Jean Francois Champollion
Date of Birth :
Dec. 23, 1790
Place of Birth :
France
Country :
France
Field of Expertise :
scientific Egyptology
Educational background :
At 16 Champollion had already mastered six ancient Oriental languages, in addition to Latin and Greek, and delivered a paper before the academy of Grenoble, France, in which he asserted, incorrectly, that Coptic was the ancient language of Egypt. At 19, following studies in Paris, he became professor of history at the lycée of Grenoble (1809–16).
Acheivements / Contributions :
Following the modest success of the English physicist Thomas Young in attempting to decipher the Rosetta Stone, which was engraved with a Greek text along with hieroglyphic and demotic versions, Champollion at last began to piece together the puzzle of the hieroglyphs. In 1821–22 he started publishing papers on the hieroglyphic and hieratic elements of the Rosetta Stone, and he went on to establish an entire list of hieroglyphic signs and their Greek equivalents.
Bibliography :
Universal Palaeography: Oriental writing. Greek writing. Latin
Writing.
