A Million Mummified Cats

There was an occasion early in Belzoni's career in Egypt when a local wanted to sell him some falcon mummies.  Several sealed clay jars were produced.  Belzoni observed that the jars looked exactly like the kind still in use locally, and opined that perhaps these were not genuine ancient artifacts.

Incensed, the artifact merchant smashed the jars to the ground.  Within there were indeed mummified birds, now much the worse for the experience.  From the casual destruction shown in this incident one might reasonably conclude that there is no shortage of mummified critters in Egypt.

Belzoni learned this himself when he later found a cache of animal mummies while excavating in the Valley of the Kings:

"There were bulls, cows, sheep, monkeys, foxes, bats, crocodiles, fishes, and birds, in them: idols often occur; and one tomb was filled with nothing but cats, carefully folded in red and white linen, the head covered with a mask representing the cat and made of the same linen."

This was probably a collection of animals designated as pets in the afterlives of upper caste Egyptians, but there were also large numbers of animals mummified as offerings.  This tradition was most prominent in late Pharonic times and into the Ptolemeic/Roman era. 

Very large accumulations of these votive mummifications were found at Saqqara .  There are entire galleries devoted to specific types of mummies-baboons, falcons, and half a million ibis mummies!

The numbers of animals mummies discovered are impressive.  Four million ibis burials at Tune el-Gebel.  Eight million  Dogs packed into tunnels at Saqqara. 

And of cats, too many to count.  There is in fact a persisting story that tons of mummified cats were excavated in the late 19th century, shipped to England and ground up for fertilizer!  With a story simultaneously this detailed and this implausible I was quite prepared to track it down only to find that someone has already done so.  This last link by the way comes from a blog usually devoted to obscure 19th century literature, showing an admirable Catholicism of interests that hearkens back to the many self taught Egyptologists of that century.

Most of these animal mummies were mass produced in a sort of factory system that combined, in essence, puppy and kitten mills, cheap mummification, storage on site until an annual mass interment, and one assumes a fair amount of "smells and bells" ceremony to mark the occasion.  The priests involved in this, to be entirely frank, business, had shifty ethics such that burials of expensive critters like baboons often contain lesser animals, while the cheap stuff like cats and ibises often contained only parts of same.

Clearly animal life was not given great reverence in later Egypt.  Things had slipped considerably since Herodotus reported on the practices associated with the death of pets in Egypt:

"All the inhabitants of a house where a cat has died a natural death, shave their eyebrows, and when a dog dies they shave the whole body including the head."

But of course the mass production of puppies and kittens-done in most unnaturally at a few days of age-might not qualify for the laudable degree of mourning he was referring to.

With so many....so darned many mummified animals under the sands of Egypt there is neither means nor need to excavate and conserve them all.  Most will have to just stay put.  For more info and pictures on animal mummies, as well as a link to "adopting" one of your own to be conserved, go here .

Belzoni as Indiana Jones?

The character of Indiana Jones is certainly a composite.  One antecedent is often said to be Allan Quatermain as he appears in King Soloman's Mines.  But although he wore a fedora, Quatermaine was a big game hunter whose interest in archaeology was peripheral. 

The Charlton Heston character Harry Steele has some notable similarities to Indiana Jones, especially in having a rival archaeologist in pursuit of the same mystical artifact.  The character was based loosely on a fellow named Hiram Bingham III, whose archeological world view was rather "Belzonian".

But as original source material for a two fisted, manly hunter of antiquities you still have to consider Belzoni as a candidate.  Lets look at some evidence from the films and from the life of Belzoni.

Looks good in a turban:

 And....

The observant will also have noted that "Indy" is standing in what looks like a replica of "Belzoni's Tomb".

On the unexpected detour that led Giovanni to Egypt he had along his wife and a young servant, James.  A trio not unlike this one from the "Temple of Doom" incarnation of Indiana Jones.

In Raiders of the Lost Ark Indiana Jones had a nemesis.  Belloq was a renegade French archaeologist aiding the enemies of his country for his own personal gain.

Belzoni had to contend with Drovetti, who while technically born an Italian had served in Napoleon's army and as French consul general in Egypt before going on to a career of very unscrupulous antiquities collection for both the French and for his own personal gain.

Pretty much the same guy with facial hair.



Indiana Jones generally had a plucky heroine by his side.  Usually a woman who did not need much rescuing and was capable of some swashbuckling in her own right.

Not to detract in any way from the estimable Ms. Allen, but she could not hold a candle to Sarah Belzoni.  In a pre-Victorian age where women were not expected to do much beyond producing heirs and needlework we find Sarah and Giovanni standing side by side guns in hand staring down thieves who were trying to board their boat in the hinterlands above the First Cataract.  Later we find Mrs. Belzoni setting up housekeeping on the roof of one of the temples of Philae, the unwelcome attentions of local men being discouraged by the brace of pistols she prominently wore.

But it was on a trip to the Holy Land were we see her true nature.  Returning from a particularly difficult expedition she announced that she was going to fulfill a long time desire and travel to Jerusalem.  Off she went with the servant boy James, both of them dressed incognito as Mameluk youths.

At the River Jordan a guard actually tried to stop her from approaching the river before the approved time.  Sarah struck at him with her whip!  When he drew his sword she hopped off her mule and dared him to touch her.  He dared not, as Sarah just walked past him.

The writing credits for Raiders of the Lost Ark go to George Lucas and a Phillip Kaufman.  I really wonder if these gentlemen-I'm thinking Kaufman-encountered the biography of Belzoni in their research.  If so, could the above incident have provided the origin of Indiana Jones' most famous prop?

History is not always fair.  If we set the standard as being determined by how much you exceed your contemporary fellow man, or woman, we should really be speaking of Sarah as "The Great Belzoni"!

The Legacy of Belzoni

If you were to ask a serious archaeologist about Belzoni you would get at best a mixed review.  Certainly his techniques were not ideal.  There was that cutting off of two columns to get the Younger Memnon statue out.  And that battering ram he used to smash in the wall of Seti's tomb.  And the whole array of tactics he used to obtain permission and cooperation (not at all the same thing you see) from local authorities.  Belzoni would use flattery, or bluster, or baksheesh, or truth, or semi-truth, whatever would work.  It appears that on occasion he would just grab folks by the front of their gallibayah and demand their cooperation.  It was difficult to refuse an animated, bearded giant.

Belzoni was obviously in Egypt at just the right moment.  The Napoleonic wars had opened the country to Westerners.  The local government was weak and distracted.  And Egyptology as a discipline was just getting started.  In a few more years with the decyphering of the Rosetta Stone much more was understood.  And although archaeological hi-jinks persisted through the 19th century-apparently the Third Great Pyramid was opened by blasting!-the free for all grabbing of antiquities eventually diminished.

After Egypt Belzoni's life was a bit more commonplace.  He wrote a moderately succesful account of his adventures, he arranged a display of his personal collection as well as elaborate casts made from the Temple of Seti.  He traveled a bit, he was something of a socialite.  He also expended considerable effort trying to get Henry Salt to pay monies he felt he was entitled to, especially as pertains to a remarkable alabaster sarcophagus Belzoni removed from Seti's tomb.

Restless in civilization Belzoni decided in 1824 to return to Africa.  Not this time to Egypt but to explore sub-Saharan Africa.  Specifically the course of the Niger river was in question at the time.  But in a difficulty ridden expedition Belzoni did not get far.  In the kingdom of Benin, on the way to Timbuktu, the great explorer became ill with dysentery and died.  Ironically, for a man who found fame among the most majestic tombs on earth, his grave is unmarked.

But he is not without monument.  He literally left his mark on Egypt.

On the fallen colossus of Rameses at Thebes



Also at Thebes.  Note the Salt graffiti .

Sarah Belzoni lived to be quite old, dying in 1870.  It is quite possible that when I was born there were still alive a few people who had known her.  Such is the teasing nature of history, I find myself only seperated by a very long generation from a woman who was contemporary with Napoleon, and who first came to Cairo when there were about 150 Westerners there....all still called "Franks" after the fashion of the Crusades!

Belzoni might deserve a minor credit in regards to the Percy Bysshe Shelley poem "Ozymandias".  It was published in 1818 and was apparently inspired by the impending arrival of the Younger Memnon bust excavated by Belzoni.  I did not realize that there were actually two versions of the same basic poem, one by Shelley another by a Horace Smith.  Ozymandias  In one account I read it was speculated that there was a competition for a poem on this topic, sort of a publicity stunt for the arrival of the statue.

Giovanni Belzoni was a complicated man, more motivated by a desire for recognition than by monetary gain.  So he would likely be happy to know that there is actually a city named after him, Belzoni Mississippi.

But were his restless shade to walk the earth again it would find peace in the wild places of Egypt, where the modern world still only extends a few miles on either side of the Nile.  Oh, I suppose he might choose to occasionally haunt London, a city that brought him much frustration.  But he would likely confine himself to the British Museum where his most substantial accomplishment still smiles enigmatically.

Sadly, the Museum credits Henry Salt and ignores The Great Belzoni.

Tomorrow:  Belzoni as Indiana Jones?



Belzoni and the Obelisk

As I have previously mentioned, obelisks appear to have a particular appeal to Imperialists abroad in the land of the Pharoahs.

On Belzoni's first trip up the Nile in 1816 he noticed a rather nice specimen on the island of Philae, just upstream from Aswan.  Nobody seems to have actually "claimed" it, but it had been noticed by Drovetti's team working for the French.  And a gallivanting Englishman named William John Bankes had happened by a year earlier and expressed an interest in it, but was unable to figure out how to move it.  As obelisks go this was a smallish one, only 6.5 meters tall, but it was on an island amidst the rapids that make up the First Cataract of the Nile.

Belzoni made some arrangements with the locals, including setting a guard on the obelisk so that no rivals could take it.

A couple of years later Belzoni was at loose ends after his expedition to Berenice.  All the good digging sites appeared to be occupied by rivals.  Who should turn up but Henry Salt, who had in tow none other than William John Bankes.  Everyone for once got along famously, and it was agreed that Belzoni would retrieve the obelisk for Bankes.  To understand why claim to a priceless artifact would be waived in such a cavalier fashion you need to know something about Bankes.

His father was a trustee of the British Museum.*

That was pretty much all that Salt and Belzoni needed, both men dearly wanted to have the Museum as a customer for their antiquities.  But the biography of Bankes deserves a bit more exploration.

He was an aristocrat, heir to a noble family.  He was a very engaging young man, a college chum and "traveling companion" to Lord Byron who once referred to him as "the father of all mischief".  He had been an aide-de-camp to Wellington during the Peninsular Wars, and later a member of Parliament.  At this he was somewhat less successful, he often botched his lines in speeches.  Once in advocating government funding for churches he said that this would "provide for the union of the sexes" when he meant union of the sects.  His audience found that quite funny, as they considered it to be a topic that Bankes knew very little about.....

In any case the wide traveling Bankes now had the opportunity to get possession of the obelisk that he wanted so badly for the familial estate.  Unfortunately the rival French team got wind of this and there was a mad race up the Nile by both factions, followed by a brisk round of negotiation.  The locals had apparently promised the obelisk to everyone, and considerable persuasion-and Bankes' gold watch-were required before the British claim was remembered to be the earlier one.

Belzoni had little time to spare.  Working only with palm log rollers and Nubian manpower he slid the obelisk to water's edge....only to have it fall into the shallows, apparently lost forever.  Drovetti and his entourage watching from the far shore hooted and jeered.

But Belzoni did not give up with that.  Somehow, using more Nubians, more ropes and strategically placed piles of stone he raised the obelisk and landed it precariously onto the deck of the waiting boat.

The captain of same was in despair.  To run the rapids with this cargo seemed certain to end in wreck and ruin.  As Belzoni directed teams of men with ropes to direct the fragile craft through the white water the boat's owner was less helpfully 'throwing himself on the ground, scattering dust upon his head, and hiding his face'.

But of course Belzoni pulled it off.

The French harbored a considerable grudge over this.  Downstream at Thebes with the obelisk safely berthed right under their noses, tempers flared.  There was a confrontation with the French crew, accusations and punches were thrown and  a pistol shot was fired.  Whether this was a warning or was actually aimed at Belzoni was not clear.  But his need to leave Egypt was becoming evident.

The Philae obelisk made it to England some years later, the first such object to leave Egypt since ancient times.  It was erected at Bankes' estate of Kingston Lacy where it still stands.  The Duke of Wellington spoke at the ceremony marking its installation.  Like its other relocated fellows the damp is doing it harm.

As to Bankes he accumulated quite a store of information in his travels, but was not forthcoming in publication.  But his reputation was more significantly tarnished by not one but two incidents where he was spotted in public places engaging in "indecent acts" with guardsmen.

Polite society was somewhat tolerant of homosexuality in that era, but only if you were aristocratic, artistic, and discreet.  Banned from England he settled into exile in Paris, although it is said he snuck back from time to time incognito to look upon Kingston Lacy and his obelisk.

Tomorrow: The Legacy of Belzoni

*Confusingly the Trustees included both a Bankes and the Banks I mentioned earlier as having encouraged Salt's aquisitive pursuits.

The Great Belzoni

It is the rare and fortunate man who by sheer accident finds himself doing a job for which he is uniquely qualified. 

In 1816 Belzoni was given a rather vague commision from Henry Salt, the newly arrived British counsel general.  He was instructed to go upriver to Thebes and retrieve a monumental head of Rameses II from a temple.  Terms of payment and reimbursement were indistinct, and it was understood that Belzoni could do a little independent collecting if it suited him.  Salt had been encouraged to amass some antiquities by Sir Joseph Banks, a trustee of the British Museum.  But it was not even made clear to Belzoni whether the collected items were to finally go the the Museum or to Salt's private collection.

No matter, Belzoni went at the assignment with gusto.  He combined impressive physical strenth with a forceful personality and a complete disregard of danger.  In truth he also did not have much regard for preserving the cultural heritage of Egypt, but to be fair this was a time when antiquities were being casually destroyed or systematically looted for profit by the Egyptians.  And the government had little interest in the matter.  The Pasha was Armenian, and had plenty to do just keeping various rebellions in check. 

The next three years were a blur of frentic activity, with Belzoni going up and down the Nile where ever antiquities could be found.

He succeded where the French had failed, hauling the colossal bust of Ramesses II out by engineering savy and brute force.

removing the head of Ramesses II, sometimes called the Younger Memmnon

He dug out the sand covering the temple at Abu Simbel, and became the first European to set foot in it.

He found the tomb of Seti I in the Valley of the Kings.  True it had been robbed of portable treasures in antiquity but "Belzoni's tomb" as it is sometimes called had paintings and reliefs of great artistic merit. 

Tomb of Seti I

He missed the mostly undisturbed tomb of King Tut by a mere 60 yards.

He took off across the desert on a mere rumor of the mysterious ancient Red Sea port of Berenice.  He found the desolate site and confirmed its identity, limping home with water supplies gone and several of his camels dying on the return journey.

Ruins of Berenice

At one point he found himself in Cairo with a little free time on his hands.  Truth be told his relationship with Henry Salt was cooling a bit and he wanted to show he could be more than a mere employee.  So he went to the local authorities and by implying that he was working under Salt's patronage got a permit, or firman, to do some "slight excavation" around the pyramids.

The burial chamber of the First Great Pyramid had already been discovered.  But the Second Pyramid was felt by ancient authors to be solid. (Although there were local traditions that it had been entered in the middle ages).  Lesser men had been deterred, but Belzoni had a keen eye and had spotted two areas where he thought irregularities in later stone fall might be doorways.

The first proved to be a false start, with dangerous falling stones, but Belzoni's second attempt came in straight on the hidden passage.

There was no treasure to be found.  Ancient grave robbers were so efficient that it had become routine for the priests to go back and remove the mummy and whatever grave goods had not been quickly plundered.  But the glory of discovery was his.

I have not been able to discover who actually wrote this on the wall of the burial chamber.  The penmanship seems a little too good for the casually educated Belzoni, who would in any case be more likely to refer to himself as G. Belzoni.  The abbreviation in the above presumably indicates Signore.

This discovery brought Belzoni both acclaim and ill will.  He was operating in Giza on shaky authority, and right in the back yard of both his patron Henry Salt, and of an aggressive team of French antique hunters with whom he had a touchy relationship. 

Perhaps even the fringes of the civilized world were getting a little too settled for the Great Belzoni, and he began to feel a bit unwelcome in Egypt.  But he had one further adventure to undertake...

Tomorrow: Belzoni and the Obelisk

Young Belzoni

One would not expect from his humble origins that Giovanni Battista Belzoni would attain lasting renown-as the Great Belzoni-for his accomplishments as an archaeologist and explorer.  At the time of his birth in 1778 he was just one more offspring of an Italian barber.  But he soon began to surprise everyone.  Starting one imagines with his parents, as he grew to be broad shouldered and 6 foot 6 inches tall in an era when the average soldier stood about 5 foot 6.

He also had a roving, inquisitive mind, largely unhindered by any formal education.  His home town of Padua had little to interest him, so at age 16 he left for Rome.  In his biography he claims to have "studied hydrology" but it may in fact have been little more than a job working on the city's many fountains.

Four years later he left town abruptly, expected that had he stayed it was likely he would have been drafted by the Napoleonic Army that was approaching the city.  After a brief sojourn in Holland he turns up in London in 1803.  Here he found employment as, more or less, a circus performer.

He performed at theaters and Fairs up and down the British isles.  At times he seems to have created the equivalent of early light shows using his purported engineering skills.  On other occasions he would act in pantomimes or even play "musical glasses".  But his signature performance was in his role as "The Patagonian Sampson" in which he would don a special lifting framework, then have up to 12 members of the acting company climb on while he walked about the stage.

As to serious acting his English was not up to much.  It is recorded that he sometimes played the role of "Orson", a man raised by a she-bear.  The "female lead" was usually played by an actor in a bear suit, but up in Edinburgh they used a live bear.  And one not in good humor, making Belzoni reluctant to embrace it.  The Scottish audience roundly teased him shouting 'Gid yo' puir auld mither a wee kiss, mon'.

Belzoni made a decent living treading the boards, but the reluctance he later showed in speaking of these years makes one think his heart was not in it.  He had by then married a rather remarkable Englishwoman named Sarah. 

With the defeat of Napoleon Belzoni's horizons broadened, and he undertook tours of Spain and Portugal.  Eventually he set out for Constantinople, but had his life and career radically changed by a chance meeting on Malta.

There he encountered an official of the Egyptian Pasha, who mentioned that his master was interested in improved irrigation equipment.  Straightaway Belzoni changed his plans, and after a journey that involved quarantine from the plague in Alexandria, street riots in Cairo, and the intrigues of Ottoman politics, Belzoni built a machine to show the Pasha.

Basically it was something like a large "hamster wheel" in which a single water buffalo would slowly tread, driving a water pump.  As advertised it was a considerable improvement in efficiency over existing ancient technology.  Unfortunately there was a mishap.  A gang of Arabs all hopped into the device running as fast as they could, to see how much water it would pump.  Caught up in the enthusiasm, James, Belzoni's 16 year old servant, hopped in too.  Suddenly all the Arabs hopped off leaving James to be buffeted about inside the wheel.  He sustained a broken leg, and the Pasha sadly concluded that the invention was too dangerous.

Disappointed, on thin ice financially, and a very long way from home, Belzoni was quite receptive when the newly arrived British counsel general, Henry Salt, suggested he undertake a journey to collect some Egyptian antiquities....

Tomorrow: The Great Belzoni

The Original Tomb Raider

In the current generation we have seen a radical change in the image of archaeologists.  Formerly they were seen as tweedy intellectuals.  Probably British.  Decidedly bookish. 

Ah, but now the image of archeology is this:

Or to get more than a little weirder, this:

OoooKayyy then.  So somewhere along the line the popular image of what archaeologists do changed significantly.  No longer sitting in their tents sipping tea while the fellahs sweated and chanted in the trenches; now we have swashbuckling bravos who just charge on in and grab stuff. 

So where did this "tomb raider" image start out?

I found the answer by climbing down cramped, dusty, exceedingly warm passages that led to the claustrophobic center of the Second Great Pyramid of Giza.  And in the burial chamber the only things to be seen were an empty sarcophagus (raided in antiquity by folks who bore scant resemblance to either Harrison or Angelina).....and this:

Translated this says: "Discovered by S. Belzoni".

And if you have never heard of this remarkable fellow-perhaps the template for Indiana Jones-come back tomorrow, as The Great Belzoni week continues....