Editing Fayum mummy portraits (section)

===Archaeological study: Flinders Petrie===
[[Image:Fayum-07.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Detail of a portrait within its mummy wrappings, [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]], discovered by Flinders Petrie in 1911.]]
In parallel, more scientific engagement with the portraits was beginning. In 1887, the British archaeologist [[Flinders Petrie]] started [[Excavation (archaeology)|excavations]] at [[Hawara]]. He discovered a Roman [[necropolis]] which yielded 81 portrait mummies in the first year of excavation. At an exhibition in London, these portraits drew large crowds. In the following year, Petrie continued excavations at the same location but now suffered from the competition of a German and an Egyptian art dealer. Petrie returned in the winter of 1910–11 and excavated a further 70 portrait mummies, some of them quite badly preserved.{{sfnp|Petrie|1911|p=1}} With very few exceptions, Petrie's studies still provide the only examples of mummy portraits so far found as the result of systematic excavation and published properly. Although the published studies are not entirely up to modern standards, they remain the most important source for the find contexts of portrait mummies.