Bernardino Drovetti was an Italian diplomat, lawyer, explorer and antiquarian, appointed by Napoleon as French consul to Egypt at a time when the country and its antiquities were being opened rapidly to European knowledge and acquisition. H...

Giovanni Battista Belzoni — Italian showman, engineer and explorer of Egyptian antiquities. His quest for adventure brought him to England in 1803 and by means of his gigantic physique, earned a living in circuses in England, Spain and Port...

Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the legendary "Lion of the Punjab", was the founder of the Sikh Empire, which came to power in the Indian subcontinent in the early half of the 19th century. The empire, based in the Punjab region, existed from 1799 t...

Johann Ludwig (also known as John Lewis, Jean Louis) Burckhardt was a Swiss traveller and orientalist. He wrote his letters in French and signed Louis. He is best known for rediscovering the ruins of the city of Petra in Jordan. During h...

Shuja Shah Durrani (also known as Shah Shujah, Shoja Shah, Shujah al-Mulk) was ruler of the Durrani Empire from 1803 to 1809. He then ruled from 1839 until his death in 1842. Shuja Shah was of the Sadozai line of the Abdali group of Pashtun...

Dost Mohammad Khan was the founder of the Barakzai dynasty and one of the prominent rulers of Afghanistan during the First Anglo-Afghan War. With the decline of the Durrani dynasty, he became Emir of Afghanistan from 1826 to 1839 and then f...

Captain Sir Alexander Burnes, was a Scottish traveller and explorer who took part in The Great Game. He was nicknamed Bokhara Burnes for his role in establishing contact with and exploring Bukhara, which made his name. At the age of six...

Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, 1st Baronet GCB was an English soldier, diplomat and orientalist. He is sometimes referred to as the "Father of Assyriology." Knowledge of cuneiform was lost until 1835 when Henry Rawlinson, a British East Ind...

Amir Akbar Khan, born as Mohammad Akbar Khan and famously known as Wazir Akbar Khan, was an Afghan prince, general, and emir for about three years until his death. He was militarily active in the First Anglo-Afghan War, which lasted from 18...

Sir Austen Henry Layard was an English traveller, archaeologist, cuneiformist, art historian, draughtsman, collector, politician and diplomat. He is best known as the excavator of Nimrud and of Nineveh, where he uncovered a large proportion...

Hormuzd Rassam was a native Assyrian Assyriologist, British diplomat and traveller who made a number of important discoveries, including the clay tablets that contained the Epic of Gilgamesh, the world's oldest literature. In addition, he f...

Abdul Hamid II was the 34th sultan of the Ottoman Empire. He oversaw a period of decline in the power and extent of the Empire, ruling from 31 August 1876 until he was deposed on 27 April 1909. Abdülhamid II was the last Ottoman Sultan to r...

Sir George Scott Robertson KCSI was a British soldier, author, and administrator who was best known for his arduous journey to the remote and rugged region of Kafiristan in what is now northeastern Afghanistan. He chronicled his Kafiristan...

Theodor Herzl, also known in Hebrew as Khozeh HaMedinah, lit. "Visionary of the State", was an Austro-Hungarian journalist and writer. He is the father of modern political Zionism and in effect the foundation of the State of Israel....

Mehmet VI was the 36th and last Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, reigning from 1918 to 1922. The brother of Mehmed V, he succeeded to the throne as the eldest male member of the House of Osman after the 1916 suicide of Abdülaziz's son Yusuf Iz...