Australian excavations at Helwan in Egypt

The archaeology of Ancient Egypt has a long-standing tradition that goes back to the era of Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie (1853-1942). His substantive work during the late 19th and early 20th centuries and his long list of site reports still represent a large body of valid and unrivalled archaeological evidence. It was his research on the prehistoric and early historical periods in Egypt, most notably at sites such as Naqada and Abydos in southern Egypt, that triggered an avalanche of archaeological investigations into the origins and development of Pharaonic Egypt that have continued until the present day. And yet, in spite of the abundance of archaeological evidence, our understanding of these formative periods of Egyptian civilisations is plagued with scholarly controversies and uncertanties.