cover image Belzoni: The Giant Archaeologists Love to Hate

Belzoni: The Giant Archaeologists Love to Hate

Ivor No%C3%ABl Hume. Univ. of Virginia, $34.95 (312p) ISBN 978-0-8139-3140-1

A giant for his time at six-and-a-half-feet tall, Italian-adventurer Giovanni Belzoni led a series of daring explorations in the early 19th century, doing more than anyone else to fill the British Museum with the jewels of the Nile. Here, archaeologist Hume (Martin's Hundred) meticulously unearths his predecessor's exploits. Employing scores of laborers, Belzoni spent years relentlessly levering, chiseling, dragging, and excavating anything that could be pried loose. European empires competed for influence in Egypt, and travelers recognized the potential value of the ancient monuments. As collecting mummies and sarcophagi became an important source of patriotic pride, Belzoni not only had to wrest his prizes from geographic impediments and local chieftains, he was constantly bedeviled by his French counterparts. More skilled at swash-buckling and self-promotion than archaeology, "modern archeologists shudder at Belzoni's Philistine approach," and benign neglect looks enlightened compared to the ravages he and his contemporaries committed in the temples of the pharaohs, such as knocking down walls to facilitate the transportation of the spoils. Perhaps most egregious, Belzoni felt the urge to chisel his name like a graffiti tag onto every object he discovered. (Oct.)