1790s in archaeology

The decade of the 1790s in archaeology involved some significant events.

Explorations

• 1799: Napoleon in Egypt: French troops occupy Egyptian territory. Tomb KV20 in the Valley of the Kings is located.

Excavations

• 1794–96: Roman tessellated pavements found at Frampton, Dorset, depicting one of the earliest known Christian symbols in England.^[1]
• 1796: The Roman fort, vicus, bridge abutments and associated remains of Hadrian's Wall are excavated at Chesters, in England.
• 1798: The first recorded excavations at Stonehenge are made by William Cunnington and Richard Colt Hoare.
• Formal excavations continue at Pompeii.

Finds

• 1790
  • Pediment of the Roman temple at Bath, England, is discovered during work near the Roman Baths.^[2]
  • Townley Discobolus and Lansdowne Heracles are discovered at Hadrian's Villa in Tivoli, Italy.
  • Bones presumed to be those of English poet John Milton (d. 1674) are disinterred during repairs to the church of St Giles-without-Cripplegate in London.^[3]
  • December 17 - The late post-classic Mexica Aztec sun stone is discovered during repairs to Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral.^[4]
• 1796: Summer - Ribchester Hoard and helmet found in Lancashire, England.
• 1797: July 17 - The tomb of John, King of England (d. 1216), is rediscovered at Worcester Cathedral in front of the altar.^[5]
• 1799: July 15 - At the town of Rosetta (Rashid), a harbor on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt, French troops find the Rosetta Stone, inscribed with parallel texts in Greek, Egyptian demotic and hieroglyphs (translated in 1822 by Jean-François Champollion).

Publications

• 1793: James Douglas - Nenia Britannica, or, A Sepulchral History of Great Britain, from the earliest period to its general conversion to Christianity (published complete), the first account of the excavation of an Anglo-Saxon site (in Kent)^[6] with artefacts systematically described and illustrated.^[7]
• 1797: James Hutton, a Scotsman who has been called "the Father of Geology," publishes theories describing the earth as destroying and renewing itself in a never-ending cycle.
• 1799: Vice President of the United States Thomas Jefferson, writing in Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 4, describes the bones of Megalonyx jeffersonii, an extinct ground sloth.

Other events

• 1797: January 3 - Three of the stones making up Stonehenge fall due to heavy frosts.
• 1798: December 10 - Some antiquities being shipped to England by Sir William Hamilton are lost in the wreck of HMS Colossus.

Births

• 1790: December 22 - Jean-François Champollion, French decipherer of Egyptian hieroglyphs (d. 1832)^[8]
• 1792: June 10 - John Clayton, English antiquarian (d. 1890)
• 1793: January 22 - Caspar Reuvens, founder of Rijksmuseum van Oudheden (Netherlands National Museum of Antiquities), first professor of archaeology (d. 1835)
• 1794: July 7 - Frances Stackhouse Acton, née Knight, English botanist, archaeologist, artist and writer (d. 1881)
• 1796: November 27 - John MacEnery, Irish-born priest and pioneer archaeologist (d. 1841)
• 1797: October 5 - John Gardiner Wilkinson, English traveller, writer and pioneer Egyptologist (d. 1875)^[9]
• 1798: Approximate date - Kyriakos Pittakis, Greek archaeologist (d. 1863)
• 1799: December 12 (23) - Karl Bryullov, Russian painter of The Last Day of Pompeii (d. 1852)

Deaths

• 1795: April 30 - Jean-Jacques Barthélemy French writer and numismatist (b. 1716)^[10]