In 1889 he identified the pyramid as that of the 12th dynasty pharaoh Amenemhat III and his daughter Neferuptah.

He continued working in the burial area in the northern part of the site and cleared a Byzantine basilica north-west of the pyramid.

His successful campaigns attracted other excavators, in search of papyri and mummy portraits.