When Napoleon Bonaparte's French army invaded Egypt in 1798, he was accompanied by a team of scholars (savants) who were charged with recording all aspects of Egypt, ancient and modern. The savants launched an archaeological effort that was more extensive and systematic than anyone had ever attempted, and thus returned the Valley of the Kings to Western scientific consciousness. The artist Dominique Vivant Denon followed French troops through Upper Egypt, "discovering" monuments and sketching the Valley of the Kings. His sketches and a book he published on his adventures in 1802 were a seminal influence on the newly emerging field of Egyptology.