Tijd om op zoek te gaan naar wat meer achtergrond informatie over deze schilderachtige figuur. En dat
bleek meer dan de moeite waard. Tot mijn verrassing kreeg ik te maken met twee totaal verschillende
kanten van deze man. De oudste en meest bekende komt inderdaad overeen met het beeld dat Dickens
in zijn romans met deze figuur wil illustreren. Het volgende citaat3 laat dat overduidelijk zien:
"In the late 1700s and 1800s, the powerful nations of Europe competed for the finest and largest antiquities
Egypt had to offer. The race to stuff the great European museums sometimes degenerated into brawls and
worse in a "wild, wild West" atmosphere. Giovanni Belzoni, a red-headed giant who worked in a British
carnival as a strongman, a.k.a. "The Patagonian Sampson, stepped into this heady and exotic milieu in 1815.
Belzoni, who studied hydraulics, was drawn to Egypt by the Pasha's need for Western technology. His water
wheel invention didn't work, and he and his wife were stranded in Cairo. "As unlikely as it seems, Belzoni
was one of the fathers of Egyptology, Ryan said. Henry Salt, the British Consul in Egypt, soon hired him to
transport a giant bust of Ramses II to England. No job was too big for Belzoni, but the Italian explorer grew
weary of working for Salt and struck off on his own. He spent four more years in Egypt and his
accomplishments, for which he is often uncredited, put him ahead of his time. "He was the first to enter
Khafre's pyramid and the first to enter Ramsestemple at Abu Simbel, Ryan said. Another of Belzoni's firsts
was digging in the Valley of the Kings. He rediscovered five tombs, including Seti I's in 1817.Ryan's interest
the valley began when he read about Belzoni's work, especially his studies of small uninscribed tombs. One
uj these tombs was KV21. He also reported two intriguing mummies. Ryan found KV21 quickly, or, as he put
it, in "ten minutes with a trowel. KV21 was filled with flood debris and the mummies had been torn apart in
the late 1800s.
Een tamelijk wilde jongen mogen we wel zeggen, maar laten we niet te vlug oordelen. Als we verder lezen in het zelfde
artikel doet deze 'grafrover' iets wat we niet zouden verwachten:
"Contrary to his reputation as a destructive tomb robber,
Belzoni took nothing from the tomb. He also did something
extraordinary for his time: he documented what he found. He
published diagrams of KV21 to scale, decades before W.M.
Finders Petrie would revolutionise Egyptology with systematic,
scientific methods. Belzoni also recorded all the tombs he
studied in watercolours. He made a cross-section through the
mountainside of Abu Simbel to scale. Such documentation was
unheard of at that time. He also published the first scientific
survey of Seti I's tomb. He made a cutaway view and a
*opographic plan with a scale. "How many tomb robbers do
ou know that make topographical maps of the Valley of the
Kings? Ryan said.
En gelijk heeft deze hedendaagse archeoloog! Is Berzoni dan toch
eerder de bekende raw bolster met de blanke pit. In dat geval heeft
Dickens het dus bij het verkeerde eind. Maar laten we niet te hard
oordelen over de meester. Zelf Ryan moet bekennen dat:
"For all his accomplishments, Belzoni still continues to earn the scorn of archaeologists and
amateurs alike.
Een zeer terechte opmerking want een hedendaagse Amerikaanse encyclopedie schrijft in haar laatste editie4 over hem:
Belzoni, Giovanni Battista 1778-1823, Italian adventurer and antiquities dealer. He lived (1803—12) in
England and there invented a hydraulic machine, which he attempted to introduce into Egypt in 1815.
He subsequently became involved in securing Egyptian antiquities in order to sell them to European
collectors. He opened (1817) the rock temple of Abu-Simbel, and he discovered (1817) the tomb of Seti
3 Uit:Giovanni Belzoni and Howard Carter In the footsteps of early Egyptologists. By Susan Cottman
4 the Columbia EncyclopediaSixth Edition. 2001,
25
