Jean-François Champollion

Jean-François Champollion, by [[Léon Cogniet]] Jean-François Champollion (), also known as '''Champollion ''le jeune''''' ('the Younger'; 23 December 17904 March 1832), was a French philologist and orientalist, known primarily as the decipherer of Egyptian hieroglyphs and a founding figure in the field of Egyptology. Partially raised by his brother, the scholar Jacques Joseph Champollion-Figeac, Champollion was a child prodigy in philology, giving his first public paper on the decipherment of Demotic in his late teens. As a young man he was renowned in scientific circles, and read Coptic, Ancient Greek, Latin, Hebrew and Arabic.

During the early 19th century, French culture experienced a period of 'Egyptomania', brought on by Napoleon's discoveries in Egypt during his campaign there (1798–1801) which also brought to light the trilingual Rosetta Stone. Scholars debated the age of Egyptian civilization and the function and nature of hieroglyphic script, which language if any it recorded, and the degree to which the signs were phonetic (representing speech sounds) or ideographic (recording semantic concepts directly). Many thought that the script was only used for sacred and ritual functions, and that as such it was unlikely to be decipherable since it was tied to esoteric and philosophical ideas, and did not record historical information. The significance of Champollion's decipherment was that he showed these assumptions to be wrong, and made it possible to begin to retrieve many kinds of information recorded by the ancient Egyptians.

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 Thomas Young, who had made the first advances in decipherment before 1819. In 1822, Champollion published his first breakthrough in the decipherment of the Rosetta hieroglyphs, showing that the Egyptian writing system was a combination of phonetic and ideographic signs – the first such script discovered. In 1824, he published a ''Précis'' in which he detailed a decipherment of the hieroglyphic script demonstrating the values of its phonetic and ideographic signs. In 1829, he traveled to Egypt where he was able to read many hieroglyphic texts that had never before been studied, and brought home a large body of new drawings of hieroglyphic inscriptions. Home again, he was given a professorship in Egyptology, but only lectured a few times before his health, ruined by the hardships of the Egyptian journey, forced him to give up teaching. He died in Paris in 1832, 41 years old. His grammar of Ancient Egyptian was published posthumously.

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". Provided by Wikipedia
Showing 1 - 18 results of 18 for search 'Champollion, Jean-François, 1790-1832,', query time: 0.04s Refine Results
Published 1984
Principes généraux de l'écriture sacrée égyptienne : appliquée à la représentation de la langue parlée /

: Reprint. Originally published: Grammaire égyptienne, ou, Principes généraux de l'écriture sacrée égyptienne. Paris : Firmin Didot, 1836. : viii, xxiii, 555 p., 11 leaves of plates : ill. (some col.) ; 33 cm. : 2905304006
9782905304001

Published 2012
Champollion /

: 330 pages ; 21 cm. : Includes bibliographical references (pages 321-323) and index. : 9782262039387

Published 1824
Lettres à M. le duc de Blacas d'Aulps, Premier Gentilhomme de la Chambre, Pair de France, etc., relatives au Musée Royal Égyptien de Turin /

: 167 pages, XVI plates (some folded) : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Textes et langages de lÉgypte pharaonique : cent cinquante années de recherches 1822-1972 /

: pages ; 24 cm

Published 2001
Egyptian diaries : how one man unveiled the mysteries of the Nile /

: 284 page : illustrations, maps ; 22 cm. : Bibliography : page [279]-284. : 1903933021

Dictionnaire égyptien : en écriture hiéroglyphique /

: xxxvi, 487 pages : illustration ; 34 cm.

Panthéon égyptien : collection des personnages mythologiques de l'ancienne Egypte /

: Reprint. Originally published as a series of fascicles : Paris : Firmin Didot, 1823-1828 or 9. : 1 volume (unpaged) : color illustrations ; 27 cm. : Includes bibliographical references. : 2906427004

Lettres à Zelmire /

: 116 pages, [4] leaves of plates ; 22 cm. : Includes bibliographical references. : wafaa.lib.

Lettres et journaux écrits pendant le voyage d'Egypte /

: xxxii, 490 pages, [11] leaves of plates : illustrations ; 20 cm. : Bibliography : pages xxiv-xxv. : 2267004720 : wafaa.lib.

Textes et languages de l'Égypte pharaonique : cent cinquante anées de recherches, 1822-1972 /

: volumes <1-3> ; 28 cm. : Includes bibliographical references.

Lettre à M. Dacier : relative a l'alphabet des hiéroglyphes phonétiques employés par les Égyptiens pour inscrire sur leurs monuments les titres, les noms et les surnoms des souvera...

: 84, 52 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm. : Includes bibliographical references.

Published 2009
The code breaker's secret diaries : the perilous expedition through plague-ridden Egypt to uncover the ancient mysteries of the Hieroglyphs /

: 288 pages : illustrations, maps ; 20 cm. : 9781903933831

Lettres à M. le duc de Blacas d'Aulps : relatives au Musée royal égytien de Turin /

: Premiere lettre: - Monuments historiques. : 109 pages : 3 plates ; 24 cm. : Includes bibliographical references.

Dictionnaire Egyptien en écriture hiéroglyphique : publié d'apres les manuscrit autographes, et sous les auspices de M. Villemain /

: xxxvi, 487 pages ; 34 cm.

Published 2013
Notice descriptive des monuments égyptiens du Musée Charles X /

: 368 pages : color illustrations ; 27 cm. : Bibliography : pages 330-333. : 9782350314402

Champollion inconnu : Lettres inédites /

: "Bajazet [par Champollion]; pièce jouée à Grenoble, le mardi-gras 1814": pages 102-164.
Includes extracts from Champollion's letters. : 204 pages ; 18 cm.

Published 2006
Treasures of Egypt and Nubia : drawings from the French-Tuscan expedition of 1828 led by Jean-François Champollion and Ippolito Rosellini /

: 252 pages : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 32 cm. : 1840139471
9781840139471

À la mémoire de Champollion à l'occasion du 150e anniversaire du déchiffrement des hiéroglyphes : discours à la cérémonie tenue par l'Institut au Caire, le 27 janvier 1973 = Dhikrá...

: Added title pages in Arabic.
At head of title : Institut d'Egypte. : 48, 14 pages ; 24 cm.

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