‘Egypt Uncovered: Belzoni and the Tomb of Pharaoh Seti I’ at Sir John Soane’s Museum, London | BLOUIN ARTINFO

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'Egypt Uncovered: Belzoni and the Tomb of Pharaoh Seti I' at Sir John Soane's Museum, London

BY BLOUIN ARTINFO | December 08, 2017

   

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Giovanni Belzoni / Alessandro Ricci, Seti I before Isis and Anubis, c. 1821

(©Bristol Culture: Bristol Museums and Art Gallery. By permission of the trustees of Sir John Soane's Museum)

To coincide with the 200th anniversary of the discovery of the tomb of Pharaoh Seti I by the Egyptologist Giovanni Battista Belzoni (1778–1823), Sir John Soane's Museum in London will present Egypt Uncovered: Belzoni and the Tomb of Pharaoh Seti I – a new exhibition revealing the story behind the Museum's most treasured possession. 

Known as 'The Great Belzoni', Giovanni Battista Belzoni was one of the most famous and pioneering explorers of his age, and played a crucial role in the development of Egyptology as a scientific discipline. A former circus strongman based in London, in 1815 Belzoni took up the role of engineer in Egypt, charged with the removal of large and heavy antiquities. This included the seven-ton bust of Pharaoh Ramesses II, taken from the king's memorial temple at Luxor that now sits in the British Museum. On 17 October 1817, Belzoni made his finest discovery: he found the tomb of Ramesses' father, Seti I comprising ten vividly painted chambers decorated with thousands of hieroglyphs, and Seti's elaborately carved white alabaster sarcophagus.  

Seti reigned for 13 years (BC 1291–1278), and was a great military pharaoh of the 19th dynasty, pursuing campaigns in Syria and Lebanon. Seti's reign marked a period of re-birth for Egypt, during which art and culture reached a sophistication rarely equalled in subsequent centuries.  

This exhibition runs through April 15, 2018 at Soane Gallery, Sir John Soane's Museum, 13 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London, WC2A 3BP.

For details, visit: www.soane.org

Click on the slideshow for a sneak peek at the exhibition. 

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