Giuseppe Ferlini

Giuseppe Ferlini (1797 to 1870) was an Italian physician from Bologna who is remembered less for medicine than for plunder. After travelling in Greece in 1815 he reached Egypt and joined the Egyptian army during its conquest of the Sudan, becoming a senior army surgeon in 1830 and serving at Sennar and Khartoum. He then deserted and, with the Albanian merchant Antonio Stefani, organised a treasure hunting expedition that left for Meroe in August 1834 and destroyed pyramids there with explosives. He brought the gold jewellery he found home in 1836, published an account and catalogue of the finds in 1837, and sold the treasure in Germany, where it is now held in the museums of Munich and Berlin. He died in Bologna in 1870. The entry is kept because he was a trained physician and military surgeon; his fame rests on archaeological destruction.