Padua exhibition celebrates explorer who inspired Indiana Jones

The Centro Altinate San Gaetano in Padua hosts 'L'Egitto di Belzoni,' a monographic exhibition marking the bicentennial of Giovanni Belzoni's return to Italy. Belzoni (Padua, 1778 – Gwato, 1823), a self-taught adventurer of humble origins, inspired George Lucas's Indiana Jones. He was neither an archaeologist nor an Egyptologist, but an intuitive explorer whose methods were both fortunate and controversial. The exhibition uses immersive technology to guide visitors through his discoveries, including the transport of the colossal Young Memnon to London, the first entry into the temple of Ramses II and the pyramid of Khafre, and the discovery of the tomb of Seti I, called the 'Egyptian Sistine Chapel.' Belzoni's career began after the pasha of Egypt rejected his hydraulic machine; from 1816 he sailed the Nile, working for consuls Bernardino Drovetti and Henry Salt, and befriending Johann L. Burckhardt. He left Padua as a hero in 1819 to seek the Niger's source and died on December 3, 1823, possibly from a virus or poison, buried in Gwato, Nigeria. The exhibition includes loans from major European museums and features two Sekhmet statues donated by Belzoni to Padua's Palazzo della Ragione.