- Henry Salt (Egyptologist)
Henry Salt (
June 14 ,1780 –October 30 ,1827 ) was an English artist, traveler, diplomat, andEgyptologist .Biography
Salt, the son of a
physician , was born inLichfield . He trained as a portrait painter, first in Lichfield and then inLondon under Joseph Farington andJohn Hoppner . In 1802 he was appointed secretary and draughtsman to George Annesley,Viscount Valentia . They started on an eastern tour, traveling toIndia via the Cape. Salt explored theRed Sea area, and in 1805 visited theEthiopian highlands . He returned to England in 1806. Salt's paintings from the trip were used to the Lord Valentia's "Voyages and Travels to India", published in 1809.Salt returned to Ethiopia in 1809 on a government mission to explore trade and diplomatic links with the Tigrayan warlord Ras
Wolde Selassie . On his return he published "A voyage to Abyssinia, and travels into the interior of that country, executed under the orders of the British government in the years 1809 & 1810", and a collection of drawings entitled "Twenty-four Views Taken in St Helena, The Cape, India, Ceylon, Abyssinia and Egypt". He later returned and continued a friendship with the Ethiopian warlordSabagadis .In 1815 Salt was appointed British consul-general in
Cairo . During his time inEgypt he accumulated a collection of Egyptian artefacts, notably the head ofRamesses II from theRamesseum , which he presented to theBritish Museum , and the sarcophagus box ofRamesses III which was bought by theLouvre inParis . He also sponsored the excavations of Thebes andAbu Simbel , carrying out significant archaeological research himself at the pyramids ofGiza and theSphinx , and earned praise for his ability to decipher hieroglyphs fromJean-François Champollion .He devoted himself to the task of assemble a collection of antiquities, although he was hindered in every possible way by
Bernardino Drovetti , who, having been dismissed from his official post, now had the time personally to supervise the search of antiquities around the country. Drovetti had great advantages over his British rival because of his thorough knowledge ofEgypt , where he had been living for many years by this time, and also thanks to his close friendship with thePasha ,Muhammad Ali of Egypt . But Salt was not easily discouraged and resorting to the same methods as his rival, he surrounded himself with agents who would not stop for nothing. The year he arrived inCairo he had the good fortune to meet bothGiovanni Battista Belzoni , an extraordinary individual who immediately became his main agent, and "Giovanni D’Athanasi", a Greek known as "Yanni", who worked for him in the Thebes area from 1817 to 1827. Thanks to his assistants, Salt was able to build up his important collection in just two years. This was sold to the British Museum for the sum of two thousand pounds, and was then followed by another, more important, collection, accumulated between 1819 and 1824, comprising no fewer than 4,014 objects. After being rejected by the British Museum because it was considered too expensive, this second collection was sold toCharles X of France for ten thousand pounds, and helped to enlarge the impressive collections of the Louvre.Salt also managed to assemble a third collection, containing 1,083 objects. It was sold by auction, largely to the British Museum, in 1835, eight years after his death near
Alexandria in 1827.In popular culture
Salt was portrayed by
Robert Portal in the 2005BBC docudrama "Egypt".References
*Deborah Manley and Peta Reé, "Henry Salt: Artist, Traveller, Diplomat, Egyptologist" ISBN 190196503x
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