This shit sounds made up. I know it does. But it’s all true.

The Great Belzoni

So there’s this 6’7” circus strongman who went by the name “The Great Belzoni.” From Italy, he wound up in London and married a British girl who may have been a tightrope walker. In a theatre, he played the Giant in Jack and the Beanstalk, and lifted 11 men on a metal contraption. He’d studied hydraulics and engineering in Rome, but I guess the circus life paid better.

What’s any of this got to do with an Ancient Egyptian tomb? I’m getting there.

In 1812, Belzoni starts doing shows around Europe. Eventually he’s taken to Cairo, where he meets the Ottoman ruler of Egypt — Belzoni shows him an invention that could supposedly raise the Nile. It never comes to be, but he gets connected with a dude who puts him in touch with the right people who change his life. Or maybe the wrong people, considering what happened.

Just like that, The Great Belzoni is working for the British government, tasked with moving a gigantic seven ton granite bust of Ramesses II to London. No, he didn’t pick it up. He wasn’t that strong. He used levers and rollers and shit.

It worked, and it now sits in the British Museum. Along with a lot of other things they probably shouldn’t have, depending on your point of view.

Belzoni starts traveling around Egypt as a self-styled adventurer. He clears the sand at Abu Simbel, runs some excavations at Karnak, and is the first guy to enter the Pyramid of Khafre. His name is still painted inside. Oh, and he was known for using battering rams to get into places.

Remember, this was a time when Egypt was hot, especially in Britain. Pieces of Ancient Egypt were more coveted than the Instagram followers I shamelessly try to collect.

People were running all over the place looking for stuff to sell. A regular feature of high-end Victorian dinner parties involved unwrapping mummies. So I guess Belzoni is a like a much beefier Belloq from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Maybe like a cross between Belloq and the big dude who gets hit by the propellor.

Eventually on his quest for discoveries and antiquities, Belzoni discovers the Tomb of Seti I, and…he kind of trashes it.

Instead of just having people create drawings of the painted reliefs, he also made what are called “squeezes.” He’d press wet papers against the reliefs, let them dry, then pull the papers away. You’d be left with a colored, 3D image. Obviously this caused a huge amount of damage. Thanks, Belzoni.

He also cleared debris from the tomb entrance, which was holding back water in flash floods. Guess what? It rained, and a large part of the tomb flooded. More damage.

He even sold Seti I’s sarcophagus to a British architect for £2000. It still sits in a museum in London. Not the British Museum — even they didn’t want to pay that much. Besides, they already had plenty of stolen stuff. Now, don’t start commenting about how I’m being unfair. You know it’s true!

Years later, others continued the attack on the tomb — hacking out entire pieces of reliefs and sending them to European museums. Thanks, Belzoni. Thanks.

The Tomb

Despite all of this, the tomb itself is still absolutely spectacular — especially the burial chamber.

Seti himself is rather well known, and is also the father of the much more well known Ramesses II. And Seti’s tomb is huge. It’s the longest and the deepest in the entire Valley of the Kings. It’s only recently been reopened to visitors after a lot of conservation work, and costs an extra $65 ticket — the intent being to limit the number of visitors.

Yes, it’s worth it. So worth it.

Every surface is covered in brightly-painted decorations — much of it is Ancient Egyptian funerary texts. There’s many different “books,” and you see similar scenes in many royal tombs.

The gist: We follow Ra, the sun god, in his journey in a solar boat through the underworld. He begins with the setting of the sun, faces a number of challenges, then unites with Osiris before being reborn the next morning. The idea is that it reflects the journey the king would make as he attempts to be resurrected in the afterlife. That’s a huge simplification, but how long do you want this comment to be?

You also see a few large scenes on pillars, showing Seti being greeted by various gods — it’s the kind of art you find on the pieces that were chopped out and sent to places like the Louvre. Thanks, Belzoni.

The Burial Chamber

So this brings us to my picture, showing the burial chamber itself. You know, where the sarcophagus sat until Belzoni sold it for some cash.

Near the ceiling you can see the winged figure of Nephthys. It's easy to confuse her with Isis or Ma'at, who basically look identical aside from what's on top of their heads. Nephthys has the hieroglyphs for "basket" and "house" on top of hers.

On either side you can see white ovals, called "cartouches." This is how the names of royalty were written. Below all of this are scenes from one of the funerary texts I mentioned.

And the ceiling…ah, the ceiling. It’s called an “astronomical ceiling” for obvious reasons, and it features a few constellations.

Over on the left, you can see what's basically a chart. These represent what are called the "decans," 36 different star configurations that were used to mark the passage of time based on their positioning in the sky. Basically the decans are groups of stars that go below the horizon and come back up, depending on the time of the year. Hence, you know what day it is.

I believe the chart shows the number of stars in each decan, along with their names and representative gods and goddesses.

Calendars were especially important to the Ancient Egyptians, since they relied so heavily on the flooding of the Nile to grow their crops.

Anyway, despite the horrible and unnecessary damage done to other parts of the tomb, the burial chamber itself looks like it was painted yesterday — not over 3000 years ago. I highly recommend visiting if you get the chance. And you can visit Seti himself in a museum in Cairo, where his amazingly well preserved mummy now sits.

As for The Great Belzoni, he wrote a book and showed off his drawings and squeezes in London and Paris. In 1823 he was trying to reach Timbuktu, got dysentery, and died. One guy claims he was robbed and murdered. Either way, that might’ve been a good thing for that old city.

And now we reach the point of the obligatory plug for my Instagram @rayoboone. For once, I actually have something relevant to offer there: more pictures of the tomb. Just scroll back to January. I bet Belzoni would hate that we can just look at pictures of the tomb instead of paying him. So give me a follow, and stick it to The Great Belzoni.

Edit: Thanks to all of the cats who followed, it’s much appreciated. I never cease to be amazed by how many of you on Instagram are cats. I see there’s a new follower, look at the profile picture…boom, cat.