In the 19th century, Egyptomania raged first across Europe, then the United States, eventually infecting the Egyptians themselves. Its symptoms included the development of comparative linguistics; delusions of imperial grandeur; the destructive application of dynamite, bribes and forced labor; and the rediscovery of the lost history of the pharaohs. “A World Beneath the Sands: The Golden Age of Egyptology” is the dramatic, detailed and eccentric-packed story of the century between the decoding of the Rosetta Stone in 1822...

Source: Wall Street Journal October 23, 2020 15:45 UTC