About this Book

Henry Salt (1780-1872) was a key figure in the nineteenth century, renowned as an 'artist, traveller, diplomat, Egyptologist'. Taking up his post as British Consul-General in Egypt in 1816 he was urged to seek out antiquities for the British Museum collection. Although now regarded as disgraceful, his actions were set against a cultural background that actively encouraged the removal of attractive and interesting antiquities from less `civilised' lands. But this book is not a comment on political, or rather cultural correctness, it is a biography of a great man - a man who undertook excavations at Thebes and Abu Simbel, and who studied many of Egypt's most famous monuments, including the Pyramids at Giza and the Sphinx.