Wilfred Thesiger's Photographs of Arabia

Project Description:

Website which allows users to explore over 5000 images from Arabia by the renowned traveller and photographer Sir Wilfred Thesiger between 1945 and 1950, including his two famous crossings of the Empty Quarter (Rub' Al Khali), as memorably described in his classic travelogue Arabian Sands (1959). In 2004 Thesiger's collection of 38,000 negatives and 71 personal albums were accepted by the UK government via its art in lieu of inheritance tax scheme and allocated to the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. Sir Wilfred Thesiger (1910-2003) was probably the greatest traveller of the twentieth century, and one of its greatest explorers.