Genre:

Review, Serial

Publications reviewed:

Richardson 1822

Subjects:

Exploration, Infidelity, Piety, Archaeology, Astronomy, Time, Biblical Authority, Superstition, Reading, Expertise, Discovery, Collecting, Museums, Exhibition

People mentioned:

Giovanni B Belzoni

    Observes that many of the travellers who have written on the middle east have been '[t]riflers and infidels'; by contrast, the current author ranks with those 'travellers of real science, extensive knowledge of antiquity, and respect to Christianity' (168). Quotes Richardson's dismissal of Egyptian chronologies based on zodiacal signs, the identity of which he disputes. He suggests that the philosopher who urges these theories is no less 'credulous and absurd in his practice and belief' than the superstitious religious fanatic, observing: 'All this the history of human science and opinions sufficiently [... testifies], from the days of Thales and Aristotle to the days of Locke and La Place'. Citing Jean F Champollion and Jean-Baptiste Biot in opposition to the zodiacal dating, he concludes that the case 'may serve to put our reading youth also on their guard against those plausible objections to the word of God, which are so often raised on pretended scientific authority'. (172)