The database was originally intended as a means of reactivating material known to have been excavated by Petrie or by the organization he initiated, the British School of Archaeology in Egypt. However, it was soon apparent that these collections held many more objects obtained through private donations. In some cases, these objects are significant in themselves; in others, the donors were of notable historical interest. Many had connections to Petrie and his family and had obtained objects from him privately. The whereabouts of these objects was therefore completely unknown.
As a result, the aim became to try to record the entire Egyptian collections of these museums. Because of time constraints, many entries had to be abbreviated and many items could not be photographed. There is clearly much more that could be done to expand upon this database, and it is hoped that full entries and photographs will be available at some time in the future.
Researchers should be aware that not all of the information regarding these objects could be put into the web version of the database. In particular, details on the acquisition history have been omitted. In addition, as many of the objects have been dormant in the collections, there were often problems in tracing their original accession numbers. Researchers are therefore advised, when necessary, to contact the individual museums to check details on any objects before publication.