LONDON - This unique exhibition celebrates the diversity of ancient Palestine.  It also illustrates the deep, rich heritage of a region repeatedly portrayed in today’s media as a place of conflict and suffering.  The exhibition highlights the extraordinary finds made by the archaeologist Sir Flinders Petrie, who was Professor of Egyptology at UCL and spent many years working in the area around modern Gaza in the 1920s and 1930s.  On exhibition until 24 March, 2007.

The sites he dug are now divided between the modern states of Israel and the Palestinian Authority.  They include major towns and trading centers which flourished over 5000 years ago.  He found beautiful pottery and jewellery and a huge variety of tools.  This is the first time that many of these unique artifacts - housed in UCL’s Institute of Archaeology - have been on public display.  But the exhibition is much more than a showcase for remarkable artifacts.  It draws on the letters, notebooks and photographs kept by Petrie and his colleagues.  These help recreate what daily life was like for the European archaeologists and for the Palestinian men, women and children who worked on these excavations in the 1930s.

Visitors can see into a ‘dig house’, explore a trench and sit inside a ‘Bedouin tent’ to watch a short film about life on the dig. Special interactive areas allow visitors to explore what archaeology can - and cannot - tell us.  The exhibition aims to be a positive force for change.  An understanding of the past should lead to dialogue, tolerance and the courage to take a long term view.

Visit School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London : SOAS at www.soas.ac.uk