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Henry Salt

• Articles are seemingly hard to come by despite the legacy of Henry Salt
• Requested through the universities electronic request database were send from me for 2 articles and a book

Henry Salt, Consul in Egypt 1816-1827 and Pioneer Egyptologist by CE Bosworth

• one of the few scholarly/journal articles able to find and download
• from 2014 Bulletin of the John Rylands Library (Scholarly Journal)

Nationalization and Personalization of the Egyptian Antiquities: Henry Salt a British General Consul in Egypt 1816 to 1827 by Shadia Mahmoud

• scholarly article from International Journal of Culture and History (2016)

Draft

Early Life

(see what is already in Wikipedia for early life as there is some good stuff already there). Salt was trained as a portrait painter and was taught under the tutelage of well respected painters in London.

Travels

After giving up on the goal of being a painter, Salt was permitted to travel with the English nobleman George Annesley, the 9th Viscount Valentia, after being recommended to him by a family member. Lord Valentia and Salt would spend more than four years on their trip, spanning the British sphere of influence, going all over from the Cape of Good Hope, India, and the region of the Red Sea. Through their friendship, Valentia would come to describe Salt as a secretary and draftsman as Salt not only provided company for the Lord, but also sketches and illustrations of the various sites and scenes they encountered on their voyage.

In 1805, Salt and Valentia split ways. Valentia went back to England to share word of their travels while Salt was sent on an exploration in to the northern part of Ethiopia with the primary purpose of opening up trade relations on behalf of English. During this venture, Salt took on the side mission of verifying and correcting the information about the region reported by the Scottish traveler, James Bruce many years earlier. He would go on to publish a book in 1814, A Voyage to Abyssinia, whose contents were on the culture, geography, customs, and topography of Ethiopia.

Consul General in Egypt

Through his book and details of exploration, Salt had earned himself a name in the British government and when an opening for the Consul General of Egypt opened up in 1815. Salt was recommended to the position by Lord Valentia and appointed shortly after. In 1816, he arrived in Alexandria and traveled to Cairo were he would be stationed as consul. Once set up in Cairo, he began to work on his mission of securing antiquities and artifacts for the British Museum. In order to successfully do this, he believed that he must first be on good terms with the ruler of Egypt, the Pasha Mohamed Ali (Mehemet Ali). Salt was able to foster beneficial relations between the British government and Ali acting as a middle man negotiating deals concerning trade and territorial rights, earning him the affection of Ali. Ali was able to provide Salt with a good residence in the city and a place on his court in return for his help in negotiations.

Excavations

From both his salary as consul and the inheritance he received from his father, within years of his new position, Salt had built up the financial means to begin his own private excavations. While continuing his official duties of excavating antiques for his home nation, he saw an opportunity for personal wealth on the private antiquities market. With his powerful powerful position as consul and now the financial availability to fund personal ventures, Salt began selling to private collectors, English nobles, and amassing a sizable personal collection.