orientalist J. L. 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 only covered a few yards, 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 made it to the river where he was able to load it on 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. He also expanded his investigations to the great temple of Edfu, visited Elephantine island and Philae, cleared the entrance of the great temple at Abu Simbel of sand (1817), made excavations at Karnak, and opened up the sepulchre of Seti I (still sometimes known as "Belzoni's Tomb") in the Valley of the Kings. He 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. He also identified the ruins of Berenice on the Red Sea. In 1819 he returned to England and published an account of his travels and discoveries entitled Narrative of the Operations and Recent Discoveries within the Pyramids, Temples, Tombs and Excavations in Egypt and Nubia, &c the following year. During 1820 and 1821 he also exhibited facsimiles of the tomb of Seti I. The exhibition was held at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, London. In 1822 Belzoni showed his model in Paris. In 1823 he set out for West Africa, intending to travel to Timbuktu. Having been refused permission to pass through Morocco, he chose the Gulf of Guinea coastal route. He reached