Narrative of the operations and recent discoveries within the pyramids, temples, tombs and excavations in Egypt and Nubia, and of a journey to the coast of the Red Sea, in search of the ancient Berenice and another to the oasis of Jupiter Ammon

The Italian adventurer Giovanni Belzoni (1778-1823) is one of the most colourful and notorious figures in Egyptology. After the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt, European interest in the country, and especially in its antiquities, led to a demand for artifacts, the larger the better. Belzoni happened to be pursuing his two careers, as circus strong-man and hydraulic engineer, in Egypt in 1815, when he was asked to organise the transport of a 7-ton statue of Ramesses II ... >Voir plus