In 1815, following an idea mentioned to him by his friend Johann Ludwig Burckhardt of digging up the statue and bringing it to Britain, the British Consul General Henry Salt hired the adventurer Giovanni Belzoni in Cairo for this purpose. Using his hydraulics and engineering skills, he had it pulled on wooden rollers with ropes to the bank of the River Nile opposite Luxor by hundreds of workmen. However, no boat was yet available to take it up to Alexandria, so Belzoni carried out an expedition to Nubia, returning by October.