Monday, May 15, 2023
Flinders Petrified
From somewhere or other on the horribly designed website Petrie's Life:
Transcription:
Hat tip: Eric Thomson, who says, "I know the feeling."
Newer› ‹Older
Petrie was notorious for the lengths he would go to in order to avoid meeting visitors. A young student, Arthur Weigall later recounted how he visited the museum and, while viewing the displays, first encountered Petrie. Weigall was to become Petrie's assistant in the museum in 1902.No source is provided for the quotation. It appears in Julie Hankey, A Passion for Egypt: Arthur Weigall, Tutankhamun and the 'Curse of the Pharaohs' (London: I.B. Tauris Publishers, 2001), p. 27.
"I made a quick movement round the case, and there behind it I found the Professor. He was on his hands and knees, and was just crawling stealthily away towards a dark corner wherein some sacking and other packing materials were heaped. I stood quite still; and to my surprise, I saw him reach out his arm for a piece of the sacking, and attempt to toss it over his hindquarters, just as an elephant throws dust or straw over its back with its trunk."
Hat tip: Eric Thomson, who says, "I know the feeling."
