Re -Train Your Brain To Happiness: Ippolito Rosellini: The Monuments of Egypt And Nubia

This is a beautiful book and it was illustrated by Ippolito Rosellini.

He had been on an expedition to Egypt with his friend, Jean-François Champollion, the man who eventually deciphered the hieroglyphics on the Rosetta Stone. He did this by learning the Coptic language, and realising that the pictures in the cartouches represented letters.

Text for the book was later added by Franco Serino. It is still available and I am glad I have it.

Their expedition was financed by Charles X of France and Grand Duke Leopold of Tuscany in in 1828.

Because both Champollion and Rosellini knew how to read hieroglyphics they had a huge advantage over previous expeditions, such as the ones of Giovanni Belzoni who had collected items for the British Museum prior to this.

Belzoni is credited with discovering many tombs, and the temple at Abu Simbel which was moved - an amazing feat of international engineering - so that the temple would not be submerged by the Nile.

This enabled the building of the Aswan Dam. It was completed in 1970.

By the time Howard Carter discovered the tomb of King Tutankhamun in 1922 his knowledge of hieroglyphics was a huge advantage.

Archeology in Egypt is ongoing. With today's technology, like satellites and carbon dating, more and more is still being discovered.

Picture credits with many thanks to Em Hotep Digest, UNESCO and others from previous posts on this blog. Both sites I have mentioned have more excellent information.

For Claudette ♥

Some other posts on archeology:

Stonehenge: A Breakthrough In An Age-old Mystery?

Chauvet Cave Paintings: Cave Women Left Their Artistic Mark

Colossal Pharaoh Statues of Amenhotep III Found in Egypt’s Temple City Luxor

Lost City of Heracleion Gives Up Its Secrets

Shilling Discovery 'Could' Rewrite Canadian History

Fake Pharaoh: Tutankhamun Replica To Safeguard Original Tomb

10,000-year-old House Uncovered Outside Of Jerusalem

Great Zimbabwe

Rock-hewn Tombs From Ancient Egypt Discovered In Aswan

Europe's Oldest Human Footprints Found: 900,000 Year-old Norfolk Footprints 'Definitely Human”

First Pharaoh Ruled Ancient Egypt Earlier Than First Thought

The Antikythera Mechanism - The World's Oldest Known Computer
Archaeologists Digging Up Cecile B DeMille's Movie Treasures