دانلود کتاب The Obelisk and the Englishman

Scholarly, mischievous, and driven by curiosity about the unknown, William John Bankes (1786-1855) was a complex and talented member of England's landed gentry. A friend of Lord Byron, he achieved recognition on several fronts: as a daring explorer of ancient lands, notably Egypt and Petra; as a brilliant art collector, illustrator, and remodeler of Kingston Lacy, his family estate in Dorset; and, unfortunately, as the focus of a homophobic sex scandal, which forced him to leave his homeland.Bankes made key discoveries as he explored the archeology and history of Egypt and Syria. He traveled deeper into Egypt and Nubia than any other European before him and prepared over 1,400 site plans and drawings of temples, many now lost to the sand or under the waters of the Nile. At the Abydos Temple he discovered the King List--a wall of cartouches listing Egyptian kings in chronological order--which was vital to the decoding of Egyptian hieroglyphs. At Philae he uncovered a...