1790s in archaeology

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

Explorations

• 1799: Napoleon in Egypt: French troops occupy Egyptian territory.

Excavations

• 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: December 14 - The late post-classic Mexica Aztec calendar stone is discovered during repairs to Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral.
• 1796: Summer - Ribchester Hoard and helmet found in Lancashire, England.
• 1797: The tomb of John, King of England, is rediscovered at Worcester Cathedral in front of the altar.
• 1799: At the town of Rosetta (Rashid), a harbor on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt, French troops find the Rosetta Stone, inscribed with Greek/demotic/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) with artefacts systematically described and illustrated.
• 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 23 - Jean-François Champollion (d. 1832), decipherer of Egyptian hieroglyphs
• 1793: January 22 - Caspar Reuvens (d. 1835), founder of Rijksmuseum van Oudheden (Netherlands National Museum of Antiquities), first professor of archaeology
• 1796: November 27 - John MacEnery (d. 1841), Irish-born priest and pioneer archaeologist
• 1797: October 5 - John Gardiner Wilkinson (d. 1875), English traveller, writer and pioneer Egyptologist
• 1799: December 12 (23) - Karl Bryullov (d. 1852), Russian painter of The Last Day of Pompeii

Deaths

• 1795: date unknown - Jean-Jacques Barthélemy (b. 1716).