Giovanni Battista Belzoni (Italian pronunciation: [dʒoˈvanni batˈtista belˈtsoːni]; 5 November 1778 – 3 December 1823), sometimes known as The Great Belzoni, was a prolific Italian explorer and pioneer archaeologist of Egyptian antiquities. He is known for his removal to England of the seven-tonne bust of Ramesses II, the clearing of sand from the entrance of the great temple at Abu Simbel, the discovery and documentation of the tomb of Seti I (still sometimes known as "Belzoni's Tomb"), including the sarcophagus of Seti I. Belzoni was the first to penetrate into the Pyramid of Khafre, the second pyramid of the Giza complex, and the first European in modern times to visit the Bahariya Oasis. Howard Carter, the discoverer of the Tomb of Tutankhamun, summed up Belzoni as ‘one of the most remarkable men in the entire history of archaeology’.

Belzoni was born in Padua on 5 November 1778. His father was a barber who sired fourteen children. His family was from Rome and when Belzoni was 16 he went to work there, saying that he studied hydraulics. He intended on taking monastic vows, but in 1798 the occupation of the city by French troops drove him from Rome and changed his proposed career. In 1800 he moved to the Batavian Republic (now Netherlands) where he earned a living as a barber.

In 1803 he fled to England to avoid being sent to jail. There he married an Englishwoman, Sarah Banne. He obtained British citizenship and was initiated into a Masonic lodge, but little is known about his Masonic career. Belzoni was a tall man at 6 feet 7 inches (2.01 m) tall (one source says that his wife was of equally generous build, but all other accounts of her describe her as being of normal build) and they both joined a travelling circus. They were for some time compelled to subsist by performing exhibitions of feats of strength and agility as a strongman at fairs and on the streets of London. In 1804 he appears engaged at the circus at Astley's Amphitheatre and Sadler's Wells in a variety of performances. Belzoni had an interest in phantasmagoria and experimented with the use of magic lanterns in his shows.

In 1812 he left England and after a tour of performances in Spain, Portugal and Sicily, he went to Malta in 1815 where he met Ismael Gibraltar, an emissary of Muhammad Ali, the Pasha of Egypt, who at the time was undertaking a programme of agrarian land reclamation and important irrigation works. Belzoni wanted to show Muhammad Ali a hydraulic machine of his own invention for raising the waters of the Nile. He sailed to Egypt with his wife and an Irish servant, arriving in Alexandria on 9 June 1815. He then travelled to Cairo, where he finally managed to secure an audience with the pasha. Although the experiment with his engine was successful, the pasha did not approve the project. Now without a job, Belzoni was determined to continue travelling.

During his time in Cairo, Belzoni made the acquaintance of several European explorers and scholars, including the French Consul General Bernardino Drovetti, an avid collector of antiquities; the famous Swiss orientalist Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, who introduced him to Egyptology; and Giovanni Battista Caviglia, a Genoese explorer renowned for his studies and excavations of the Great Sphinx of Giza. On the recommendation of Burckhardt he was sent by Henry Salt, the British consul to Egypt, to the Ramesseum at Thebes, from where he removed with great skill the colossal bust of Ramesses II, commonly called the "Younger Memnon". Shipped by Belzoni to England, this piece is still on prominent display at the British Museum in London. This weighed over 7 tons. It took him 17 days and 130 men to tow it to the river. He used levers to lift it onto rollers. Then he had his men distributed equally with four ropes drag it on the rollers. On the first day (27 July) he covered only a few yards, but on the second he covered 50 yards, deliberately breaking the bases of two columns to clear the way for his burden. After 150 yards, it sank into the sand, and a detour of 300 yards on firmer ground was necessary. From there, it got a little easier, and, on 12 August he finally reached the river, where he was able to load it onto a boat for shipment to England. His excavation and removal of the Younger Memnon and other stones during this expedition was explicitly authorized by a firman from Muhammad Ali himself

Before setting off for Cairo, Belzoni seized the opportunity to further his archaeological investigations in the area. He visited the Temple of Edfu and unsuccessfully attempted to gain entry to the Great Temple at Abu Simbel, which had been discovered by Burckhardt a few years earlier. Although Burckhardt had discovered the site, he was unable to enter the temple as only the tops of the four colossal heads of Ramesses II, each 20 metres high, were visible above the sand. After seven days of unsuccessful attempts, Belzoni set off for the Elephantine Island and Philae, where he took possession of an inscribed obelisk in perfect condition on behalf of the British Consulate. Before setting off with the Colossus, he returned to Luxor, where he conducted excavations at Karnak and explored the Valley of the Kings on the opposite bank of the Nile. It was here that he discovered his first tomb, which was later revealed to be that of the pharaoh Ay (WV23).

Belzoni arrived in Cairo with the Colossus on 15 December 1816. In February 1817, he set out again for Karnak on Salt's behalf. His companions were Salt's secretary, Henry Beechey; two naval officers, Captains Irby and Mangles; an interpreter, Giovanni Anastasi; and a janissary, Giovanni Finati. In Karnak he unearthed a significant number of artefacts, including the sarcophagus of Pharaoh Ramesses III, a massive, highly decorated relic carved from red granite/quartzite. He also found a limestone statue of Queen Ahmose-Meritamun. He then returned to Abu Simbel, where, after 22 days of labour, he finally succeeded in clearing the entrance to the Great Temple of sand, uncovering its façade (2 August 1817). Belzoni was the first person in modern times to enter the temple. However, the discovery was disappointing because the temple had been looted centuries before. Belzoni only found a few artefacts, most importantly a falcon-headed sphinx, but he described the temple as having magnificent, pristine decorations.

He then returned to Thebes to conduct excavations in the Valley of the Kings. On 18 October 1817, he discovered the tomb of Seti I, the father of Ramesses II. Considered one of the most beautiful and intact tombs in Egypt, it is adorned with magnificent bas-reliefs and polychrome frescoes. Belzoni mapped the tomb, took a thorough inventory of its contents and created graphic casts of the bas-reliefs. The splendid, translucent alabaster sarcophagus of the pharaoh was purchased by the architect John Soane after Belzoni's death in 1824 and installed in the 'crypt' of his London house-museum, where it remains today. Belzoni carried out thorough excavations in the Valley, discovering and clearing a number of tombs, including those of Mentuherkhepeshef and Ramesses I. By the end of his expedition, he had unearthed a total of eight tombs. According to Howard Carter "this was the first occasion on which excavations on a large scale had ever been made in The Valley, and we must give Belzoni full credit for the manner in which they were carried out."