Sarah Belzoni
| Sarah Belzoni | |
|---|---|
 Mr and Mrs Sarah Belzoni in a bark in the cataract[1] | |
| Born |
1783 Bristol |
| Died |
12 January 1870 Jersey |
| Nationality | United Kingdom |
| Known for | travelling to Egypt and writing about living there |
| Spouse(s) | Giovanni Belzoni |
Sarah Belzoni or Sarah Bane (1783 – 12 January 1870) was a British traveller and writer. She travelled notably to Egypt and wrote about women there.
Life
Sarah Ban(n?)e was born in January 1783 in Bristol.[2] She met Giovanni Belzoni and in 1812 the pair employed James Curtin who was an Irishmen. In 1813 she married Belzoni and they travelled around England where her husband, who was exceptionally tall, was working as a circus strongman. In 1815 they went to Egypt.
Egypt
In Egypt the two of them lived sometimes in boats and at other times in temples. Her husband would frequently leave her for long periods and she would be left to speak with the strangers around her in whatever language they spoke.
Her husband found Seti I's well preserved tomb in 1817 in the Valley of the Kings.[3]
They returned from 1819 and her husband was a celebrity. They created a facsimile of the tomb of Seti I and charged people to see it.
In 1820 her husband published Narrative of the Operations and Recent Discoveries … in Egypt and Nubia and in the text was included Mrs. Belzoni's trifling account of the women of Egypt, Nubia, and Syria.
Channel Islands
Belzoni died in Jersey where there is a simple gravestone. The gravestone was thought to be lost until it was rediscovered in 2011. The stone read SACRED TO THE BELOVED MEMORY OF SARAH WIDOW OF GIOVANNI BAPTISTA BELZONI THE TRAVELLER [..] [illegible] SHE DIED ON ST. HELIER THE 12TH [illegible, but must be January] 1870.
Works
- ‘Mrs Belzoni's trifling account of the women of Egypt, Nubia and Syria'
References
- 1 2 Fruits of Enterprise p64 or p66... by Giovanni Battista Belzoni, 1841
- ↑ Deborah Manley, ‘Belzoni, Sarah (1783–1870)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 14 Sept 2015
- ↑ "Pharaoh Seti I's Tomb Bigger Than Thought". Retrieved 2015-10-14.
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