Champollion, Jean-François << shahn paw lyawn, zhahn frahn swah >> (1790-1832), was a French historian and linguist who achieved a breakthrough in deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. For over 1,000 years, scholars had tried but failed to decipher the writing system of ancient Egypt. Then, in 1799, a French army officer discovered a stone tablet with ancient Greek and Egyptian writing outside Rosetta, a city near Alexandria. Champollion uncovered the meaning of the tablet, named the Rosetta stone.
Using the Greek text as a guide, Champollion studied the position and repetition of proper names in the Greek text on the stone and was able to pick out the same names in the Egyptian text. This enabled him to learn the sounds of many of the Egyptian hieroglyphic characters. Champollion had a thorough knowledge of Coptic, the last stage of the Egyptian language that was written mainly with Greek letters. This knowledge allowed him to recognize the meanings of many Egyptian words. After much work, Champollion could read the entire text, which was a decree, issued in 196 B.C., honoring King Ptolemy V. In 1822, Champollion published a pamphlet, Lettre a Monsieur Dacier, containing the results of his work. This pamphlet enabled scholars to read the literature of ancient Egypt.
Champollion was born in Figeac on Dec. 23, 1790. He served as a professor of history at a school in Grenoble from 1809 to 1816. He became curator of the Egyptian collections at the Louvre in Paris in 1826. Champollion wrote several scholarly works, including an Egyptian dictionary and an Egyptian grammar. He died in Paris on March 4, 1832.
