When in 1798 Napoleon Bonaparte began his famous expedition to Egypt could not assume that the work of the hundred and fifty scholars who accompanied him would trigger an Egyptological fever throughout Europe. It was responsible for the publication, from 1809, of the investigations of these scholars in a monumental work entitled The description of Egypt, illustrated with more than three thousand original prints. Unfortunately, the fascination with the mysterious world of the pharaohs also generated an insatiable demand for Egyptian antiquities by collectors, and this led to turning over the first half of the nineteenth century, one of the greatest archaeological looting of the history. Indeed, many European explorers, half archaeologists, half smugglers, rushed to the land of the Nile where, under the indulgent gaze
and accomplice of the pashas (Ottoman governors) and other Egyptian authorities, amassed a rich booty that today adorns the windows major European museums.
from 1815, the two main protagonists of this traffic were Bernardino Drovetti and Henry Salt, respectively consuls of France and England in Egypt. Through its "agents", both held a hidden war for the most valuable works of Pharaonic Egypt. While in Cairo showed good face and better manners, his envoys toured the country equipped with a sign or official permission from the Ottoman Sultan looking for parts to swell the collections of their employers.
In this company, Drovetti started with an advantage. Destined to Egypt since 1803, he knew best the country's politics and had become intimate Pasha, Mohamed Ali. He chose as agents and "diggers" the sculptor Jean-Jacques Rifaud and artist Frédéric Cailliaud. At first, Henry Salt was a bit overwhelmed by them, but in 1816 he met Giovanni Belzoni, who seemed the right person for the job.
A war between consuls
Giovanni Belzoni was a giant two meters tall, who had worked in a circus strongman and had come to Egypt to propose a hydraulic system Mohamed Ali, efforts that had failed. Contracted by Salt, between 1816 and 1819 Belzoni reaped a series of spectacular discoveries like that of the tomb of Seti I, the temple of Abu Simbel or the entry into the pyramid Kefrén- they did make the history of Egyptology although his methods were always controversial.
Over time, Salt and Drovetti zones of influence, with the Nile as a border divided. An antiquarian who visited Egypt then said, "had established a peace treaty. Like two kings, made the river the border of the respective possessions were awarded themselves in Egypt. " But despite these agreements, also they not lacking conflicts between men and Drovetti Salt. For example, when Belzoni came to Thebes to move a colossal statue of Ramses II, called "Young Memnon" he had enormous difficulty finding workers because of the boycott of the local governor, in cahoots with Drovetti. On another occasion, in Karnak, while carrying the Philae obelisk commissioned by William Bankes - an English nobleman who, after encapricharse the monument during a trip would take him to England to adorn the gardens of his mansion, Belzoni was suddenly surrounded by Arabs who worked for Drovetti, led by two Piedmontese foremen armed with pistols. They grabbed the reins of his donkey and cast him into face having "stolen" the obelisk in question, although, in the end, the incident did not pass over.
Boycotts and Thugs
Between them, there were episodes of the real dirty war. On his first trip down the Nile, Belzoni found on the island of File a group of sixteen carved stone blocks whose thickness lowered to more easily transport their return. But to go through the island found that the reliefs had been mutilated and an anonymous hand had written with charcoal and French on them. Operation manquée, "failed operation"
The work of Belzoni, Cailliaud and other nurtured the market antiques in Europe with all sorts of valuable pieces. The same Henry Salt met three large collections. The first sold to the British Museum, but for less money than spent on getting it; the second was to stop at the behest of Champollion, the Louvre Museum, at the right price, and the third was auctioned at Sotheby's in a thousand lots, which earned him an important benefit. As for the impressive collections gathered by Drovetti, one was acquired by Carlos Felix de Saboya and forms the basis of the Grand Egyptian Museum in Turin; another went to the Louvre, again at the request of Champollion, and the last examined by the Egyptologist Richard Lepsius, ended in Berlin.
In addition to the collections of Salt and Drovetti, other works came to Europe in those years, as the Metternich Stela, dating Nectanebo II era, Mohamed Ali gift to Prince Metternich in 1828. The Champollion himself, in the expedition that made Egypt between 1828 and 1829 together with a group of twelve scholars, including his disciple Ippolito Rossellini, asked the pasha to be sent to Paris an obelisk of Thebes as a gift to King Philip of Orleans, in commemoration of Napoleon's expedition in 1798. Although he had promised to the British, Mohamed Ali agreed to the request and in 1836 the obelisk was erected in the place de la Concorde in Paris.
Treasures safe
It must be said that sometimes the output of these monuments was preferable to stay in the Nile Valley, where the Egyptians themselves were responsible for destroying them. At the end of the day, they wore centuries using them as stone blocks for their houses and palaces, or just to make lime. It is known that a small temple disappeared completely between the time when the wise and engineers Napoleon catalogued and visit other European travellers just a few decades later.
The plundering of the monuments of the Nile Valley was reaching alarming proportions when he arrived someone decided to tackle it: the French Auguste Mariette.
the first time I stepped on Egypt, in 1850, he did the custom of the Louvre Museum bought Coptic papyri with which to complete his collection. However, the Copts dignitaries did not accept their proposals, so that Mariette decided to use the funds the museum for archaeological excavations, which led him to discover the Serapeum of Saqqara, a set of underground galleries that housed large sarcophagi of granite with mummified sacred bulls Apis.
At last an Egyptian museum
Mariette realized the threat that illegal excavation and export of antiquities represented for the Egyptian archaeological heritage. Therefore, returning in 1857 to the country of the Nile, he went to Mohamed Said Pasha to propose the creation of an institution in charge of safeguarding the pharaonic legacy. That was how in 1858 the Egyptian Antiquities Service in conjunction with the Museum of Bulaq, the germ of the present Egyptian Museum, where pieces recovered expose themselves created. Unfortunately, the pasha still thought he could dispose of items at will, as private property, so that every visitor swanky coming to Egypt gave him a part of the collection as a sign of deference.
The fight against smuggling antique continued in the following years. The second director of the Antiquities Service, Gaston Maspero, managed in 1881 to discover and stop the looting cache of Deir al-Bahari, an excavated tomb in the Theban mountain where the mummies of some of the most important pharaohs of the New Kingdom were found, discovered by chance by the brothers Abd al-Rassul ten years ago. Maspero's work was so effective that to meet the demand began to appear on the market counterfeits of excellent quality, that not a few of the great museums bought and have had or have exposed. Sometimes the craving of collectors loses.
