• The Treasure of Meroë – Giuseppe Ferlini – cover
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Giuseppe Ferlini

The Treasure of Meroë: Ferlini's Account of His Excavations in Nubia (1837)

The Treasure of Meroë: Ferlini's Account of His Excavations in Nubia (1837)

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The first thing we saw was a large mass covered with a white cloth woven of cotton or fine linen, which fell to pieces at the slightest touch. Beneath it was a bier, a wooden couch of rectangular shape resting on four smooth legs like round poles. Its sides were made of several pieces of wood set alternately, one large and one small, carved with symbolic figures. Under this bier I found the vessel described as No. 108, which held the objects, wrapped in woven cloths of the same kind as the one above.

In 1834 Giuseppe Ferlini, an Italian army doctor serving with Muhammad Ali's forces in Sudan, tore down the pyramids of Meroë looking for gold. At the top of Queen Amanishakheto's pyramid he found it: armlets, rings and jewellery of gold and enamel, now in Munich, Berlin and the British Museum.

This is Ferlini's own account, published in Bologna in 1837, now complete in English. It includes his story of the excavations, his catalogue of all 155 objects he took, and the original engraved plate.

This edition adds:

  • an introduction on the damage he did, who made it possible, where the treasure went and what became of him;
  • Cailliaud's 1821 drawings of the pyramids before Ferlini;
  • photographs of the gold today.

Translated from the Italian original. Machine-translated, then checked and corrected against the source.

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