Usick, Patricia and Manley, Deborah
In 2002 a two-volume manuscript memoir on the Pyramids and Sphinx, by Henry Salt, was rediscovered in the archives of the Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan, at the British Museum. It was then studied in depth for the first time. The Text volume, written by Salt, the British Consul General in Egypt from 1816 until his death there in 1827, relates the results of work carried out by Captain Caviglia in 1816-18 in the Giza necropolis area on Salt's behalf. The Atlas volume contains 66 original drawings by Salt, showing the first modern excavation of the Sphinx and illustrates their discoveries beneath the Sphinx, in the Great Pyramid and among the surrounding tombs. These drawings include an annotated ground plan of the Giza necropolis which, for the first time, elucidates their discoveries. Salt also made accurate and important early copies of hieroglyphic and Greek inscriptions found during the Sphinx excavations and recorded the massive Roman stairway that was later cleared away. The work also enables us to illustrate and provenance certain pieces which came to the Museum through Salt and Caviglia.
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