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Bust of Italian Explorer Belzoni to be Unveiled in Egypt’s Luxor

Tourists and visitors queue outside the temple of Abu Simbel at the upper reaches of the Nile in Aswan, Egypt. (Reuters)
Tourists and visitors queue outside the temple of Abu Simbel at the upper reaches of the Nile in Aswan, Egypt. (Reuters)
    Luxor, London - Asharq Al-Awsat
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Bust of Italian Explorer Belzoni to be Unveiled in Egypt’s Luxor

Tourists and visitors queue outside the temple of Abu Simbel at the upper reaches of the Nile in Aswan, Egypt. (Reuters)
Tourists and visitors queue outside the temple of Abu Simbel at the upper reaches of the Nile in Aswan, Egypt. (Reuters)

A bust of Giovanni Battista Belzoni will be unveiled in Egypt’s Abu Simbel as part of the 200th anniversary of the discovery of the historical city by the Italian explorer.

Paolo Sabbatini, director of the Italian Cultural Center in Cairo, said the statue, which was designed in Luxor by Italian sculptor Walter Venturi, author of "The Great Belzoni," will be unveiled on October 19, as part of the International Research Conference, held by Italy in cooperation with the Egyptian Ministry of Culture.

The conference will highlight many of Belzoni's secrets and archaeological discoveries in Giza, Luxor and Aswan. It will be held with the participation of a group of Egyptology scientists from Italy, Egypt and some European countries.

Speaking to the German News Agency (dpa), Paolo said that the Belzoni bust will be the highlight of a special exhibition that features a collection of rare photographs of the Italian explorer and his journey in the field of excavation of Egyptian antiquities.

The exhibition will be managed by Egyptian researcher and historian Francis Amin, who has the largest collection of historical photographs that document various Egyptian temples and tombs, especially in Luxor.

The unveiling will be among a number of archaeological, cultural and artistic events that will be held in October to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Balzoni's discovery of the Abu Simbel temple in southern Aswan.

The city of Abu Simbel is expected to see a mass celebration on October 22, under the patronage of the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, and with the participation of Italian and European artists and scientists specialized in Egyptology.

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Australia Sweats Through Hottest 12 Months on Record

Australia has just sweltered through its hottest 12 months on record, a period of drenching floods, tropical cyclones and mass coral bleaching. DAVID GRAY / AFP/File
Australia has just sweltered through its hottest 12 months on record, a period of drenching floods, tropical cyclones and mass coral bleaching. DAVID GRAY / AFP/File
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Australia Sweats Through Hottest 12 Months on Record

Australia has just sweltered through its hottest 12 months on record, a period of drenching floods, tropical cyclones and mass coral bleaching. DAVID GRAY / AFP/File
Australia has just sweltered through its hottest 12 months on record, a period of drenching floods, tropical cyclones and mass coral bleaching. DAVID GRAY / AFP/File

Australia has just sweltered through its hottest 12 months on record, a weather official said Thursday, a period of drenching floods, tropical cyclones and mass coral bleaching.

Senior government climatologist Simon Grainger said the rolling 12-month period between April 2024 and March 2025 was 1.61 degrees Celsius (34.9 degrees Fahrenheit) above average -- the hottest since records began more than a century ago.

"This is certainly part of a sustained global pattern," he told AFP.

"We've been seeing temperatures since about April 2023 that were globally much warmer than anything we have seen in the global historical record."

The previous hottest period was in 2019, Grainger said, when temperatures were 1.51 degrees Celsius above average.

"That is a pretty significant difference," Grainger said.

"It's well above what we would expect just from uncertainties due to rounding. The difference is much larger than that."

The record was measured on a rolling 12-month basis -- rather than as a calendar year.

Australia has also recorded its hottest-ever March, Grainger said, with temperatures more than two degrees above what would normally be seen.

"There has basically been sustained warmth through pretty much all of Australia," he said.

"We saw a lot of heatwave conditions, particularly in Western Australia. And we didn't really see many periods of cool weather -- we didn't see many cold fronts come through."

Sickly white coral

From the arid outback to the tropical coast, swaths of Australia have been pummeled by wild weather in recent months.

Unusually warm waters in the Coral Sea stoked a tropical cyclone that pummeled densely populated seaside hamlets on the country's eastern coast in March.

Whole herds of cattle have drowned in vast inland floods still flowing across outback Queensland.

And a celebrated coral reef off Western Australia has turned a sickly shade of white as hotter seas fuel an unfolding mass bleaching event.

The average sea surface temperature around Australia was the "highest on record" in 2024, according to a recent study by Australian National University.

This record run looked to have continued throughout January and February, said Grainger.

"We haven't seen much cooling in sea surface temperatures."

Moisture collects in the atmosphere as oceans evaporate in hotter temperatures -- eventually leading to more intense downpours and storms.

Australia follows a slew of heat records that have been toppling across the planet.

Six major international datasets confirmed that 2024 was the hottest year on record.

Scientists are unanimous that burning fossil fuels has largely driven long-term global warming.

Australia sits on bulging deposits of coal, gas, metals and minerals, with mining and fossil fuels stoking decades of near-unbroken economic growth.

But it is increasingly suffering from more intense heatwaves, bushfires and drought, which scientists have linked to climate change.