Egypt

200-year-old travel diary of an Italian adventurer discovered

Ansa.it

Thanks to Rhio Barnhart for this link.

The 200-year-old travel diary of an Italian adventurer who explored Egypt and later guided the founders of Egyptology to key sites has been uncovered in this Tuscan city. The journal, accidentally unearthed during research into a groundbreaking historical expedition, was written by a Siena-born doctor, draughtsman and explorer named Alessandro Ricci, who set out for Egypt in 1817.

Ricci's journal covered a five-year period until 1822, describing his adventures and experiences in detail. The document is particularly important as Ricci was a key figure in a later Franco-Tuscan expedition, led jointly by the French philologist who deciphered hieroglyphs, Jean-Francois Champollion, and a leading Italian Egyptologist Ippolito Rosellini.

''This is an exceptional find for the field of Egyptology,'' commented Marilina Betro, the professor heading the Pisa University team researching the Franco-Tuscan expedition. ''Ricci describes and draws those sites that had already been completely destroyed just a few years later, at the time of the Champollion-Rosellini expedition, which he was also part of. ''But as well as the monuments, he also describes the customs and habits of the people he met, the fighting strategies of armies, the condition of women and even the treatment of animals''. After leaving Siena in 1817, Ricci travelled to Egypt, exploring widely.

See the above page for the full story.

- Online: The Art Of Medicine By Andrew Robinson
andrewrobinson.org Two page article from The Lancet. The art of medicine. Jean-François Champollion and ancient Egyptian embalming By Andrew Robinson 200 years ago this year, the future founder of Egyptology, French linguist and archaeologist...

- Students From The University Of Warsaw Will Follow In The Footsteps Of The First Egyptologists
Science and Scholarship in Poland In September, members of the Scientific Society of Ancient Egypt "KeMeT" at the University of Warsaw Łukasz Przewłocki and Ewa Biskupek will begin a scientific project aimed at finding and documenting selected...

- Exhibition: Along The Nile (pisa, Italy)
Ansa.it A pioneering but fateful 19th-century expedition along the River Nile by two of the founding fathers of modern Egyptology is the focus of a new exhibition in Pisa. Funded by Grand Duke of Tuscany Leopold II and Charles X of France, the 1828-29...

- Exhibition: Ippolito Rosellini
Al Ahram Weekly (Gamal Nkrumah) Every depiction of an ancient portrait has the capacity to change interpretive history. It is mid-February and the Temple of Edfu looks a shadow of its usual self. Instead of picture-postcard columns, the colossal figures...

- Franco Prussian
A diary has been uncovered written by Alessandro Ricci an early nineteenth century traveller to Egypt http://www.ansa.it/site/notizie/awnplus/english/news/2009-04-15_115329521.html...

Egypt