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For the city in Mississippi, see Belzoni, Mississippi.

Giovanni Battista Belzoni, from Narrative of the Operations and Recent Discoveries Within the Pyramids, Temples, Tombs and Excavations in Egypt and Nubia by Giovanni Battista Belzoni,London, 1820.

Giovanni Battista Belzoni

The 'Young Memnon', aka Rameses II, at the British Museum.

Giovanni Battista Belzoni; sometimes known as The Great Belzoni (November 15, 1778 – December 3, 1823) was a prolific Italian explorer of Egyptian antiquities. He is said to be the real life inspiration for the fictional character Indiana Jones.^[1]

Belzoni was born at Padua, the son of a barber. His family was from Rome; when Belzoni was 16 he went to work there, claiming that he 'studied hydraulics'. He intended taking monastic orders, but in 1798 the occupation of the city by the French troops drove him from Rome and changed his proposed career. He moved in 1800 to the Netherlands.

In 1803 travelled to England, where he married an Englishwoman, Sarah Bane or Banne. He stood 6 ft 7 in (2 metres tall) and broad in proportion; one source says that his wife was of equally generous build, but all other accounts of her describe her as of normal build. They were for some time compelled to find subsistence by exhibitions of feats of strength and agility as a strongman, at fairs and on the streets of London. He was engaged at Astley's amphitheatre, and his circumstances soon began to improve.

In 1812 he left England, and after travelling in Spain and Portugal reached Egypt in 1815. Belzoni wanted to show Mehemet Ali a hydraulic machine of his own invention for raising the waters of the Nile. Though the experiment with this engine was successful, the design was abandoned by the pasha, and Belzoni resolved to continue his travels. On the recommendation of the orientalist, J. L. Burckhardt, he was sent by Henry Salt, the British consul to Egypt, to the Ramesseum at Thebes, whence he removed with great skill the colossal bust of Ramesses II, commonly called "the Young Memnon" – shipped by Belzoni to England, this piece is still on prominent display at the British Museum. He also pushed his investigations into the great temple of Edfu, visited Elephantine and Philae, cleared the great temple at Abu Simbel of sand (1817), made excavations at Karnak, and opened up the sepulchre of Seti I (still sometimes known as "Belzoni's Tomb"). He was the first to penetrate into the second pyramid of Giza, and the first European in modern times to visit the oasis of Bahariya. He also identified the ruins of Berenice on the Red Sea.

In 1819 he returned to England, and published in the following year an account of his travels and discoveries entitled Narrative of the Operations and Recent Discoveries within the Pyramids, Temples, Tombs and Excavations in Egypt and Nubia, &c. He also exhibited during 1820–1821 facsimiles of the tomb of Seti I. The exhibition was held at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, London. In 1822 Belzoni showed his model in Paris.

In 1823 he set out for West Africa, intending to travel to Timbuktu. Having been refused permission to pass through Morocco, he chose the Guinea Coast route. He reached the Kingdom of Benin, but was seized with dysentery at a village called Gwato, and died there. According to the celebrated traveller Richard Francis Burton he was murdered and robbed. In 1829 his widow published his drawings of the royal tombs at Thebes.

• Catholic Encyclopedia article

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

• The Great Belzoni (1778–1823) from Belzoni online