The Rape of the Nile

by Brian Fagan

  The ruins around the oasis were far from spectacular, but included some mass burials and some terra-cotta sarcophagi whose lids bore modeled heads. Belzoni broke several and took away the heads. At the second village, the father of the headman was a wealthy date merchant who had, it was generally believed, buried his wealth in the ruins near the settlement, so Belzoni could get within only 45 meters (50 yards) of the ruined Roman temple. But he promptly whipped out his pocket telescope and enjoyed a close-up view of the walls. Nearby was a well of hot and cold water, which Belzoni visited several times on the pretext of having a bath. He found that the temperature varied, a phenomenon he attributed to the wide variations in the air temperature relative to water temperature. He confused this spring with the famous Fountain of the Sun at the temple of Jupiter Ammon, alluded to by classical writers. This led him to believe that he had located the temple when in fact it lay in the Siwa Oasis, to the south.

  Despite many pleas, the Bedouin Grumar refused to take Belzoni on to Siwa, where he had heard of Browne’s and others’ discoveries of ruins that might be, and in fact were, the elusive temple. It later transpired that he was well known at Siwa for his prowess as a raider. Reprisals might have resulted if he had visited the area without his people. So Belzoni was forced to visit el-Farafra, an oasis only three days’ journey to the southwest. All that was to be seen there was a ruined Coptic church and a few suspicious villagers. At one point, the party was obliged to make a forced march at night to avoid an attack.

  Belzoni now turned for home, but was detained at Wadi Bahariya by the headman, who told him that the sheik and his father agreed that Belzoni should turn Muslim and stay with them. They would give him land for new agricultural products and four daughters as his wives. He would be happy there if he gave up constantly looking for old stones. It was with difficulty that Belzoni extracted himself from this situation, by promising to return when he had settled his affairs in Cairo.

  The journey home was uneventful, except for a nasty fall from a camel. The animal stumbled on a rock and rolled about 6 meters (20 feet) down a steep slope. Belzoni fell heavily and was badly bruised, perhaps breaking a few ribs. In great pain, he laid up at the home of the sheik of Zabu. His bed was set up in a narrow passage by the house, which was constantly in use by people and animals. Passersby accidentally kicked him in the head. When animals passed, “I had reason to fear the consequence of my being thus situated.” A funeral was in progress, and the lamentations and comings and goings disturbed his slumbers. All in all, it was an uncomfortable visit, capped by the widow of the dead man begging Belzoni for two pieces of his “magic paper” for the purposes of obtaining a new husband and protecting him from death. Belzoni tried to persuade her that he was not a magician. “I could not help reflecting, that if I had the art of procuring husbands to widows, I could have obtained employment enough in Europe, without travelling in strange lands for such a purpose.”23

  Three days later Belzoni was well enough to travel, and the camels set off across the desert on what proved to be an arduous journey. They drank some rather salty water, which caused agonies of thirst in the final stages of the crossing, so much so that a crust of salt formed on Belzoni’s mouth. The travelers were thankful to reach the Nile on May 14.

  A day later Belzoni embarked for Cairo. By this time Henry Salt had returned to base, and the two men met at night to avoid a raging plague epidemic. They settled their accounts and parted on excellent terms. There remained only the matter of the Karnak incident to settle. The legal situation in Alexandria was full of confusion and intrigue. Drovetti had exercised his influence with the French consul, Joseph Roussel. When the consul was recalled to France, the vice-consul took over, but he, again, was under Drovetti’s thumb. Belzoni was required to put down a deposit of $1,200 in advance to cover the expenses of the lawyer’s travel to Thebes. Just as he got around this requirement, Lebolo and Rosignani turned up in Alexandria and boasted openly of their achievement. In the end, the matter was closed when the vice-consul ruled that the two accused were Piedmontese, not Frenchmen, and could be tried only in Turin.

  Belzoni was disgusted and still in pain from his Zabu fall. He was convinced that Drovetti had acted out of jealousy and malice. By mid-September he had had enough and put his affairs in order. Giovanni and Sarah sailed for Europe with considerable thankfulness, “[n]ot because I disliked the country I was in, for, on the contrary, I had reason to be grateful; nor do I complain of the Turks or Arabs in general, but of some Europeans who are in that country, whose conduct and mode of thinking are a disgrace to human nature.”24

  10

  “A Multitude of Collateral Curiosities”

  Under the Majesty of Horus: Strong-Bull-arisen-in-Thebes, Who

  sustains the Two Lands; Two Ladies: Renewing birth, Mighty of

  Sword, Smiter of the Nine Bows in all lands. . . . The King of Upper

  and Lower Egypt: Menmare; the Son of Re: Seti, Beloved of Ptah,

  given life forever and ever. . . . He speaks before his fathers, all kings

  of Upper Egypt, the kings of Lower Egypt, the rulers of people:

  Listen to me, ye leaders of Egypt,

  And may others listen to you.

  PROCLAMATION OF PHARAOH SETI I

  in the temple of Wadi Mia in the Eastern Desert,

  quoted in Miriam Lichtheim, ed., Ancient Egyptian Literature:

  A Book of Readings1

  Giovanni Belzoni left Egypt at a time of feverish interest in ancient Egypt. European antiquaries and gentlemen of leisure were greeting the volumes of the Description de l’Égypte with amazement and enthusiasm. Muhammad Ali was favorably disposed to foreigners, and the British and French consuls enjoyed powerful influence with the pasha. It was easier for the wealthy tourist to visit the Nile and sites that hitherto had been accessible only to the adventurous or to official visitors. But few people could emulate the exploits and achievements of the tall Italian. In three short years he had opened up the Pyramid of Khafre at Giza and Abu Simbel, discovered a magnificent pharaoh’s tomb, and recovered both the Young Memnon and a host of fine antiquities for the British consul and on his own account.

  Belzoni paused only briefly in Italy before going on to London, where he arrived by the end of March 1820. On the last day of that month the mighty London Times announced: “The celebrated traveller Mr. Belzoni has arrived in this metropolis after an absence of ten years, five of which he has employed in arduous researches after the curious remains of antiquity in Egypt and Nubia.” The newspaper report went on to announce that Belzoni planned an exhibition of his “beautiful tomb” from Thebes as soon as a convenient hall could be found.2

  The newcomer was a welcome visitor in London. Prominent social hostesses lionized the tall explorer with dark, curly hair and a charmingly broken English accent. His first objective was to publish a book on his travels. The obvious publisher was John Murray of Albemarle Street, probably the most influential English bookman of the nineteenth century, who specialized in travel books written by explorers returning from remote places. (His family later published the works of David Livingstone and other African explorers.) It was an opportune time for a book on Egypt. Belzoni’s exploits had been widely publicized in the influential Quarterly Review. The Young Memnon was drawing crowds in the British Museum, and interest in Egyptian antiquities was running at a high pitch. Belzoni seems to have written his book with extraordinary rapidity, for it appeared before the end of 1820, in two volumes.

  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 was an immediate and widely read success. Yet it is a verbose and self-serving book, full of contradictions and curious stylistic usages. Belzoni refused all editorial help, basing the book on his extensive journals. “The public will, perhaps, gain in the fidelity of my narration what it loses
in elegance,” he wrote in the preface.3 At times the Narrative is fiercely polemical, especially against his French rivals. But the story moves along convincingly, as if the reader were at Belzoni’s side, sharing in his extraordinary experiences and supplied with the same nervous energy.

  FIGURE 10.1 The Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, London. Hulton Deutsch Collection/Corbis.

  The Narrative and the expensive—and now rare—folio of plates that went along with it were well received by the reviewers, who admired the author’s courage and devotion to the English cause. John Murray sent a copy to the poet Lord Byron, who remarked that “Belzoni is a grand traveller, but his English is very prettily broken.” The Quarterly Review was especially polite and discussed the book in a thirty-page article. “But though no scholar himself,” the Review wrote, “he may justly be considered as a pioneer, and a most powerful and useful one, of antiquarian researches; he points out the road and makes it easy for others to travel over.”4 This was a prophetic statement. The Narrative was soon translated into French, German, and Italian, and a second English edition was hastily ordered from the printer.

  Belzoni staged his exhibit in the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly, a building that had been designed as an exhibition hall in 1812.5 By an appropriate coincidence, the facade of the hall was decorated with moldings in the Egyptian style. The exhibition opened on May 1, 1821, and was an immediate success. Nineteen hundred people paid half a crown each to visit the displays on the first day alone. With a superb touch of showmanship, Belzoni asked a crowd of leading doctors to witness the unwrapping of a fine mummy of a young man “perfect in every part” just before the show opened.

  Two full-sized models of the two most beautiful rooms in Seti I’s tomb dominated the displays—the pillared hall and another showing five human figures. The plaster-of-paris models were taken from Belzoni’s wax impressions and colored accurately from Alessandro Ricci’s fine paintings. Here the visitor could witness all the splendor of a royal tomb. The magnificent figures of Osiris, Seti I himself, Horus, Anubis, and other gods stood on the walls of the halls, together with vivid depictions of the terrible underworld of the dead. Belzoni also reproduced Abu Simbel in model form. A cross section of the Khafre pyramid revealed the mysteries of one of the greatest monuments of the Nile. Lion-headed statues of the god Sekhmet, mummies, papyri, and what the Times called “a multitude of collateral curiosities” accompanied the models.6

  ::

  The exhibition placed Belzoni in the forefront of the travelers of his day, largely because he had the tangible results of his travels to display many thousands of miles from their exotic homeland. So great was the success of the show that Belzoni began to lay plans for displays in Paris and St. Petersburg, Russia, as well. The London exhibition lasted until 1822, when its contents, including the models, were auctioned off to eager buyers. One client paid £490 for the facsimiles of the tomb and some additional models.7

  Much of Belzoni’s time was taken up in frustrating negotiations with the British Museum over the alabaster sarcophagus from Seti I’s tomb. Henry Salt had complicated matters, for he was forwarding his magnificent first collection of Egyptian antiquities to the British Museum, in the hope that the trustees would purchase it. He did this in the context of the encouragement he had received from both Sir William Hamilton of the Foreign Office and Sir Joseph Banks, still a trustee of the museum. But he found the museum lukewarm and the trustees outraged at the price he placed on the collection—around £8,000. It was obvious even to the casual bystander that he was out for a handsome profit. Inevitably, Belzoni was tarred with the same brush.

  The trustees had just paid £35,000 for the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon, amid considerable public outcry. They were in no mood to spend more money on foreign antiquities. Negotiations reopened when Seti I’s sarcophagus arrived in London on board the frigate HMS Diana. Belzoni now intervened on his own behalf and pointed out that Salt had promised him half of whatever the sarcophagus raised above a base price of 2,000 pounds. The arguments and memoranda flowed desultorily across the trustees’ meeting table for many months, much to Belzoni’s frustration and Salt’s disgust, for the consul was now in need of money to continue his collecting. He was anxious to recover his outlay and make some money to enable him to retire within a reasonable time; “otherwise,” he wrote to William Hamilton, “I must be for ever condemned to remain here, which you will allow is no very desirable lot.”8

  FIGURE 10.2 The Egyptian Room at the British Museum. Bettman/Corbis.

  Salt ended up spending the rest of his career collecting antiquities and selling them for a profit, practically to the exclusion of his consular duties. In the end, however, he was obliged to sell his first collection to the British Museum for a paltry £2,000. The trustees flatly rejected the offer of the sarcophagus, sensing both legal difficulties and inflated prices, despite protestations by both Salt and Belzoni that they had received higher offers from Drovetti and other buyers. Eventually, the sarcophagus was sold for £2,000 to John Soane, a wealthy London architect and art collector. All the money went to Salt and not a penny to the Belzonis.

  Soane placed the sarcophagus on exhibit in the basement of his house, after breaching a wall to install it. “The rank and talent of this country, to an immense number,” who viewed the sarcophagus as it glowed softly in the light of a solitary candle placed inside it, attended three open-house evenings. Sarah attended the receptions and received “every attention from the guests.”9 By this time she was a widow; Belzoni had died miserably some time earlier at the outset of his final and most ambitious journey.

  ::

  The endless restlessness that afflicted Giovanni Belzoni had caused an abrupt shift in his interests and fortunes. Exasperated with the British Museum, tired of city life and of being a celebrity, he hankered for a change. Sometime in early 1822 he decided to leave Europe and search for the sources of the river Niger in West Africa. The Niger problem was still one of the great controversies of African exploration and one of more than passing interest to the British government, owing to the importance of the river as a terminus for the Saharan caravan trade with North Africa. Several enterprising explorers had been robbed or murdered in their search.10 The government now planned to attach individual travelers to trans-Saharan caravans to improve their chances of survival.

  Belzoni ignored the potential dangers. He set off on his own, on the assumption that his Egyptian experience was sufficient to travel independently. He planned to set out across the Sahara from Morocco, but the shifting sands of Arab politics left him deprived of critical firmans at the last minute. Eventually, he traveled to West Africa, hitching a ride for the last stage of the journey to the Gold Coast on the warship HMS Singer. On October 15, 1823, he arrived on the coast and was at the mouth of the Benin River a month later. The journey to the interior began in the company of a merchant named Houston. The pair soon reached Benin itself, where they were kindly received. But Belzoni came down with a severe attack of dysentery. A week later the intrepid traveler was dead.

  Belzoni was quickly buried under a large tree. A wooden notice on his grave recorded the date and circumstances of his death and expressed the wish that the grave be kept cleared and fenced. But forty years later, Victorian traveler Sir Richard Burton could find no trace of the grave, although the local people still remembered the large bearded explorer who had died among them. It was a pathetic ending to a life that packed more experience and energy into it than most men would into twenty lifetimes. An era in Egyptology had ended with a whimper.

  Both antiquarians and collectors had admired Belzoni’s work in Egypt, but the British and French consuls effectively held a monopoly on all excavations along the Nile. Henry Salt continued to collect antiquities, writing to a friend that he spent most of his consular time “ransacking tombs, poring over old inscriptions, and learning to decypher monograms, in which I assure you I am become very expert.” He remained bitter toward Belzoni to the end, feeling that the remar
kable Italian had taken all the credit for the discoveries he, Salt, had financed, and that the British Museum had treated him badly over his collection. His extraordinary bitterness was aggravated by the death of his young wife of puerperal fever and by his own poor health. “I have but one wish,” he wrote to his London agent, “never to have my name coupled with his.”11 To cap it all, much of Salt’s original work on hieroglyphs was anticipated by the work of the French epigrapher Jean-François Champollion.

  Salt’s later collecting activities were managed by the Greek Yanni Athanasi, who had worked with Belzoni and become deeply embittered against the Italian.12 Two other major collections found ready buyers in Europe. The first was assembled between 1819 and 1824 and was sold to the king of France for £10,000. It was purchased on the advice of JeanFrançois Champollion himself, the scholar whom Salt admired yet envied. The last collection was Salt’s largest and auctioned at Sotheby’s in London eight years after his death, in 1835. A total of 1,083 lots fetched more than £7,000. In eleven years of consular work, Salt had made a collection at a low cost to him from which he had netted more than £20,000. He did not live to enjoy his profits, for he died of an intestinal infection in October 1827, still a lonely consul without the pension and scholarly recognition he had craved all his diplomatic life.