A grandson of Captain Matthew Flinders, explorer of the coasts of Australia, Petrie was born within Charlton, England. He was educated home by his parents. Petrie's father, a surveyor, taught his boy training survey accurately, and then laying the foundation for his career.

When surveying British prehistoric monuments, including Stonehenge, Petrie travelled to Egypt in 1880 to survey the Great Pyramid at Giza. His interest withwithin Egypt piqued, Petrie went in to excavate at several of the first archaeologic web sites in Egypt like Abydos and Amarna.

With accomplished such telling work on Giza, Petrie was recommended to the Egypt Exploration Fund (now a Egypt Exploration Society), who required an archeologist inside Egypt to succeed Edouard Naville. Petrie accepted a position & was given a total of £250 by a year to handle the excavation’s expenses. Around November 1884, Petrie arrived in Egypt to lead off his excavations.

Petrie's scrupulous recording & learn of artifact placed fresh standards around archeology. By linking styles of pottery by having periods, he developed seriation, the radical method for establishing a chronology of a places.

From either 1892 to 1933 Petrie was the 1st Edwards Professor of Egyptian Archaeology and Philology at University College, London. This chair experienced been funded by Amelia Edwards, who was the heavy supporter of Petrie. He continued to excavate inside Egypt fallowing ingesting higher a chair, step by step training numbers of of the better archeologist of the day. Inside 1913 Petrie sold his big collection of Egyptian antiquities to University College, London, where it is today housed in the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology.

1923 saw Petrie knighted for services to British archaeology & Egyptology.

Petrie left Egypt for Palestine in 1926. On text he excavated the series of frontier web sites between Egypt & Canaan, including Tell el-Hesi which he considered (mistakenly, when it turned out) to become places of ancient Lachish. Sir Flinders Petrie died inside Jerusalem in 1939 and is buried in the Protestant Cemetery on Mount Zion.