The 1500s was the Age of Exploration, as ships became faster and more efficient, if not necessarily safer. Adventure seekers traversed the world and brought home every kind of curiosity and artifact from distant lands. These oddities were in great demand by collectors, who clamored for the strange, bizarre and unusual, and Cabinets of Curiosity became a focal point in upper class homes. The Cabinet of Curiosity displayed everything from fossils to strange stuffed animals to tribal masks, and anything else to impress guests and spark debates about the nature of the offbeat items. The more absurd and gruesome, the better. Then in 1798, Napoleon conquered Egypt, and within a…