Digital Giza | Francesco Ballerini

Type

Individual - Modern
Remarks

Francesco Ballerini (1877-1910), an Egyptologist and Orientalist, started his unfortunately too short career in the Egyptian Museum of Turin approximately 100 years ago. He became a trustworthy collaborator of Ernesto Schiaparelli, director of the Italian Archaeological Mission, operating in Egypt at the beginning of the 20th century. Ballerini assisted Schiaparelli on the Italian excavations at Giza, producing many of the drawings that are published in the Scavi books by Schiaparelli, and played an active role in some of the most important discoveries of Ancient Egypt in his era. One of the most important was the discovery of the tomb of Queen Nefertari in the Valley of the Queens (Western Thebes). His contribution to the knowledge of Egyptian civilization can be judged simply by examining the hundreds of finds exhibited in the large halls of the Egyptian Museum of Turin, one of the greatest Egyptological collections in the world, to which the work of Ballerini contributed. Since 2009, the association CEFB (Centro di Egittologia Francesco Ballerini) has aimed to create more interest in Ancient Egyptian culture in Como, Italy, the town where Ballerini was born and lived.