A Strong Man in Egypt
(Giovanni Belzoni 1778-1823) Presented by David Drew
Giovanni Belzoni was a two-metre-high Italian strongman, who made three remarkable and controversial journeys up the Valley of the Nile between 1815 and 1819. He has been called a plunderer and a robber because of the magnificent collections of Ancient Egyptian artefacts he amassed and sent back to
England. But Belzoni awoke in Europe an interest in Egyptology that has never died.
David Drew travels to the tombs and temples rediscovered by Belzoni: the temple of Rameses II at Abu
Simbel, the temples of Philae, the interior of the Pyramid of Chephren and, still the most spectacular in the whole of Egypt, the tomb of the Pharaoh Seti I - sites which sparked an international war of plunder.
Photography JOHN HOWARTH Film editor LES NEWMAN
Series editor BRUCE NORMAN ProducerDEREK TOWERS
* FEATURE: page 11
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