Past Perfect: Away from the Big Top

It’s hard to imagine a more colorful archaeologist than Giovanni Battista Belzoni (1778–1823). The six-foot, six-inch native of Padua, Italy first became known to the public in 1803, as the strongman in a London circus. For 12 years, the “Patagonian Sampson” thrilled European audiences with feats of strength. Incorporating mechanical harnesses and weightlifting machines into his act, he became expert in the use of levers and hydraulics—skills that would later prove useful to him as an excavator. In 1815, Belzoni abandoned his burlesque career and traveled to Egypt, hoping to sell a new kind of hydraulic pump to the […]