19th nineteenth century
A01=Stanley Mayes
academic
actor
archaeologist
Author_Stanley Mayes
barber
Berenice
biography
Category=DNBH
Category=DNBP
Category=DNXH
Category=NHG
Category=NHH
Category=NKD
Egyptian archaeology
engineer
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
European
explorer
Giovanni Battista Belzoni
Giza
historical account
life story
monk
pyramid
ruins
scholarly
Siwa
Product details
- ISBN 9781845113339
- Dimensions: 129 x 198mm
- Publication Date: 30 Jun 2006
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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This is the truly extraordinary life story of Giovanni Belzoni - engineer, barber, monk, actor and circus strongman (where he earned his title, 'The Great Belzoni'), who became one of the giants of 19th century Egyptian archaeology. Sometimes maligned as a tomb robber, Giovanni Battista Belzoni is perhaps the most important and yet least remembered explorer and archaeologist of the last two hundred years. Giovanni Belzoni was the first person to penetrate the heart of the second pyramid at Giza and the first European to visit the oasis of Siwah and discover the ruined city of Berenice on the Red Sea. In 1823, at the age of forty-five, Belzoni died of fever trying to reach the mysterious city of Timbuktu. There has never been a character quite like him in the history of exploration.
Stanley Mayes was a respected historian and biographer, highly regarded for his work on Egypt, archaeology and the history of the Ottoman Empire. He was also a broadcaster, political commentator on for the BBC Overseas service and BBC World Service and freelance journalist. He was working on his fifth book about Charles James Fox at the time of his death in 1992.
