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Is Belzoni's contribution still under appreciated?

• Message 1. 

  Posted by Belzoniac (U2631811) on Saturday, 3rd December 2005

  Re Egypt, episodes three and four, Â鶹ԼÅÄ 1, 13th & 20th November 2005.
  
  Established admirers of Giovanni Battista Belzoni, as well as those newly introduced to the great man’s exploits through the current television series, may be interested to learn that a dramatisation in miniature of his life as circus strongman, hydraulic engineer, explorer and Egyptologist, has been in the repertoire of Robert Poulter’s New Model Theatre since its first performance at Bristol City Museum & Art Gallery in 1996.
  
  The model theatre production of The Great Belzoni, designed and performed by Robert Poulter to an idea and script by Michael Hunt, was adapted from their live-action production commissioned for the finale of the Ramsgate Spring Festival in 1993 and performed, with fireworks, in that resort’s historic Royal Harbour. The Model Theatre version presents Belzoni’s colourful life from a fleeting foray into monastic life, through a career in show business (performing in a booth at Bartholomew Fair, at Sadler’s Wells and at Astleys, and in his own touring theatre company), to his discoveries in Egypt and eventual death en route to Timbuktu in 1823.
  
  That a television series entitled Egypt should concentrate solely on Belzoni’s major achievements in that country is to be expected. However, the circumstances that brought him to Egypt in the first place might have been explored to some extent. After performing his strongman act in Portugal, in front of Wellington and the Peninsular Army, Belzoni travelled to Malta. There, he made contact with an agent of Mohammed Ali Pasha, Ottoman viceroy of Egypt. The Pasha had embarked on a programme of modernisation for the country which included a hoped-for improvement upon the shaduf and primitive water wheel for purposes of irrigation. Belzoni’s experience with theatrical water effects and spectacle caused him to be invited to Egypt to submit plans for consideration.
  
  It is clear from Belzoni’s account of the subsequent demonstrations that his improved waterwheel, although greatly superior to existing devices, was vetoed through the intrigues of vested interests rather than on grounds of inefficiency. Minor paranoia was a feature of Belzoni’s character but, as his experiences with Drovetti and Salt later demonstrated, ‘just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you!’
  
  Since 1996 the Model Theatre production of The Great Belzoni has been presented at such venues as the Sir John Soane Museum, London, The George Inn, Southwark, the Preetz Paper Theatre Festival in Germany and at similar venues throughout the UK and on the Continent. The medium, derived from Victorian Toy Theatre, proves ideal for performances in museums, galleries, schools and small auditoria. The show’s performances over the last ten years have, hopefully, contributed to a greater appreciation of Belzoni’s contribution to Egyptology, a contribution sadly neglected until very recent years.
  
  A biography of Belzoni, Il Gigante del Nilo by Marco Zatterin was published in Milan in 2000 but has not, to our knowledge, appeared in English translation. The Great Belzoni, by Stanley Mayes appeared in 2003.
  
  So the man begins to be appreciated. Does anyone know of any other past or current Belzoni events, productions etc - live or otherwise? I'd like to hear of them.
  

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• Message 2

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Saturday, 3rd December 2005

  I had only vaguely heard the name, but then how is he related to archaiology? He lived in the 19th century, he was a hydraulics engineer or to be precise a man for all jobs!

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• Message 3

  , in reply to message 2.

  Posted by Lendevon (U2562858) on Saturday, 3rd December 2005

  Belzoni became involved in archaeology almost by accident. To move the massive Egyptian monuments needed an engineer, which is what he was by training.

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• Message 4

  , in reply to message 2.

  Posted by Belzoniac (U2631811) on Monday, 12th December 2005

  By the standards of the age (the first two decades of the 19th century) Belzoni's approach to retrieving and, within his capabilities, interpreting Egyptian antiquities was more sympathetic and painstaking than the methods employed by other contemporary antiquarians and collectors. Academics have continued to deprecate the man and undervalue his achievements, looking down their noses at the ex-showman and regarding him as a 'mere' artisan whose muscles were employed by more 'respectable' demolishers of Egypt's monuments. Acting in a time before archaeology as we know it existed Belzoni should, at least, be accorded the repect due to a proto-egyptologist.

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