During the nineteenth-century, Napoleon's Egyptian campaign (1798–1801), combined with the translation of the Rosetta Stone, led many Europeans to become fascinated with Egyptian art, architecture, science and religion, a fascination that became known as Egyptomania. Egyptomania caused to mummies becoming an "enduring theme in Western fiction". In his "Horror Literature through History: An Encyclopedia of the Stories that Speak to Our Deepest Fears: Volume 1", Matt Cardin contextualises "Lot No. 249" as an example of Egyptomania. In the early 1880s, the mummy of Ramses II, widely believed to be the Pharaoh of the Exodus, was discovered, and the British occupied Egypt with their military. These two events sparked a late Victorian era "fascination with the Egyptian undead," popularised by H. Rider Haggard's novel "Cleopatra" (1889). Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was motivated to write "Lot No. 249" due to his interest in the supernatural, crime, and Egyptology.