Ivor Noël Hume

BELZONI - In a nutshell
December 26, 2011

Giovanni Batista Belzoni was a towering figure at the beginning of archaeology in Egypt, not for his recognized talents but for his 6’6” height.Nearly 200 years later he is still...

BELZONI - The wide angle
December 26, 2011

One might wonder why a twenty-first century reader should want to delve into a biography of someone so distant and so out of tune with the modern world.At one level...

BELZONI - A close-up
December 26, 2011

Opening my book to pages 64 and 65, you will sit beside Belzoni as he drew the tumbled wonders of Karnak. It is a safe bet that having done so,...

BELZONI - A close-up

Opening my book to pages 64 and 65, you will sit beside Belzoni as he drew the tumbled wonders of Karnak. It is a safe bet that having done so, like him, you will want to keep on digging—while watching for the shadow of a Drovetti lurking behind the next pillar.Belzoni was the first man to open the great temple at Abu Simbel and to discover the entrance to the second pyramid at Giza. It is my hope that as soon as the Arab Spring turns to peaceful summer my readers will be booking visits to the Nile—remembering, of course, that memorializing one’s presence with a knife or chisel provides an opportunity to experience the pyramid-like solitude of an Egyptian jail.

Editor: Erind Pajo
December 26, 2011

Ivor Noël Hume BELZONI: The Giant Archaeologists Love to Hate University of Virginia Press320 pages, 7 1/4 x 9 3/4 inches ISBN 978 0813931401

Ivor Noël Hume

Born in England in 1927 the author became an archaeologist charged with saving the buried relics of bombed London. Seven years later he accepted the post of archaeological director at Colonial Williamsburg and remained there until his retirement in 1987. His first books were published while he was still in London, and thirteen more have followed, interspersing historical fiction with Virginia history and archaeology. His play about Virginia colonist John Smith ran in Williamsburg throughout its 400th Anniversary and his television programs have won international awards. Throughout his career Hume has been a well-known lecturer at museums, in academic halls, and the theater of the National Geographic Society. He devoted one of his Washington lectures to the history of Egyptian graffiti.

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