The Great Belzoni: The Circus Strongman Who Discovered Egypt's Ancient Treasure

This is the extraordinary life story of Giovanni Belzoni - engineer, barber, monk, actor and circus strongman (where he later earned his title, The Great Belzoni) - who became one of the giants of 19th-century Egyptian archaeology. Sometimes maligned as a tomb robber, Giovanni Battista Belzoni is perhaps the most important and yet least remembered explorer and archaeologist of the 19th and 20th centuries. Giovanni Belzoni was the first person to penetrate the heart of the second pyramid at Giza and the first European to visit the oasis of Siwah and discover the ruined city of Berenice on the Red Sea. In 1823, at the age of 45, Belzoni died of fever trying to reach the mysterious city of Timbuktu.