Charlotte Booth's 2018 PhD thesis, citing R. A. Caminos's 1976 survey, states that the scholarly literature on Egyptological recording technique begins its account with Karl Lepsius in the 1840s

epigraphyarchaeologyegyptologykarl-richard-lepsiussqueeze-methodhistoriography

Charlotte Booth's 2018 University of Birmingham PhD thesis on Egyptological paper squeezes states: "The literature on classical epigraphy includes Caminos (1976), who provides a summary of recording techniques in the field of Egyptology, starting with Karl Lepsius in the 1840s and continuing until Dows Dunham and William Kelly Simpson's book in 1975 on Meresankh III's mastaba." This is Booth's own sentence (Tier 2: named scholar, academic dissertation, citing an established source), reporting rather than directly quoting R. A. Caminos's 1976 summary of Egyptological recording technique.

It establishes that the standard scholarly narrative of squeeze/impression recording within Egyptology specifically opens with Karl Richard Lepsius and his 1840s expedition — the periodization behind the "founding practitioner" framing. It is a claim about the field's historiography, not about the technique's actual origin: claim-squeeze-technique-predates-lepsius-learned-not-invented shows the technique itself is considerably older, just not within Egyptology.