Giovanni Belzoni and the Rediscovery of Seti I‘s tomb
- Nov 5, 2022
- 5 min read
Two anniversaries have inspired this blog post, first of all, yesterday marked the 100th anniversary of the discovery of the steps leading to Tutankhamun’s tomb, probably the world’s greatest and most famous archaeological discovery, but today also marks the 244th anniversary of the birth of Giovanni Belzoni. At the moment, you may be wondering how these two things are connected, but it’s a closer connection than you may at first think. Giovanni Belzoni found a similarly exciting discovery in the Valley of the Kings, just a little over a hundred years before Howard Carter discovered Tutankhamun. The discovery Belzoni made was the fantastic tomb of Seti I, which is the largest of all the tombs in the Valley of the Kings.
Giovanni Belzoni was one of fourteen children. He was born in Padua, Italy, in 1778. As a teenager, he attempted to go into holy orders, where he learnt about engineering, but never officially took up orders. From this engineering experience, he began to exhibit some hydraulic engines he had made. When Napoleon’s forces invaded Italy, he moved to the Netherlands, before again moving to England in 1803, to escape going to prison. Following the move, he joined the circus as a strongman, helped by his 6 ft 7 inch height and muscly build. He toured with this around Britain and Europe, until he heard the Pasha of Egypt was looking for a new irrigation system.
In 1815, Belzoni made his way to Egypt to offer his hydraulic engines for use as an irrigation system. Despite a good pitch, the Pasha wasn’t entirely impressed and didn’t take up the offer. Instead, Belzoni was offered a small allowance that allowed him to stay in Egypt a little longer. It was during this time that Belzoni became fascinated with the European efforts to excavate Ancient Egyptian sites. Officials on these digs saw him as a valuable asset thanks to his strength and engineering knowledge and so by 1817, he was officially employed by the British to help with these types of excavations.
Belzoni built up a reputation for getting things done, even if his methods don’t match up to modern archaeological standards. He was notorious for using his strength, bribery and ingenuity to plunder items from Egypt and send them to Britain. One of the most famous artifacts he helped unearth was a sculpture of Ramses II, which had been notoriously difficult to move. It was fought over by the British and the French, but is now held in the British Museum. He also cleared the entrance of the famous Abu Simbel temple and was the first to enter the pyramid of Khafre at Giza. Whilst he made these discoveries and more, there is one discovery he is most famous for; the tomb of Seti I.
The tomb was discovered on 16 October 1817 and from that point, it was viewed as the finest tomb in the Valley of the Kings. Its walls were highly decorated and looked as if they had just been painted yesterday, rather than many thousands of years ago. Most importantly, it still contained the sarcophagus, which was made of fine alabaster. This was sent back to London, initially to the British Museum, but was later bought by the Sir John Soane Museum. Belzoni and his team spent just over a year drawing and taking wax impressions of the decorated walls. Unfortunately, when they left, there was a flash flood that caused damage to the paintwork. This meant the tomb would never quite be the same again. Even today the tomb is closed because of issues with damage and conservation.
Belzoni continued to make discoveries after Seti’s tomb, but he returned to England in 1819, saying it was becoming too dangerous after the French had taken an obelisk from him at gunpoint. A year later, he published his account of the many discoveries he had made in the four years he had been excavating in Egypt. This was then followed in 1821 by a fantastic life-size exhibition held in the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly. At this exhibition, called The Egyptian Tomb, many artifacts were on display alongside a recreation of Seti’s tomb (including the sarcophagus), based on the original drawings and wax impressions taken not long after the discovery. The exhibition aimed to showcase Belzoni and his work, but also to educate visitors about ‘authentic’ Ancient Egypt. There was also a catalogue produced for visitors, which emphasised the educational aspects of the exhibition, but also explained the reproduced royal tombs on display. After the exhibition closed, the items, including replicas, were auctioned off at the Egyptian Hall in June 1822. Exhibitions relating to his discoveries still continued to be held after Belzoni’s death in 1823 during an expedition to Timbuktu. In 1825, his widow showcased his original drawings, alongside the models of the royal tombs, in both Paris and London.
Whilst there is no doubt that Giovanni Belzoni acquired his artifacts in dubious circumstances that definitely don’t match up to current ethics about museum collections, he was not the only one working in this way. I am in no way condoning his actions, but recognise that many people were doing the same thing around this time. What his work, and the exhibitions that followed, do show is that it sparked a renewed interest in Egypt, much like the discovery of Tutankhamun did a century later. The difference was that in Belzoni’s time, the idea of Ancient Egypt was still fairly new. Hieroglyphics had still not yet been deciphered but the French and British had been writing and investigating Egyptian history and culture ever since Napoleon’s invasion or so called ‘expedition’ in 1798. These French investigations famously produced the Description de l’Egypte, an encyclopaedic folio published by academics following their return to France in 1801. You can find out more about that and Napoleon’s expedition in a previous blog post, found here. As has been noted, all of these discoveries, including those involving Belzoni, despite their dubious nature, helped to “open the eyes of Europe to the glory that was Egypt”.
Jane Austen Centre, ‘Giovanni Battista Belzoni’, https://janeausten.co.uk/blogs/uncategorized/giovanni-battista-belzoni
Britannica, ‘Giovanni Battista Belzoni’,https://www.britannica.com/biography/Giovanni-Battista-Belzoni
Jane Austen Centre, ‘Giovanni Battista Belzoni’
Marie Parsons, ‘Giovanni Belzoni Circus Giant and Collector of Egyptian Antiquities’,Tour Egypt, http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/belzoni.htm
Hyungji Park, ‘”Going to Wake up Egypt”: Exhibiting Empire in Edwin Drood’, Victorian Literature and Culture, 30.2 (2002), p. 537
Britannica, ‘Giovanni Battista Belzoni’
Marie Parsons, ‘Giovanni Belzoni Circus Giant and Collector of Egyptian Antiquities’
Britannica, ‘Giovanni Battista Belzoni’
Hyungji Park, ‘”Going to Wake up Egypt”’, p. 529
Ibid, p. 542
Britannica, ‘Giovanni Battista Belzoni’
Hyungji Park, ‘”Going to Wake up Egypt”’, p. 538
C. Gillespie Coulston, ‘Scientific Aspects of the French Egyptian Expedition, 1798-1801’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 133.4 (1989), p. 447
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