Predynastic Egyptian drinking vessels

The pioneering archaeologist Sir William Flinders Petrie (1853–1942) is credited with the development of a chronology of Ancient Egyptian culture using everyday objects. His painstaking work on observing and recording pottery styles resulted in a new methodology for establishing the chronology of an archaeological site. He developed an 18-step system in which he arranged different types of pottery in sequence. These distinctive black-topped vessels, commonly known as Egyptian B-ware and made of Nile silt clay, are examples of one of the types cited by him in his new standard of sequence dating.