Whose book provided valuable insight into ancient egypt prior to the 19th century?

Napoleon. osiris was an ancient Egyptian god a real person. Herodotus was a greek historian. hatshepsut was an ancient Egyptian queen. I don't believe any of her writings survived. Napoleon conquered Egypt from the Mamluks. When he did so, he brought a whole ton of scholars with him and they conducted a study on basically every aspect of Egypt. Plants, animals, history, had artists draw pictures of ancient monuments, you name it. they published their findings in an enormous set of books which is really got Europeans interested in ancient Egypt for the first time.