Exhibition: John Garstang

Lancashire Telegraph

THE work of a legendary archaeologist is being celebrated in an Egyptian exhibition in Blackburn and Burnley this year.

John Garstang pioneered modern techniques of photographing grave goods at the turn of the 20th Century.

Born in Strawberry Bank, Blackburn in 1876, he attended Blackburn Grammar School and Oxford University before starting work for the famous Egyptologist Flinders Petrie in 1899.

Petrie pioneered many modern archaeological techniques and was the first to understand how the pyramids were constructed.

Garstang later became an independent excavator, funded by groups of wealthy individuals who were rewarded with finds brought back from Egypt.

Some of his finds ended up in museums across Lancashire, including Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery and Towneley Hall Museum and Art Gallery in Burnley.

Modern day Egyptologist Claire Ollet, from Knuzden, has used Garstang’s original photos to reunite many of the items.