Jean-François Champollion
Jean-François Champollion | |
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Jacques Joseph Champollion-Figeac (brother) | |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Egyptian hieroglyphs |
Jean-François Champollion (French:
During the early 19th century, French culture experienced a period of '
Champollion lived in a period of political turmoil in France which continuously threatened to disrupt his research in various ways. During the Napoleonic Wars, he was able to avoid conscription, but his Napoleonic allegiances meant that he was considered suspect by the subsequent Royalist regime. His own actions, sometimes brash and reckless, did not help his case. His relations with important political and scientific figures of the time, such as Joseph Fourier and Silvestre de Sacy, helped him, although in some periods he lived exiled from the scientific community.
In 1820, Champollion embarked in earnest on the project of decipherment of hieroglyphic script, soon overshadowing the achievements of British polymath
During his life as well as long after his death, intense discussions over the merits of his decipherment were carried out among Egyptologists. Some faulted him for not having given sufficient credit to the early discoveries of Young, accusing him of plagiarism, and others long disputed the accuracy of his decipherments. But subsequent findings and confirmations of his readings by scholars building on his results gradually led to the general acceptance of his work. Although some still argue that he should have acknowledged the contributions of Young, his decipherment is now universally accepted and has been the basis for all further developments in the field. Consequently, he is regarded as the "Founder and Father of Egyptology".[1]
Biography
Early life and education
Jean-François Champollion was born on 23 December 1790, the last of seven children (two of whom had died prior). He was raised in humble circumstances; his father Jacques Champollion was a book trader from
Towards the end of March 1801, Jean-François left Figeac for Grenoble, which he reached on 27 March, and where Jacques-Joseph lived in a two-room flat on the rue Neuve. Jacques-Joseph was then working as an assistant in the import-export company Chatel, Champollion and Rif,[5] yet taught his brother to read, and supported his education.[5] His brother also may have been part of the source of Champollion's interest in Egypt, since as a young man he wanted to join Napoleon's Egyptian expedition, and often regretted not being able to go.
Often known as the younger brother of better known Jacques-Joseph, Jean-François was often called Champollion le Jeune (the young). Later when his brother became the more famous of the two, Jacques added the town of his birth as a second surname and hence is often referred to as Champollion-Figeac, in contrast to his brother Champollion. Although studious and largely self-educated, Jacques did not have Jean-François' genius for language; however, he was talented at earning a living and supported Jean-François for most of his life.[6]
Given the difficulty of the task of educating his brother while earning a living, Jacques-Joseph decided to send his younger brother to the well-regarded school of the Abbé Dussert in November 1802,
At age 11, he came to the attention of the prefect of Grenoble, Joseph Fourier, who had accompanied Napoleon Bonaparte on the Egyptian expedition which had discovered the Rosetta Stone. An accomplished scholar in addition to a well known mathematical physicist, Fourier had been entrusted by Napoleon with the publication of the results of the expedition in the monumental series of publications titled Description de l'Égypte. One biographer has stated that Fourier invited the 11-year-old Champollion to his home and showed him his collection of Ancient Egyptian artifacts and documents. Champollion was enthralled, and upon seeing the hieroglyphs and hearing that they were unintelligible, he declared that he would be the one to succeed in reading them.[10] Whether or not the report of this visit is true, Fourier did go on to become one of Champollion's most important allies and supporters, and surely had an important role in instilling his interest in Ancient Egypt.[10]
From 1804, Champollion studied at a
From 1807 to 1809, Champollion studied in Paris, under
In 1810, he returned to Grenoble to take up a seat as joint professor of Ancient History at the newly reopened
Never well off and struggling to make ends meet, he also suffered since youth from chronically bad health, including gout and tinnitus. His health first began to deteriorate during his time in Paris, where the dank climate and unsanitary environment did not agree with him.[22]
Political trouble during the Napoleonic Wars
During the
Under the new Royalist regime, the Champollion brothers invested much of their time and efforts in establishing
Family life
In 1807 Champollion first declared his love for Pauline Berriat, sister of Jacques-Joseph's wife Zoé. His love was not reciprocated, so Champollion instead had an affair with a married woman named Louise Deschamps that lasted until around 1809. In 1811, Louise remarried; in 1813 Pauline died.[28]
It was around this time that Champollion met Rosine Blanc (1794–1871), whom he married in 1818, after four years of engagement. They had one daughter, Zoraïde Chéronnet-Champollion (1824–1889). Rosine was the daughter of a well-to-do family of Grenoblean glovemakers.[29] At first, her father did not approve of the match, since Champollion was a mere assistant professor when they first met, but with his increasing reputation, he eventually agreed. Originally, Jacques-Joseph was opposed to his brother's marriage, too, finding Rosine too dull-witted, and he did not attend the wedding, but later he grew fond of his sister in-law. Although a happy family man, especially adoring his daughter, Champollion was frequently away for months or even years at a time, as he was traveling to Paris, to Italy, and to Egypt, while his family remained in Zoé and Jacques-Joseph's property in Vif, near Grenoble.[30] While in Livorno, Champollion developed an infatuation with an Italian poet, Angelica Palli. She presented an ode to Champollion's work at a celebration in his honor, and the two exchanged letters over the period 1826–1829 revealing the poor state of Champollion's marriage, yet an affair never developed.[31]
Deciphering the Egyptian hieroglyphs
The Egyptian hieroglyphs had been well known to scholars of the ancient world for centuries, but few had made any attempts to understand them. Many based their speculations about the script in the writings of
Early studies
Champollion's interest in Egyptian history and the hieroglyphic script developed at an early age. At the age of sixteen, he gave a lecture before the Grenoble Academy in which he argued that the language spoken by the ancient Egyptians, in which they wrote the Hieroglyphic texts, was closely related to Coptic. This view proved crucial in becoming able to read the texts, and the correctness of his proposed relation between Coptic and Ancient Egyptian has been confirmed by history. This enabled him to propose that the demotic script represented the Coptic language.[36]
Already in 1806, he wrote to his brother about his decision to become the one to decipher the Egyptian script:
"I want to make a profound and continuous study of this antique nation. The enthusiasm that brought me the study of their monuments, their power and knowledge filling me with admiration, all of this will grow further as I will acquire new notions. Of all the people that I prefer, I shall say that none is as important to my heart as the Egyptians."
— Champollion, 1806[37]
In 1808, Champollion received a scare when French Archeologist
In 1811, Champollion was embroiled in controversy, as Étienne Marc Quatremère, like Champollion a student of Silvestre de Sacy, published his Mémoires géographiques et historiques sur l'Égypte ... sur quelques contrées voisines. Champollion saw himself forced to publish as a stand-alone paper the "Introduction" to his work in progress L'Egypte sous les pharaons ou recherches sur la géographie, la langue, les écritures et l'histoire de l'Egypte avant l'invasion de Cambyse (1814). Because of the similarities in the topic matter, and the fact that Champollion's work was published after Quatremère's, allegations arose that Champollion had plagiarized the work of Quatremère. Even Silvestre de Sacy, the mentor of both authors, considered the possibility, to Champollion's great chagrin.[39]
Rivalry with Thomas Young
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Ptolemy in hieroglyphs | |||||||||||||||
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Era: Old Kingdom (2686–2181 BC) | |||||||||||||||
British polymath
In his work on the Rosetta stone, Young proceeded mathematically without identifying the language of the text. For example, comparing the number of times a word appeared in the Greek text with the Egyptian text, he was able to point out which glyphs spelled the word "king", but he was unable to read the word. Using Åkerblad's decipherment of the demotic letters p and t, he realized that there were phonetic elements in the writing of the name Ptolemy. He correctly read the signs for p, t,m, i, and s, but rejected several other signs as "inessential" and misread others, due to the lack of a systematic approach. Young called the Demotic script "enchorial", and resented Champollion's term "demotic" considering it bad form that he had invented a new name for it instead of using Young's. Young corresponded with Sacy, now no longer Champollion's mentor but his rival, who advised Young not to share his work with Champollion and described Champollion as a charlatan. Consequently, for several years Young kept key texts from Champollion and shared little of his data and notes.[41]
When Champollion submitted his Coptic grammar and dictionary for publication in 1815, it was blocked by Silvestre de Sacy, who in addition to his personal animosity and envy towards Champollion also resented his Napoleonic affinities.[42] During his exile in Figeac, Champollion spent his time revising the grammar and doing local archeological work, being for a time cut off from being able to continue his research.[43]
In 1817, Champollion read a review of his "Égypte sous les pharaons", published by an anonymous Englishman, which was largely favorable and encouraged Champollion to return to his former research.[44] Champollion's biographers have suggested that the review was written by Young, who often published anonymously, but Robinson, who wrote biographies of both Young and Champollion, considers it unlikely, since Young elsewhere had been highly critical of that particular work.[45] Soon Champollion returned to Grenoble to seek employment again at the university, which was in the process of reopening the faculty of Philosophy and Letters. He succeeded, obtaining a chair in history and geography,[36] and used his time to visit the Egyptian collections in Italian museums.[36] Nonetheless, most of his time in the following years was consumed by his teaching work.[46]
Meanwhile, Young kept working on the Rosetta stone, and in 1819, he published a major article on "Egypt" in the
Later the British Egyptologist
Breakthrough
Although dismissive of Young's work even before he had read it, Champollion obtained a copy of the Encyclopedia article. Even though he was suffering from failing health, and the chicanery of the Ultras kept him struggling to maintain his job, it motivated him to return in earnest to the study of the hieroglyphs. When he was eventually removed from his professorship by the Royalist faction, he finally had the time to work on it exclusively. While he awaited trial for treason, he produced a short manuscript, De l'écriture hiératique des anciens Égyptiens, in which he argued that the hieratic script was simply a modified form of hieroglyphic writing. Young had already anonymously published an argument to the same effect several years earlier in an obscure journal, but Champollion, having been cut off from academia, had probably not read it. In addition Champollion made the fatal error of claiming that the hieratic script was entirely ideographic.[52] Champollion himself was never proud of this work and reportedly actively tried to suppress it by buying the copies and destroying them.[53]
These errors were finally corrected later that year when Champollion correctly identified the hieratic script as being based on the hieroglyphic script, but used exclusively on papyrus, whereas the hieroglyphic script was used on stone, and demotic used by the people.[54] Previously, it had been questioned whether the three scripts even represented the same language; and hieroglyphic had been considered a purely ideographic script, whereas hieratic and demotic were considered alphabetic. Young, in 1815, had been the first to suggest that the demotic was not alphabetic, but rather a mixture of "imitations of hieroglyphics" and "alphabetic" signs. Champollion on the other hand correctly considered the scripts to coincide almost entirely, being in essence different formal versions of the same script.[55][53]
In the same year, he identified the hieroglyphic script on the Rosetta stone as being written in a mixture of ideograms and phonetic signs,[56] just as Young had argued for Demotic.[57] He reasoned that if the script was entirely ideographic the hieroglyphic text would require as many separate signs as there were separate words in the Greek text. But there were in fact fewer, suggesting that the script mixed ideographic and phonetic signs. This realization finally made it possible for him to detach himself from the idea that the different scripts had to be either fully ideographic or fully phonetic, and he recognized it as being much more complex mixture of sign types. This realization gave him a distinct advantage.[58]
Names of rulers
Using the fact that it was known that names of rulers appeared in cartouches, he focused on reading names of rulers as Young had initially tried. Champollion managed to isolate a number of sound values for signs, by comparing the Greek and Hieroglyphic versions of the names of Ptolemy and Cleopatra – correcting Young's readings in several instances.[59]
In 1822 Champollion received transcriptions of the text on the recently discovered Philae obelisk, which enabled him to double check his readings of the names Ptolemy and Cleopatra from the Rosetta stone. The name "Cleopatra" had already been identified on the Philae obelisk by William John Bankes, who scribbled the identification in the margin of the plate though without any actual reading of the individual glyphs. Young and others would later use the fact that the Cleopatra cartouche had been identified by Bankes to claim that Champollion had plagiarized his work. It remains unknown whether Champollion saw Bankes' margin note identifying the cartouche or whether he identified it by himself.[60] All in all, using this method he managed to determine the phonetic value of 12 signs (A, AI, E, K, L, M, O, P, R, S, and T). By applying these to the decipherment of further sounds he soon read dozens of other names.[61]
Astronomer Jean-Baptiste Biot published a proposed decipherment of the controversial Dendera zodiac, arguing that the small stars following certain signs referred to constellations.[62] Champollion published a response in the Revue encyclopédique, demonstrating that they were in fact grammatical signs, which he called "signs of the type", today called "determinatives". Young had identified the first determinative "divine female", but Champollion now identified several others.[63] He presented the progress before the academy where it was well received, and even his former mentor-turned-archenemy, de Sacy, praised it warmly, leading to a reconciliation between the two.[64]
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Thutmose in hieroglyphs | ||||
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The main breakthrough in his decipherment was when he was also able to read the verb MIS related to birth, by comparing the Coptic verb for birth with the phonetic signs MS and the appearance of references to birthday celebrations in the Greek text. It was on 14 September 1822, while comparing his readings to a set of new texts from Abu Simbel that he made the realization. Running down the street to find his brother he yelled "Je tiens mon affaire!" (I've got it!) but collapsed from the excitement.[65][66] Champollion subsequently spent the short period from 14 to 22 September writing up his results.[67]
While the name Thutmose had also been identified (but not read) by Young who realized that the first syllable was spelled with a depiction of an ibis representing Thoth, Champollion was able to read the phonetic spelling of the second part of the word, and check it against the mentioning of births in the Rosetta stone.[Notes 1] This finally confirmed to Champollion that the ancient texts as well as the recent ones used the same writing system, and that it was a system that mixed logographic and phonetic principles.[66]
Letter to Dacier
A week later on 27 September 1822, he published some of his findings in his Lettre à M. Dacier, addressed to Bon-Joseph Dacier, secretary of the Paris Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. The handwritten letter was originally addressed to De Sacy, but Champollion crossed out the letter of his mentor turned adversary, substituting the name of Dacier, who had faithfully supported his efforts.[65] Champollion read the letter before the assembled Académie. All his main rivals and supporters were present at the reading, including Young who happened to be visiting Paris. This was the first meeting between the two. The presentation did not go into details regarding the script and in fact was surprisingly cautious in its suggestions. Although he must have been already certain of this, Champollion merely suggested that the script was phonetic already from the earliest available texts, which would mean that the Egyptians had developed writing independently of the other civilizations around the Mediterranean. The paper also still contained confusions regarding the relative role of ideographic and phonetic signs, still arguing that also hieratic and demotic were primarily ideographic.[68]
Scholars have speculated that there had simply not been sufficient time between his breakthrough and collapse to fully incorporate the discovery into his thinking. But the paper presented many new phonetic readings of names of rulers, demonstrating clearly that he had made a major advance in deciphering the phonetic script. And it finally settled the question of the dating of the Dendera zodiac, by reading the cartouche that had been erroneously read as Arsinoë by Young, in its correct reading "autocrator" (Emperor in Greek).[69]
He was congratulated by the amazed audience including de Sacy and Young.[37] Young and Champollion became acquainted over the next days, Champollion sharing many of his notes with Young and inviting him to visit at his house, and the two parted on friendly terms.[70]
Reactions to the decipherment
At first Young was appreciative of Champollion's success, writing in a letter to his friend that "If he [Champollion] did borrow an English key, the lock was so dreadfully rusty that no common arm would have had strength enough to turn it. ... .You will easily believe that were I ever so much the victim of the bad passions, I should feel nothing but exultation at Mr. Champollion's success: my life seems indeed to be lengthened by the accession of a junior coadjutor in my researches, and of a person too, who is so much more versed in the different dialects of the Egyptian language than myself."[71]
Nonetheless, the relation between them quickly deteriorated, as Young began to feel that he was being denied due credit for his own "first steps" in the decipherment. Also, because of the tense political climate between England and France in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, there was little inclination to accept Champollion's decipherments as valid among the English. When Young later read the published copy of the lettre he was offended that he himself was mentioned only twice, and one of those times being harshly critiqued for his failure in deciphering the name "Berenice". Young was further disheartened because Champollion at no point recognized his work as having provided the platform from which decipherment had finally been reached. He grew increasingly angry with Champollion, and shared his feelings with his friends who encouraged him to rebut with a new publication. When by a stroke of luck a Greek translation of a well-known demotic papyrus came into his possession later that year, he did not share that important finding with Champollion. In an anonymous review of the lettre Young attributed the discovery of the hieratic as a form of hieroglyphs to de Sacy and described Champollion's decipherments merely as an extension of Åkerblad and Young's work. Champollion recognized that Young was the author, and sent him a rebuttal of the review, while maintaining the charade of the anonymous review. Furthermore, Young, in his 1823 An Account of Some Recent Discoveries in Hieroglyphical Literature and Egyptian Antiquities, including the author's original alphabet, as extended by Mr. Champollion, he complained that "however Mr Champollion may have arrived at his conclusions, I admit them, with the greatest pleasure and gratitude, not by any means as superseding my system, but as fully confirming and extending it."(p. 146).[55]
In France, Champollion's success also produced enemies. Edmé-Francois Jomard was chief among them, and he spared no occasion to belittle Champollion's achievements behind his back, pointing out that Champollion had never been to Egypt and suggesting that really his lettre represented no major progress from Young's work. Jomard had been insulted by Champollion's demonstration of the young age of the Dendera zodiac, which he had himself proposed was as old as 15,000 years. This exact finding had also brought Champollion in the good graces of many priests of the Catholic Church who had been antagonized by the claims that Egyptian civilization might be older than their accepted chronology, according to which the earth was only 6,000 years old.[72]
Précis
Young's claims that the new decipherments were merely a corroboration of his own method, meant that Champollion would have to publish more of his data to make clear the degree to which his own progress built on a systematicity that was not found in Young's work. He realized that he would have to make it apparent to all that his was a total system of decipherment, whereas Young had merely deciphered a few words. Over the next year he published a series of booklets about the Egyptian gods, including some decipherments of their names.[73]
Building on his progress, Champollion now began to study other texts in addition to the Rosetta stone, studying a series of much older inscriptions from
In the Précis, Champollion referred to Young's 1819 claim of having deciphered the script when he wrote that:
"A real discovery would have been to have really read the hieroglyphic name, that is, to have fixed the proper value to each of the characters it is composed of, and in such a manner, that these values were applicable everywhere that these characters appear
— [Précis, 1824, p. 22]"[37]
This task was exactly what Champollion set out to accomplish in the Précis, and the entire framing of the argument was as a rebuttal to M. le docteur Young, and the translation in his 1819 article which Champollion brushed off as "a conjectural translation".[75]
In the introduction Champollion described his argument in points:
- That his "alphabet" (in the sense of phonetic readings) could be employed to read inscriptions from all of the periods of Egyptian history.
- That the discovery of the phonetic alphabet is the true key to understanding the entire hieroglyphic system.
- That the ancient Egyptians used the system in all of the periods of Egyptian history to represent the sounds of their spoken language phonetically.
- That all of the hieroglyphic texts are composed almost entirely of the phonetic signs that he had discovered.
Champollion never admitted any debt to Young's work,[55] although in 1828, a year before his death, Young was appointed to the French Academy of Sciences, with Champollion's support.[76]
The Précis, which comprised over 450 ancient Egyptian words and hieroglyphics groupings,[1] cemented Champollion as having the main claim to the decipherment of the hieroglyphs. In 1825, his former teacher and enemy Silvestre de Sacy reviewed his work positively stating that it was already well "beyond the need for confirmation".[77] In the same year, Henry Salt put Champollion's decipherment to the test, successfully using it to read further inscriptions. He published a corroboration of Champollion's system, in which he also criticized Champollion for not acknowledging his dependence on Young's work.[78]
With his work on the Précis, Champollion realized that in order to advance further he needed more texts, and transcriptions of better quality. This caused him to spend the next years visiting collections and monuments in Italy, where he realized that many of the transcriptions from which he had been working had been inaccurate – hindering the decipherment; he made a point of making his own copies of as many texts as possible. During his time in Italy, he met the Pope, who congratulated him on having done a "great service to the Church," by which he was referring to the counter arguments he had provided against the challengers to the Biblical chronology. Champollion was ambivalent, but the Pope's support helped him in his efforts to secure funds for an expedition.[79]
Contribution to the decipherment of cuneiform
The deciphering of the
It was only in 1823 that Grotefend's discovery was confirmed, when Champollion, who had just deciphered hieroglyphs, had the idea of trying to decrypt the quadrilingual hieroglyph-cuneiform inscription on a famous alabaster vase in the
More advances were made on Grotefend's work and by 1847, most of the symbols were correctly identified. The decipherment of the Old Persian Cuneiform script was at the beginning of the decipherment of all the other cuneiform scripts, as various multi-lingual inscriptions between the various cuneiform scripts were obtained from archaeological discoveries.
Confirmation of the antiquity of phonetical hieroglyphs
Champollion had been confronted to the doubts of various scholars regarding the existence of phonetical hieroglyphs before the time of the Greeks and the Romans in Egypt, especially since Champollion had only proved his phonetic system on the basis of the names of Greek and Roman rulers found in hieroglyphs on Egyptian monuments.[90][91] Until his decipherment of the Caylus vase, he had not found any foreign names earlier than Alexander the Great that were transliterated through alphabetic hieroglyphs, which led to suspicions that they were invented at the time of the Greeks and Romans, and fostered doubts whether phonetical hieroglyphs could be applied to decipher the names of ancient Egyptian Pharaohs.[90][91] For the first time, here was a foreign name ("Xerxes the Great") transcribed phonetically with Egyptian hieroglyphs, already 150 years before Alexander the Great, thereby essentially proving Champollion's thesis.[90] In his Précis du système hiéroglyphique published in 1824, Champollion wrote of this discovery: "It has thus been proved that Egyptian hieroglyphs included phonetic signs, at least since 460 BC".[92]
Curator of the Egyptian Antiquities in the Louvre
After his groundbreaking discoveries in 1822, Champollion made the acquaintance of
Following his successes and after several months of negotiations and talks by Jacques-Joseph while he was still in Italy,[93] Champollion was finally appointed curator of the Egyptian collections of the Musée du Louvre in a decree of Charles X[95] dated to 15 May 1826.[36][93] The two Champollion brothers organised the Egyptian collection in four rooms on the first floor of the south side of the Cour Carrée.[93] The visitors entered this section of the Louvre via a first room devoted to the funerary world of the Egyptians, the second room presented artefacts relating to civilian life in Ancient Egypt, while the third and fourth rooms were devoted to more artefacts pertaining to mortuary activities and divinities.[93] To accompany these extensive works, Champollion organised the Egyptian collection methodologically into well-defined series and pushed his museologic work to the point of choosing the appearance of the stands and pedestals.[93]
Champollion's work in the Louvre, as well as his and his brother's efforts to acquire a larger collection of Egyptian artefacts, had a profound impact on the Louvre museum itself, the nature of which changed the Louvre from a place dedicated to the fine-arts – to a museum in the modern sense of the term, with important galleries devoted to the history of various civilisations.[93]
Franco-Tuscan Expedition
In 1827,
In preparation for the expedition, Champollion wrote the French Consul General Bernardino Drovetti for advice on how to secure permission from the Egyptian Khedive and Ottoman Viceroy Muhammad Ali of Egypt. Drovetti had initiated his own business of exporting plundered Egyptian antiques and did not want Champollion meddling in his affairs. He sent a letter discouraging the expedition stating that the political situation was too unstable for the expedition to be advisable. The letter reached Jacques Joseph Champollion a few weeks before the expedition was scheduled to leave, but he conveniently delayed in sending it on to his brother until after the expedition had left.[98]
On 21 July 1828, the expedition boarded the ship Eglé at Toulon and set sail for Egypt and they arrived in Alexandria on 18 August. Here Champollion met with Drovetti who continued to warn about the political situation but assured Champollion that the Pasha would give his permission for the expedition to proceed. Champollion, Rosselini and Lenormant met with the Pasha on 24 August, and he immediately gave his permission. However, after more than a week of waiting for the permissions, Champollion suspected that Drovetti was working against him and took a complaint to the French consulate. The complaint worked and soon the pasha provided the expedition with a large river boat. The expedition bought a small boat for five persons. Champollion named them the Isis and the Athyr after Egyptian goddesses. On 19 September, they arrived in Cairo, where they stayed until 1 October when they left for the desert sites of Memphis, Saqqara and Giza.[99]
While examining texts in the tombs at Saqqara in October, Champollion realized that the hieroglyphic word for "hour" included the hieroglyph representing a star, which served no phonetic function in the word. He wrote in his journal that the star glyph was "the determinative of all divisions of time". Champollion probably coined this term, replacing his phrase "signs of the type", while in Egypt, as it had not appeared in the 1828 edition of the Précis.[100] Champollion also saw the sphinx and lamented that the inscription on its chest was covered by more sand than they would be able to remove in a week. Arriving in Dendera on 16 November, Champollion was excited to see the Zodiac that he had deciphered in Paris. Here he realized that the glyph that he had deciphered as autocrator and which convinced him that the inscription was of recent date was in fact not found on the monument itself – it had seemingly been invented by Jomard's copyist. Champollion nonetheless realized that the late date was still correct, based on other evidence. After a day at Dendera, the expedition continued on to Thebes.[101]
Champollion was particularly captured by the array of important monuments and inscriptions at Thebes, and decided to spend as much time there as possible on the way back north. South of Thebes, the Isis sprang a leak and nearly sank. Having lost many provisions and spent several days repairing the boat they continued south to Aswan where the boats had to be left, since they could not make it across the
Even though Champollion was appalled by the rampant looting of ancient artefacts and destruction of monuments, the expedition also contributed to the destruction. Most notably, while studying the Valley of the Kings, he damaged
On the way back, they stayed again at Thebes from March to September, making many new drawings and paintings of the monuments there. Here, at the
The expedition arrived back in Cairo in late September 1829 where the expedition bought 10,000 francs worth of antiquities, a budget extended to them by minister
Returning to
Death
After his return from the second expedition to Egypt, Champollion was appointed to the chair of Egyptian history and archaeology at the Collège de France, a chair which had been specially created for him by a decree of Louis Philippe I dated to 12 March 1831.[1] He only gave three lectures before his illness forced him to give up teaching.[109] Exhausted by his labors during and after his scientific expedition to Egypt, Champollion died of an apoplectic attack (stroke) in Paris on 4 March 1832 at the age of 41.[1] His body was buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery.[110] On his tomb is a simple obelisk erected by his wife, and a stone slab stating: Ici repose Jean-François Champollion, né à Figeac dept. du Lot le 23 décembre 1790, décédé à Paris le 4 mars 1832 (Here rests Jean-François Champollion, born at Figeac, Department of the Lot, on 23 December 1790, died at Paris on 4 March 1832).[111]
Certain portions of Champollion's works were edited by Jacques and published posthumously. His Grammar and Dictionary of Ancient Egyptian had been left almost finished and was published posthumously in 1838. Before his death, he had told his brother "Hold it carefully, I hope that it will be my calling card for posterity".[112] It contained his entire theory and method, including classifications of signs and their decipherments, and also a grammar including how to decline nouns and conjugate verbs. But it was marred by the still tentative nature of many readings, and Champollion's conviction that the hieroglyphs could be read directly in Coptic, whereas in fact they represented a much older stage of the language which differs in many ways from Coptic.[113]
Jacques's son, Aimé-Louis (1812–1894), wrote a biography of the two brothers,[114] and he and his sister Zoë Champollion were both interviewed by Hermine Hartleben, whose major biography of Champollion was published in 1906.[115][113]
Champollion's decipherment remained controversial even after his death. The brothers
Building on Champollion's grammar, his student Karl Richard Lepsius continued to develop the decipherment, realizing in contrast to Champollion that vowels were not written. Lepsius became the most important champion of Champollion's work. In 1866, the Decree of Canopus, discovered by Lepsius, was successfully deciphered using Champollion's method, cementing his reputation as the true decipherer of the hieroglyphs.[116]
Legacy
Champollion's most immediate legacy is in the field of Egyptology, of which he is now widely considered as the founder and father, with his decipherment the result of his genius combined with hard work.[121]
Figeac honors him with La place des Écritures, a monumental reproduction of the Rosetta Stone by American artist Joseph Kosuth (pictured to the right).[122] And a museum devoted to Jean-François Champollion was created in his birthplace at Figeac in Lot.[123] It was inaugurated on 19 December 1986 in the presence of President François Mitterrand and Jean Leclant, Permanent Secretary of the Academy of Inscriptions and Letters. After two years of building work and extension, the museum re-opened in 2007. Besides Champollion's life and discoveries, the museum also recounts the history of writing. The whole façade is covered in pictograms, from the original ideograms of the whole world.[124]
In Vif near Grenoble, The Champollion Museum is located at the former abode of Jean-François's brother.[125]
Champollion has also been portrayed in many films and documentaries: For example, he was portrayed by Elliot Cowan in the 2005 BBC docudrama Egypt. His life and process of the decipherment of hieroglyphics were narrated by Françoise Fabian and Jean-Hugues Anglade in the 2000 Arte documentary film Champollion: A Scribe for Egypt. In David Baldacci's thriller involving the CIA, Simple Genius, the character named "Champ Pollion" was derived from Champollion.
In Cairo, a street carries his name, leading to the Tahrir Square where the Egyptian Museum is located.[126]
Also named after him is the Champollion crater, a lunar crater on the far side of the Moon.[127]
Works
- L'Égypte sous les Pharaons, ou recherches sur la géographie, la religion, la langue, les écritures et l'histoire de l'Égypte avant l'invasion de Cambyse. Tome premier: Description géographique. Introduction. Paris: De Bure. 1814. OCLC 716645794.
- L'Égypte sous les Pharaons, ou recherches sur la géographie, la religion, la langue, les écritures et l'histoire de l'Égypte avant l'invasion de Cambyse. Description géographique. Tome Second. Paris: De Bure. 1814. OCLC 311538010.
- De l'écriture hiératique des anciens Égyptiens. Grenoble: Imprimerie Typographique et Lithographique de Baratier Frères. 1821. OCLC 557937746.
- Lettre à M. Dacier relative à l'alphabet des hiéroglyphes phonétiques employés par les égyptiens pour écrire sur leurs monuments les titres, les noms et les surnoms des souverains grecs et romains. Paris: Firmin Didot Père et Fils. 1822. See also the wikipedia article Lettre à M. Dacier.
- Panthéon égyptien, collection des personnages mythologiques de l'ancienne Égypte, d'après les monuments (explanatory text to illustrations by Léon-Jean-Joseph Dubois). Paris: Firmin Didot. 1823. OCLC 743026987.
- Précis du système hiéroglyphique des anciens Égyptiens, ou recherches sur les éléments premiers de cette écriture sacrée, sur leurs diverses combinaisons, et sur les rapports de ce systéme avec les autres méthodes graphiques égytpiennes. Paris, Strasbourg, Londres: Treuttel et Würtz. 1824. OCLC 490765498.;
- Lettres à M. le Duc de Blacas d'Aulps relatives au Musée Royal Egyptien de Turin. Paris: Firmin Didot Père et Fils. 1824. OCLC 312365529.;
- Notice descriptive des monuments Égyptiens du musée Charles X. Paris: Imprimerie de Crapelet. 1827. OCLC 461098669.;
- Lettres écrites d'Égypte et de Nubie. Vol. 10764. Project Gutenberg. 1828–1829. OCLC 979571496.;
Posthumous works
- Monuments de l'Egypte et de la Nubie: d'après les dessins exécutés sur les lieux sous la direction de Champollion le-Jeune, et les descriptions autographes qu'il en a rédigées. Volume 1 & 2. Paris: Typographie de Firmin Didot Frères. 1835–1845. OCLC 603401775.
- Grammaire égyptienne, ou Principes généraux de l'ecriture sacrée égyptienne appliquée a la représentation de la langue parlée. Paris: Typographie de Firmin Didot Frères. 1836. OCLC 25326631. See also the wikipedia article Grammaire égyptienne
- Dictionnaire égyptien en écriture hiéroglyphique. Paris: Firmin Didot Frères. 1841. OCLC 943840005.
Notes
- ^ Champollion read the name Thutmose as consisting of the logogram Thoth represented by the Ibis and two phonetic signs M and S. In reality however the second sign was MS, not simple M, giving the actual reading THOTH-MS-S. Champollion never realized that some phonetic signs included two consonants.Gardiner (1952)
Citations
- ^ a b c d e Bianchi 2001, p. 261.
- ^ Lacouture 1988, p. 40.
- ^ Robinson 2012, p. 34.
- ^ Robinson 2012, p. ch. 2.
- ^ a b Lacouture 1988, p. 72.
- ^ Meyerson 2004, p. 31.
- ^ a b Lacouture 1988, p. 74.
- ^ Butin 1913.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, p. 50.
- ^ a b Adkins & Adkins 2000, pp. 51–52.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, p. 51.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, p. 66.
- ^ Lacouture 1988, p. 91.
- ^ Lacouture 1988, p. 94.
- ^ Ceram, C. W. (1967). Gods, Graves, and Scholars (2nd ed.). New York: Alfred A. Knopf. p. 91.
- ^ Hartleben 1906, p. 65.
- ^ Weissbach 1999.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, pp. 74–76.
- ^ Åkerblad 1802.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, p. 85.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, pp. 92–94.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, pp. 79, 205, 236.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, pp. 81, 89–90, 99–100.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, p. 126.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, pp. 120–135.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, p. 144.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, pp. 156–160.
- ^ Robinson 2012, p. 106.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, pp. 106–107, 147–148.
- ^ Musée Champollion de Vif 2018.
- ^ Robinson 2012, pp. 165–166.
- ^ Frimmer 1969.
- ^ Allen 1960.
- ^ Iversen 1961, p. 97.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, pp. 60–62.
- ^ a b c d e Bianchi 2001, p. 260.
- ^ a b c d e Weissbach 2000.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, p. 87.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, pp. 97–98.
- ^ a b Adkins & Adkins 2000, p. 125.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, p. 129.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, p. 128.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, pp. 137–140.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, p. 142.
- ^ Robinson 2012, pp. 115–116.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, pp. 140–145.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, p. 277.
- ^ Parkinson et al. 1999, pp. 32–33.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, p. 172.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, p. 122.
- ^ Champollion 1828, p. 33.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, p. 159.
- ^ a b Robinson 2012, pp. 123–124.
- ^ Posener 1972, p. 566.
- ^ a b c Hammond 2014.
- ^ Robinson 2012, p. 130.
- ^ Robinson 2011.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, p. 171.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, pp. 172–173.
- ^ Robinson 2012, pp. 133–137.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, pp. 170–175.
- ^ Robinson 2012, p. 139.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, pp. 176–177.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, p. 179.
- ^ a b Robinson 2012, p. 142.
- ^ a b Adkins & Adkins 2000, p. 181.
- ^ Aufrère 2008.
- ^ Robinson 2012, pp. 127–129.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, pp. 175, 187, 192.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, pp. 187–189.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, p. 188.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, p. 199.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, pp. 202–203.
- ^ Champollion 1828.
- ^ Champollion 1828, p. 15.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, pp. 240–41.
- ^ Pope 1999, p. 84.
- ^ Parkinson et al. 1999, pp. 38–39.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, p. 224.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-108-08239-6.
- ^ Kent, R. G.: "Old Persian: Grammar Texts Lexicon", p. 10. American Oriental Society, 1950.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-108-08239-6.
- ^ Recueil des publications de la Société Havraise d'Études Diverses (in French). Société Havraise d'Etudes Diverses. 1869. p. 423.
- ^ Champollion 1828, p. 232.
- ^ a b Saint-Martin, Antoine-Jean (January 1823). "Extrait d'un mémoire relatif aux antiques inscriptions de Persépolis lu à l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres". Journal asiatique (in French). Société asiatique (France): 86.
- ^ a b c Bulletin des sciences historiques, antiquités, philologie (in French). Treuttel et Würtz. 1825. p. 135.
- ^ Recueil des publications de la Société Havraise d'Études Diverses (in French). Société Havraise d'Etudes. 1869. p. 423.
- ISBN 978-9231028113.
- ^ Champollion, Jean-François (1790–1832) Auteur du texte (1824). Précis du système hiéroglyphique des anciens Égyptiens, ou Recherches sur les éléments premiers de cette écriture sacrée, sur leurs diverses combinaisons, et sur les rapports de ce système avec les autres méthodes graphiques égyptiennes. Planches / . Par Champollion le jeune...
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ a b c Revue archéologique (in French). Leleux. 1844. p. 444.
- ^ a b Champollion 1828, pp. 225–233.
- ^ Champollion 1828, pp. 231–233.
- ^ a b c d e f g Tanré-Szewczyk 2017.
- ^ "Jean-François Champollion (1790–1832)". Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 21 July 2015.
- ^ Kanawaty 1990, p. 143.
- ^ Robinson 2012, p. 176.
- ^ Robinson 2012, p. 178.
- ^ Robinson 2012, pp. 179–181.
- ^ Robinson 2012, pp. 193–199.
- ^ Robinson 2012, pp. 199–200.
- ^ Robinson 2012, pp. 203–204.
- ^ Robinson 2012, p. 213.
- ^ Ridley 1991.
- ^ Fagan 2004, p. 170.
- ^ Robinson 2012, pp. 216–217.
- ^ Clayton 2001.
- ^ Robinson 2012, p. 224.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, p. 279.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, p. 286.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, pp. 287–288.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, p. 307.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, p. 292.
- ^ a b Griffith 1951.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, p. 7.
- ^ Hartleben 1906.
- ^ a b Adkins & Adkins 2000, p. 294.
- ^ Pope 1999.
- ^ Lewis 1862, p. 382.
- ^ Poole 1864, pp. 471–482.
- ^ Thomasson 2013.
- ^ Posener 1972, p. 573.
- ^ Parkinson et al. 1999, p. 43.
- ^ Journal La Semaine du Lot – Article : Figeac, musée Champollion, "Et c'est parti ... Le 3 octobre 2005" – n° 478 – du 6 au 12 octobre 2005 – p. 11.
- ^ "Les Ecritures du Monde" (in French). L'internaute – Musée Champollion. Archived from the original on 29 June 2017. Retrieved 31 January 2015.
- ^ "La propriété familiale, Museum Website". Archived from the original on 13 August 2013.
- ^ "Cairo correspondent on the city's best". CNN.com.
- ^ Adkins & Adkins 2000, p. 308.
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- Åkerblad, Johan David (1802). Lettre sur l'inscription Égyptienne de Rosette: adressée au citoyen Silvestre de Sacy, Professeur de langue arabe à l'École spéciale des langues orientales vivantes, etc.; Réponse du citoyen Silvestre de Sacy. Paris: L'imprimerie de la République.
- Allen, Don Cameron (1960). "The Predecessors of Champollion". Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 104 (5): 527–547. JSTOR 985236.
- Aufrère, Sydney (2008). "Champollion, Jean-François" (in French). Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art. Archived from the original on 5 January 2017.
- Clayton, Peter, ed. (2001). Egyptian Diaries: How One Man Unveiled the Mysteries of the Nile. Gibson Square. ISBN 978-1-903933-02-2.
- Bianchi, Robert Steven (2001). "Champollion Jean-François". In ISBN 978-0-19-510234-5.
- Butin, Romain Francis (1913). OCLC 945776031.
. In Herbermann, Charles (ed.).
- Champollion, J.-F. (1828). Précis du système hiéroglyphique des anciens Égyptiens, ou, Recherches sur les élémens premiers de cette écriture sacrée, sur leurs diverses combinaisons, et sur les rapports de ce système avec les autres méthodes graphiques égyptiennes (in French). Revue par l'auteur et augmentée de la Lettre à M. Dacier, relative à l'alphabet des hiéroglyphes phonétiques employés par les Egyptiens sur leurs monumens de l'époque grecque et de l'époque romaine (2 ed.). Paris: Imprimerie royale. OCLC 489942666.
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- Hammond, N. (2014). "Cracking the Egyptian Code: The Revolutionary Life of Jean-François Champollion". European Journal of Archaeology. 17 (1): 176–179. S2CID 161646266.
- Hartleben, Hermine (1906). Champollion: sein leben und sein Werk (in German). Vol. 1. Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung. OCLC 899972029.
- Iversen, Erik (1961). Myth of Egypt and its hieroglyphs in European tradition. Copenhagen: Gad. OCLC 1006828.
- Kanawaty, Monique (1990). "Pharaon entre au Louvre". Mémoires d'Égypte. Hommage de l'Europe à Champollion, catalogue d'exposition, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, 17 novembre 1990–17 mars 1991 (in French). Strasbourg: La Nuée Bleue. OCLC 496441116.
- Lacouture, Jean (1988). Champollion, Une vie de lumières (in French). Paris: Grasset. ISBN 978-2-246-41211-3.
- Lewis, George Cornewall (1862). An Historical Survey of the Astronomy of the Ancients. London: Parker, Son, and Bourn. p. 382. OCLC 3566805.
Sir George Lewis on Champollion.
- Meyerson, Daniel (2004). The linguist and the emperor: Napoleon and Champollion's quest to decipher the Rosetta Stone. New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 978-0-345-45067-8.
- "Musée Champollion. Vif". Archived from the original on 9 July 2017. Retrieved 7 April 2018.
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- Poole, Reginald Stuart (1864). "XXVI. On the method of interpreting Egyptian Hieroglyphics by Young and Champollion, with a vindication of its correctness from the strictures of Sir George Cornewall Lewis". Archaeologia. 39 (2): 471–482. .
- Pope, Maurice (1999). The Story of Decipherment: From Egyptian Hieroglyphs to Maya Script (Revised ed.). New York: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 978-0-500-28105-5.
- Posener, George (1972). "Champollion et le déchiffrement de l'écriture hiératique". Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. 116 (3): 566–573.
- Ridley, R. T. (1991). "Champollion in the Tomb of Seti I: an Unpublished Letter". Chronique d'Égypte. 66 (131): 23–30. .
- Robinson, Andrew (2012). Cracking the Egyptian Code: The Revolutionary Life of Jean-Francois Champollion. Oxford University Press.
- Robinson, A. (2011). "Styles of Decipherment: Thomas Young, Jean-François Champollion and the Decipherment of the Egyptian Hieroglyphs" (PDF). Scripta. 3: 123–132.
- Tanré-Szewczyk, Juliette (2017). "Des antiquités égyptiennes au musée. Modèles, appropriations et constitution du champ de l'égyptologie dans la première moitié du XIXe siècle, à travers l'exemple croisé du Louvre et du British Museum". Les Cahiers de l'École du Louvre (in French). 11 (11). doi:10.4000/cel.681.
- Thomasson, Fredrik (2013). The Life of J. D. Åkerblad: Egyptian Decipherment and Orientalism in Revolutionary Times. Brill's studies in intellectual history. Vol. 123. Leiden; Boston: Brill. ISBN 978-1-283-97997-9.
- Weissbach, M. M. (2000). "Jean François Champollion and the True Story of Egypt" (PDF). 21st Century Science and Technology. 12 (4): 26–39.
- Weissbach, Muriel Mirak (1999). "How Champollion deciphered the Rosetta stone". Fidelio. VIII (3).
- Wilkinson, Toby (2020). A World Beneath the Sands: Adventurers and Archaeologists in the Golden Age of Egyptology (Hardbook). London: Picador. ISBN 978-1-5098-5870-5.
External links
- Works by Jean-François Champollion at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Jean-François Champollion at Internet Archive
- Giants of Egyptology: Jean-François Champollion, 1790–1832
- Key words: unlocking lost languages
- BBC: Jean-François Champollion
- New International Encyclopedia. 1905. .