This is the extraordinary life story of Giovanni Belzoni - engineer, barber, monk, actor and circus strongman (where he later earned his title, The Great Belzoni) - who became one of the giants of 19th-century Egyptian archaeology. Sometimes maligned as a tomb robber, Giovanni Battista Belzoni is perhaps the most important and yet least remembered explorer and archaeologist of the 19th and 20th centuries. Giovanni Belzoni was the first person to penetrate the heart of the second pyramid at Giza and the first European to visit the oasis of Siwah and discover the ruined city of Berenice on the Red Sea. In 1823, at the age of 45, Belzoni died of fever trying to reach the mysterious city of Timbuktu.

 

This book was recognised in the Mind Boggling category by the Wh Smith Book Award.

This book is part of a book series called Red Fox Older Fiction .

There are 260 pages in this book. This book was published 1995 by Random House Children's Publishers UK .

Ruth Thomas was born in Wellington, Somerset, in 1927. She received a BA Honours Degree in English and a Diploma in Education from Bristol University and went on to teach in a number of primary schools in the East End of London. Ruth began writing soon after she retired in 1985. Her first novel The Runaways won The Guardian Children's Fiction Award. This was followed by four further critically acclaimed novels including The Secret, which was televised by Thames Television. She died in 2011.