Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra, The Bangles’ “Walk Like an Egyptian,” Steve Martin’s “King Tut,” The Mummy: In a way, we can blame them all on Napoléon. Militarily, the French dictator’s 1798 invasion of Egypt was a disaster. But culturally, says Peter Der Manuelian, Barbara Bell professor of Egyptology at Harvard University, the bungled operation inspired an entire field. The French scientists and scholars who flocked to the Nile’s shores led to Champollion’s deciphering of the Rosetta Stone, Dubois’s illustrations of Egyptian deities, and the creation of the actual book on Egypt—one that led Westerners to regard the ancient civilization as a repository of vast riches and sophisticated culture, the whole “pharaohs marrying their own sisters” thing notwithstanding. Ancient Egyptian goddess Hathor.Getty By the end of the 19th century and the dawn of the 20th, much of Europe had mummy issues. There was a frenzy for sphinxes, sarcophagi, and hieroglyphics. Excavations in the Nile Valley, Middle Egypt, and Tanis unearthed antiquities that inspired artisans and collectors alike. Van Cleef & Arpels was among many who took …