What do you imagine when you hear the words Egypt and archaeology: mummies, pyramids, pharaoh-era fortresses. But tweezers? A razor? A tiny applicator for eye makeup?

These everyday objects - ancient and yet so startlingly familiar - are part of an exhibit culled from the discoveries of Sir William Flinders Petrie, "the father of scientific archaeology."

An Englishman who first headed to Egypt in 1880 - and promptly set up his hammock in an abandoned tomb - Petrie is credited with transforming the profession from mere treasure-hunting into a science.

Arriving at a time when collectors were rifling tombs and carting off the flashier items, Petrie gathered and analyzed artifacts overlooked by others and used them to help reconstruct the past, according to Peter Lacovara of the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University in Atlanta.