The decade of the 1790s in archaeology involved some significant events.
1799: Napoleon in Egypt: French troops occupy Egyptian territory.
1796: The Roman fort, vicus, bridge abutments and associated remains of Hadrian's Wall are excavated at Chesters, in England.
1798: The first recorded excavations at Stonehenge are made by William Cunnington and Richard Colt Hoare.
Formal excavations continue at Pompeii.
1790
Pediment of the Roman temple at Bath, England, is discovered during work near the Roman Baths.
December 14 - The late post-classic Mexica Aztec calendar stone is discovered during repairs to Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral.
1796: Summer - Ribchester Hoard and helmet found in Lancashire, England.
1797: The tomb of John, King of England, is rediscovered at Worcester Cathedral in front of the altar.
1799: At the town of Rosetta (Rashid), a harbor on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt, French troops find the Rosetta Stone, inscribed with Greek/demotic/hieroglyphs (translated in 1822 by Jean-François Champollion).
1793: James Douglas - Nenia Britannica, or, A Sepulchral History of Great Britain, from the earliest period to its general conversion to Christianity (published complete), the first account of the excavation of an Anglo-Saxon site (in Kent) with artefacts systematically described and illustrated.
1797: James Hutton, a Scotsman who has been called "the Father of Geology," publishes theories describing the earth as destroying and renewing itself in a never-ending cycle.
1799: Vice President of the United States Thomas Jefferson, writing in Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 4, describes the bones of Megalonyx jeffersonii, an extinct ground sloth.
1797: January 3 - Three of the stones making up Stonehenge fall due to heavy frosts.
1798: December 10 - Some antiquities being shipped to England by Sir William Hamilton are lost in the wreck of HMS Colossus.
1790: December 23 - Jean-François Champollion (d. 1832), French decipherer of Egyptian hieroglyphs
1793: January 22 - Caspar Reuvens (d. 1835), founder of Rijksmuseum van Oudheden (Netherlands National Museum of Antiquities), first professor of archaeology
1794: July 7 - Frances Stackhouse Acton, née Knight (d. 1881), English botanist, archaeologist, artist and writer
1796: November 27 - John MacEnery (d. 1841), Irish-born priest and pioneer archaeologist
1797: October 5 - John Gardiner Wilkinson (d. 1875), English traveller, writer and pioneer Egyptologist
1799: December 12 (23) - Karl Bryullov (d. 1852), Russian painter of The Last Day of Pompeii
1795: date unknown - Jean-Jacques Barthélemy (b. 1716).
1790s in archaeology Wikipedia (Text) CC BY-SA