A good example of this was Giuseppe Ferlini.
The closed season had been opened, and everyone set out to drill the earth in search of treasures.
Possibly the only surviving portrait of Giuseppe Ferlini.
He passed through the cities of Venice and Corfu, in some of which he studied medicine.
Ruins of 2,500-years-old pyramids near the ancient city of Meroe in Sudan.
Photo:Christopher Michel/Flickr
Ferlini decided to pool his savings and emigrate once again.
The destination this time was Egypt, which appealed to him for two reasons.
The second was that Mehmet Ali was bent on modernizing his administration and, consequently, hired European technicians.
A doctor would be welcome.
In 1829, the Italian landed in Alexandria and at once headed for Cairo.
Ruins of Meroe pyramids.
The results of that adventure were not good.
Meanwhile, diseases began to take their toll on workers and animals.
That irreparable damage was in vain.
The Great pyramid of Queen Amanishakheto before its destruction by Giuseppe Ferlini.
This time fortune smiled and a sarcophagus, without a mummy, appeared accompanied by a funeral trousseau.
Bracelet from the tomb of Amanishakheto in Nubia, now in Museum Berlin.
Today he is hardly remembered except for having destroyed forty pyramids.
This article was originally published inLa Brujula Verde.
It has been translated from Spanish and republished with permission.
