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This video is about the Age of Exploration, when Britain's travellers explored the world in search of great discoveries and amazing artefacts.
EES stands for Egypt Exploration Society. We've been around for almost 130 years.
It's funded through subscriptions from ordinary members of the public, and what we do is send archaeological teams out to Egypt to excavate.
It's all about information gathering over in Egypt, and then bringing that information to the public over here.
Discovering the Tomb of Tutankhamun, it's another one of these game-changing moments for archaeology and Egyptology.
It's absolutely a spectacular an archaeological discovery as you can imagine – it's the archetype.
Glamorous archaeological discovery – lots and lots of objects, mostly objects of the highest quality of manufacture.
Lots of precious materials were used; lots of gold.
What was important about this discovery was just that it raised public awareness to a new level.
Previously there had been a lot of interest in Ancient Egypt, but to have that one icon that is now recognised the world over.
None of King Tut's treasures made it back to London, but you can visit the grave of the man who discovered them – Howard Carter.
Carter comes to Egypt very, very young – as a 16 year old – in fact he's an archaeologist only really by accident.
He was working in Egypt for the first time as an artist, as someone who was trained to paint and specifically, to paint animals.
He was brought out by an EES team to record the decoration in a series of tombs which includes a lot of zoological details.
By chance, he ends that season getting the opportunity to train with Petrie.
Very shortly after that, the EES calls on him to work with Edouard Naville, to work on the Temple of Hatshepsut, Deir-el Bahri.
He's working in Egypt for a good 30-ish years before he makes his greatest discovery in the Tomb of Tutankhamun.
Flinders Petrie rated his intelligence so much that he donated his brain to medical research.
Yet, due to the Second World War, his head was lost en-route to London from Jerusalem where he died.
Today it's whereabouts remain a mystery, though some people actually claim it's safe and sound in London.
Petrie was an Englishman. A young guy when he was working in Egypt for the first time.
He comes from a relatively ordinary background, but he was self taught in a wide variety of disciplines.
His legacy, I suppose, is in methodology he introduces and the rigour he introduces. He's known as the father of archaeology for good reason.
Up until this point, archaeology as a scientific disciplines with accepted standards and techniques doesn't really exist.
And it's only until you get somebody like Petrie who has an enormous career during which to develop his techniques
and to show the world that this is what works. Petrie realised that by excavating the settlement, they would be a lot to be gained about this daily life.
How people actually lived, houses, what they kept in their houses, what they were doing.
It's a huge contribution that he made, to archaeology generally, and archaeology in Egypt, Egyptology in particular. He really changes the game.
The Lion Hunt is just one of Layard's great discoveries in a career which saw him uncover great near-eastern cities like Nimrod and Babylon.
And now it's time for our favourite circus act come archaeologist: Giovanni Belzoni.
Belzoni comes to Ancient Egyptian monuments from a circus background – he's a strongman.
He works for Salt who's the British consul in Egypt, the British representative out there.
And he has permission to assemble a collection of Egyptian antiquities on Salt's behalf.
And Belzoni, being a strongman, an all round fixer is perfectly placed to arrange for very large objects,
and what we would think of as very prestigious and very important objects, to be moved from where they were found.
Belzoni was responsible for removal of the Colossal Bust of Ramesses II which is now in sculpture gallery in the British Museum.
He discovered several tombs in the Valley of the Kings, most importantly the Tomb of Seti I which is
where he finds the sarcophagus of Seti I which is now just around the corner in Sir John Soane Museum.
So he plays a major part in bringing Ancient Egypt and physically bringing monuments to the West.
Many more explorers contributed to the Age of Exploration.
Including Leonard Woolley, Arthur Evans and Charles Newton. To learn more about these and others, visit Heritage-Key.com