200th anniversary of the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs

[gangleri2001]

September 27th, 1822 - September 27th, 2022



Thank you master for opening the doors of ancient Egypt to all of us! ​

Brief chronology of the events that took place 200 years ago

September 14th, 1822 - Je tiens l'affaire!
Jean-François Champollion has a discussion with his brother, Jacques-Joseph Champollion, about possible phonetic transcription theories of Egyptian hieroglyphs. After a while Jean-François withdraws from the discussion. Shortly afterwards he slams the door of his brother's office exclaiming Je tiens l'affaire! (I've got it!) and proceeds to show his brother that he is already able to read some hieroglyphs. From this moment on, Jean-François Champollion sets to work to establish the bases of the writing system.

September 22nd, 1822 - Letter to Bon-Joseph Dacier
Champollion writes an 8-page letter to Bon-Joseph Dacier, secretary of the Royal Academy of Inscriptions of Paris, where he explains the basis of the writing system and where he asks Mr. Dacier to be able to expose it to the public at the academy in the next few days. This letter (in French Lettre à M. Dacier relative à l'alphabet des hiéroglyphes phonétiques) is considered the foundational document of Egyptology.

September 27th, 1822 - The end of centuries of silence
Champollion exposes the contents of the letter to Mr. Dacier at the Royal Academy of Inscriptions. The audience, realizing that Champollion has succeeded in deciphering some text from the Rosetta stone, bursts into applause and his work is highly praised. From that moment on, once it has been confirmed to the public that Champollion had successfully deciphered the code and the contents of the letter to Mr. Dacier were published, Egyptian hieroglyphs are considered as deciphered. From this moment on a still ongoing work of compiling the entire corpus of Egyptian texts began in which Champollion himself would also take part until his death in 1832.

Late October 1822 (exact date unknown) - First book published
Shortly after his exposition at the Royal Academy of Inscriptions, Champollion sets to work with the printer Firmin Didot to publish a more extensive and detailed work than the 8-page letter to Mr. Dacier. Approximately one month later they publish a 44-page booklet which becomes the first work of this kind available in bookstores.

 

[Birdjaguar]

It was great event and worthy of noting!

 

[Chukchi Husky]

There's a six episode BBC docudrama called Egypt: Rediscovering a Lost World and the last two episodes are about Jean-François Champollion and the translation of the Rosetta Stone. There was a controversy at the time because of the fear that translating hieroglyphics could contradict the Bible and Biblical chronology. At that time, King Charles X has just bought the Dendera zodiac and there was a fear that it would contradict the Bible, but Champollion proved through translation that the zodiac was from the Roman period.

Before Champollion, it was believed that hieroglyphics were symbols that didn't have any meaning itself, much like a modern road sign, and not an actual written language.

During this time, the Rosetta Stone was held by the British, with Thomas Young using mathematics to try and translate the Rosetta Stone. Champollion used copies made of the stone and he used his own knowledge of languages, especially Coptic as he recognised Coptic at the modern descendant of Egyptian.

 

[gangleri2001]

There's a six episode BBC docudrama called Egypt: Rediscovering a Lost World and the last two episodes are about Jean-François Champollion and the translation of the Rosetta Stone. There was a controversy at the time because of the fear that translating hieroglyphics could contradict the Bible and Biblical chronology. At that time, King Charles X has just bought the Dendera zodiac and there was a fear that it would contradict the Bible, but Champollion proved through translation that the zodiac was from the Roman period.

Before Champollion, it was believed that hieroglyphics were symbols that didn't have any meaning itself, much like a modern road sign, and not an actual written language.

During this time, the Rosetta Stone was held by the British, with Thomas Young using mathematics to try and translate the Rosetta Stone. Champollion used copies made of the stone and he used his own knowledge of languages, especially Coptic as he recognised Coptic at the modern descendant of Egyptian.

I saw some segments of the episodes dedicated to Champollion and Belzoni and, even though I like the idea of setting the main focus on the Egyptologists rather than the findings, I think it was a bit too drama-centered and ahistorical for my taste.

For example, as you say in your message, the two episodes dedicated to Champollion show us that before Champollion's decisive breakthrough researchers had a worse understanding of the principles of Egyptian hieroglyphs than they actually had. The fact is that by the time Champollion cracked the code this point of view of seeing hieroglyphs as a collection of symbols with no textual information had already been discarded by the vast majority of researchers.

The series also doesn't even remotely mention, for what I saw, neither the work of de Sacy in Egyptian hieroglyphs, the code-cracking superstar at that time as he had successfully cracked the Pahlavi scripture of ancient Persia in 1797 (two years before the Rosetta stone had been discovered) nor Thomas Young and Johan David Åkerblad as being the first ones to successfully identify the phonetic value of some hieroglyphs by comparing some Hieroglyphs to their Demotic and Coptic counterparts. The series leaves you with the impression that it was all thanks to Champollion's stroke of genius and that those who came before him were pretty clueless and that is far from the truth. By the time Champollion started working on Egyptian hieroglyphs the work that others had already done on the Rosetta stone had already put the decipherment of the writing system on the right track and it was just a matter of time that somebody would eventually crack the whole thing.

Nobody denies that Champollion's stroke of genius that took place in September 1822 was a remarkable intellectual achievement and the decisive push needed to finally crack the code but there is no need to downplay or even dumb down those who worked on the Rosetta stone before him like that series does.

 

[Chukchi Husky]

The series also doesn't even remotely mention, for what I saw, neither the work of de Sacy in Egyptian hieroglyphs, the code-cracking superstar at that time as he had successfully cracked the Pahlavi scripture of ancient Persia in 1797 (two years before the Rosetta stone had been discovered) nor Thomas Young and Johan David Åkerblad as being the first ones to successfully identify the phonetic value of some hieroglyphs by comparing some Hieroglyphs to their Demotic and Coptic counterparts.

I don't know about de Sacy or Johan David Åkerblad, but Thomas Young is shown in the series.

 

[gangleri2001]

I don't know about de Sacy or Johan David Åkerblad, but Thomas Young is shown in the series.

I watched those episodes something like 7 or 8 years ago so I don't remember all the details but the general impression they left in me is that they depicted Champollion as some kind of supreme genius who deciphered hieroglyphs all by himself isolated in a sort of bubble from the efforts of other researchers at cracking the code of the Rosetta stone. Honestly speaking, I felt my intelligence a little bit insulted. Belzoni's episodes on the other hand were precious. Too bad I did not watch Howard Carter's episodes last time they were aired over here.

 

[Chukchi Husky]

I watched those episodes something like 7 or 8 years ago so I don't remember all the details but the general impression they left in me is that they depicted Champollion as some kind of supreme genius who deciphered hieroglyphs all by himself isolated in a sort of bubble from the efforts of other researchers at cracking the code of the Rosetta stone. Honestly speaking, I felt my intelligence a little bit insulted. Belzoni's episodes on the other hand were precious. Too bad I did not watch Howard Carter's episodes last time they were aired over here.

It's been a while since I've last seen the episodes. At most it shows Champollion is aware of Thomas Young, but it's more like trying to show a race as to who will be the first to translate the Stone, but the focus is mostly on Champollion with a cut every so often onto Thomas Young.

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

An awesome moment in history well worth celebrating!