The presumed origin is to fly across, now, to the Egyptian Time. This unproved hypothesis, was advanced also from Court Gebelin (Le Mond Primitif analysé et comparé avec le mond moderne, 1781). As it read: The historical sources, however, have never confirmed the Egyptian origin of Tarots, and as a consequence we have no choice but set off for another journey…
EGYPT
In Egypt, the Pharaohs of blades, carved on stone or on other materials in which the meanings of the symbols have still been unknown, were impressed. Therefore, the Tarots would be a representation on card of the Egyptian ideogram, reproduced on the most antique text of Pharaonic Egypt called the Book of Toth.
Toth is Mercury of the Egyptians, considered to be one of the principle kings and the mythical inventor of words and hieroglyphics, namely, symbols strictly correlated to a series of mystical events: in the first place an alphabet of which gods are letters; the letters the ideas; all these ideas numbers and all these numbers perfect signs.
With these invasions of Roman Empire such works were brought in Europe, being considered as peculiarity of the Egyptian culture. 
«If I said that nowadays somebody has found the legendary Book of Toth, a work of the antique Egyptians containing an extraordinary magical doctrine, I am sure that many people would be surprised. And the surprise would be increased if I said that this work has been passed around to everybody’s hands as a deck of ‘strange’ playing cards. Many will believe that I am joking, or that I am a charlatan in search of notority. However, I still insist that it is absolutely true. The Book of Toth and the cards of Tarots are the same thing.»
(from Le Mond Primitif, of Court Gebelin)
According to the scolar, the symbols represented on Tarots may have been noted by the nomads who, in the ancient time, migrated from the river bank of Nile to the European countries. This migration would occur around the fifteenth century, and in this sense there would be historical correspondences of the migrations derived from either India, or from North Africa, in that period. In Court de Gebelin’s view, the Tarots would be the key for opening the seals of hieratic hieroglyphics.
The book was the first attempt on studying the origin of the playing card. Gebelin took an advanced step on the research having been elaborated before in the seventeenth century by Guillaume de Postel in the Clef des Choses Cachées.
Among the elements basing on those which was formulated as the hypothesis (of which the same Court de Gebelin did not give any proves) was the relation between the four suits and the classes of the antique Egypt:
Swords: the Pharaoh and the military;
Wands: the world devoted to agriculture;
Cups: the priests;
Pentacles: the traders.
In this history picture, the work of Jean-Baptiste Alliette is set, which acquisted the definite name in the history of Tarots: Etteilla, or his surname read convertedly. In the eighteenth century, he published his book Etteilla, ou manière de se récréer avec un jeu de cartes, the first book which contained all explanations of the card sheets and the rules for a correct reading.
He had began to study the Tarots since 1757, and probably codified and collected a pre-existing system borrowed from the popular tradition. He agreed with the theory of the Egypt origin of Court de Gebelin.
He stated that the Tarots were the work of seventeen magicians, decending from Mercury-Thoth, of the Temple of Fire close to Menfi, generated 1,828 years after the creation or 171 years after the flood.
In 1791, instead, he published a proper deck of Tarots, called il Petit Etteilla, based on interpretative system, hence usable only for esoteric purpose.
His life was grounded on these researches, which became his spiritual support, also through the courses of preparation for the divination. In 1788 he had also founded the first association which exclusively dedicated to this fascinating world, la Sociétée des Interprétes du Livre de Thoth.
