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All the attempts of get
through the mysteries of the hieroglyphs, that Vivant Denon
copied with huge attention proved to be in vain.
The decipherment of the
ancient Egyptians writings needed adequate material: the
stone from Rosette, which is an inscription graved in basalt
with 3 paragraphs in 3 alphabets: hieroglyphs, sign probably
Coptic and the Greek writing.
What was written in Greek was easy to be translated. It was
about one thank from 196 BC brought by Memphis priests to
the king Ptolome Epifan. This was very loved by priests
because he exempted from taxes and brought new income
sources for temples.
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The
presumption according to which the another two
writings had the same body it wasn`t absurd.
The
inscription was copied, drown and copies of it were
made. Scientists from all over the world decide to
decipher it. The second important step in the
decipherment of the hieroglyphs was the obelisk from
Philae which was discovered at the right moment but
especially a receptive brain was required, with a
bright mind and a linguistic competence almost
encyclopedic. |
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The only man that had all the qualities to decipher the
mysterious hieroglyphs was Jean Francois Champollion. He was
born in 1790, December 23 in Figeac a city in the South of
France.
He was around 5 years old when his mother red to him
fragments from Bible, which he used to reproduce them from
his mind. In high school was passionate only by Egypt and of
the Oriental languages.
Knowing with big mastery the Latin
and the Greek, at 12 years old he starts to study the
Hebrew, the Syrian, the Ethiopian, the Arab and the Coptic
languages. Jean-Francois Champollion was only 11 years old
when he decided to decipher the much controversed
inscription.
In 1807 he leaved the
school and entered at the Sciences Academy.
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At the same age he sustained
the idea according to which the Coptic language is a late
form of the language spoken in the ancient Egypt. Champollion made the first map of the
pharaohs Empire in 1807, September 1.
The deciphering of the
hieroglyphs wasn't the only goal of his life, he was also a
complete politician, caught in the gulf of his epoch. He
also wrote against Napoleon but he promised the young
science man help in the deciphering of the hieroglyphs.
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The moment of
victory came in 1822, September 17, when Champollion
red in public the Letter addressed to sir Dacier,
permanent secretary of the inscriptions Academy, in
which he reveals the key of the enigma: the
hieroglyphs were` t symbols neither letters. They
were signs that remind of sounds.
He numbered 486 Greek
words and 1419 hieroglyphs on the stone from
Rosette. The pharaohs` names and the proper one were
written identically in all the 3 writings.
Champollion knew about an obelisk in Greek where the
name of Cleopatra was often repeated.
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He ordered the signs in a
system and he observed that the hieroglyphs were sounds,
vocals.
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