Study of pharaonic Egypt from the putative beginnings of Egyptian culture (с 4500 BC) to the Arab conquest (AD 641).
Egyptology began with discovery of the Rosetta Stone (1799) and the publication of Description de l'Égypt (1809–28) by scholars accompanying Napoleon I. In the 19th century the Egyptian government opened Egypt to Europeans, many of whose collecting activities amounted to little more than plundering. In 1880 Tutankhamen 's tomb in 1922 heightened public awareness. In 1975 the First International Congress of Egyptology convened in Cairo. Many sites remain that have been only slightly explored.