In the 4 century AD, the Christian Emperor Theodosius I decreed the closure of all the pagan temples in the Empire. Unexpected consequence: the hieroglyphic writing, still alive until then, abruptly stopped being understood. The Pharaonic Egypt fell into oblivion. The expedition of Bonaparte in 1798 and the magnificent aroused in Europe a craze for the monuments and the art of this ancient civilisation. The decipherment of hieroglyphs by Jean-François Champollion in 1822 marks the birth of Egyptology.