Jean-François Champollion
French scholar who deciphered ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs; the father of Egyptology.
Life
Linguistic genius
Champollion came from a family of booksellers in a small French town. As a boy he mastered Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Coptic and other languages, and he resolved to read Egyptian hieroglyphs.
Rosetta Stone
The Rosetta Stone carries the same decree in hieroglyphs, Demotic and ancient Greek. The British scholar Thomas Young was the first to identify some of the royal names; Champollion went further, proving that hieroglyphs included both ideographic and phonetic signs, and used Coptic to read ancient Egyptian. In September 1822 he announced his decipherment; legend has it that he burst into his elder brother's office, cried "I've got it!" and fainted.
I've got it!
In 1828 he finally traveled to Egypt on an expedition. After returning to France he became professor of Egyptology at the Collège de France, and he died in 1832 at only forty-one.
Legacy
Champollion's decipherment made the writing of ancient Egypt, silent for more than 1,000 years, speak again, and modern Egyptology was born.
Major works & achievements
- Letter to M. Dacier
- Egyptian Grammar
Did you know? Whether he or Thomas Young deserved more credit was argued over in Britain and France for a long time.
Key dates
- 1807Began studying Egyptian writing
- 1822Announced the decipherment of hieroglyphs
- 1828Expedition to Egypt
- 1831Became professor at the Collège de France
- 1832Died