The Great Belzoni, forgotten archaeology pioneer

1778 The Great Belzoni, Giovanni Battista Belzoni (d. December 3, 1823), larger than life showman extraordinaire, who died of dysentery in Guinea, after attempting to travel to Tombouctou, often called Timbuctu or Timbuktu, a city on the Niger River in the West African country of Mali.

The explorer of Egypt and its antiquities was born the 14th child of a poor barber in Padua, Italy. Before becoming a famous traveller he was a barber, a Capuchin monk, magician, and a strongman in a circus). In Cork, Ireland in 1812, he promised to cut a man’s head off and put it back on again, but never quite got round to it. When Napoleon invaded his native land in 1798, Giovanni fled. For years he learned hydraulic engineering and worked as a merchant trader. In 1802, the 6’7” tall Belzoni adventurer moved to London where he was employed as a circus strongman called the ‘Patagonian Samson’, and later earned the name ‘The Great Belzoni’.

By a stroke of good fortune, Belzoni met up with a British Consul-General named Henry Salt who persuaded him to gather Egyptian treasures to send back to the British Museum. Although he can well be described as a tomb plunderer, he is perhaps the most important and yet least remembered explorer and archaeologist of the last two centuries. Under extremely adverse conditions he transported the colossal granite head of Rameses II from Thebes to England, where it is now one of the treasures of the British Museum.

Abu Simbel and Valley of the Kings
Belzoni went on to excavate the great temple of Abu Simbel. He discovered six major royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings, including that of Seti I, and brought to the British Museum a spectacular collection of Egyptian antiquities ...

Tagged: history, trivia, egypt, archaeology, archeology