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The Keys of Egypt: The Obsession to Decipher Egyptian Hieroglyphs

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If you are like me, you learned at some point that Napoleon's forces had located the Rosetta Stone while invading Egypt, leading to the rediscovery of how to read ancient Egyptian. The writing on the stone contained the same material in Greek, Demotic, and hieroglyphs. From comparing the three texts, scholars deciphered hieroglyphs. Sounds simple, doesn't it? Well, it really wasn't, which is where our school book learning was incomplete. And that's the appeal of this unusual book.

Why do I say the book is unusual? Well, most books about scholarly discoveries focus on the work itself. While this one certainly contains information about how the hieroglyphs were translated, the main focus is on what it was like to be a French scholar in a high visibility area from the time after the French Revolution through the Restoration. The story is a fascinating one of constant intrigue, danger, poverty, and overwhelming odds overcome. This book would qualify as an exciting novel if written that way.

Jean-Francois Champollion was the key translator who finally succeeded in 1822, 23 years after the Rosetta Stone was discovered. He was the son of an impoverished book seller at 16 when the stone was found. His main competitor was an English physician, Thomas Young, who was to turn out to be an implacable foe who denigrated and challenged Champollion's work.

The work would have gone on much more rapidly, but there was a shortage of materials available to Champollion to work on. He also had the difficult task of getting an education and then earning his living as a teacher, and often had to put off working on the hieroglyphs for long periods of time. When the Restoration came, he and his brother were exiled to the small town they started in. But they succeeded in regaining official support for their careers, and were able to continue.

Despite the challenges, Champollion (with a lot of help from his friends, and especially his older brother) was eventually able to get recognition for his accomplishments and support from Charles X to go to Italy to study texts and later Egypt to translate the monuments and texts there. In the brief period of time before his death in 1832, he added tremendously to our knowledge of ancient Egypt and its culture.

The key problem was that the same hieroglyph (such as the picture of a duck) can represent an object (the duck), a concept ("son of"), and a sound ("sa"). One of the key breaks came in finding cartouches of foreign names that were easier to decipher because they used the phoenetic versions. Having had success there, with access to more material it was easy to notice cartouches that seemed to represent the names of well-known Egyptian Pharaohs such as Ramses (described as "Rameses" in the book). Cleopatra's name was an early translation breakthrough. Soon, these cartouches provided clues to the multiple ways that hieroglyphs can be used. Numerical analysis showed that the number of hieroglyphs on the Rosetta stone did not match very well to the number of words or letters in the Greek text. That suggested that something more complex was going on than using a straight-forward alphabet from hierglyphs. Champollion soon made quick progress from there. He had an amazing talent for languages, having earlier produced a Coptic dictionary.

Champollion also uncovered that hieroglyphs were formal writing, Hieratic was cursive handwriting, Demotic dated from 650 B.C., and Coptic began in 250 A.D. So the dating of the materials studied could be determined in part by the languages used.

After you finish enjoying this interesting book, I suggest that you think about how languages divide us. Most of us read only in our native language. This means that works in other languages first have to be translated before we can enjoy them. Many works are never so translated. I urge you to take another language that you know and read something in that language. That experience allows you to enjoy the other culture much more than you can with a translation. If your language skills are not sufficient to do this, I suggest that you read something that has been translated by two different translators in separate editions. Compare them to see how much translations can vary. Although my examples focus on languages, you should also realize that such differences in understanding occur in one language. So pay close attention and check your assumptions when you read and listen to someone speak. For example, be open to what is not being said and is not being written, but is present. Don't miss the subtleties that may reveal most of the meaning to you!

Look, listen, and learn.

The Keys of Egypt elegantly combines an in-depth biography of Jean Francois Champollion, with a detailed chronology of the saga to decipher ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. Champollion, a French language savant (Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, Chaldean, Coptic), was the first person in over a thousand years to decipher and read not only the hieroglyphs, but also the ancient Egyptian hieratic and demotic scripts as well. Toiling in ill health and poverty, and suffering political persecution and professional jealously, Champollion nevertheless conquered one of the greatest challenges of his or any time. His achievement unlocked the "keys" of ancient Egypt, which in turn was the genesis of Egyptology and our modern attempts to understand a civilization whose longevity and accomplishments continue to astound. An immense amount of biographical, Napoleonic Period, and ancient information is contained in this book, and I highly recommend it.

I found this a very readable history of a tumultuous life. Even though Champollion only lived to 41 he knew at least three heads of state and, as a Republican, was alternately in favour and out of favour - sometimes losing his job when out of favour.

Maybe there is, as suggested by another reviewer, insufficient information about the actual processes of decipherment. This probably would have required a book several times this size.

One of the myths the book debunks is that the Rosetta stone was THE key to the decipherment. The Adkins comment: "The Rosetta stone still remains a powerful popular symbol, even though its inscriptions failed to fulfil the hopes and expectations they aroused. Other inscriptions and papyri were far more important in providing clues to decipherment."

The popular view seems to be that Champollion had access to the Rosetta stone and quickly proceeded with his decipherment. In fact, for most of the 20 years it took, he seems not to have had access to the stone, which was then, as now, in London, and made far more use of sources in Italy and, finally, in Egypt itself.

What an incredible character is brought to life in these pages. Hardly the dry scholar usually depicted but a living, breathing, individual who had to go through incredible difficulties to finally achieve victory. Even then he continued to be hounded by his jealous rivals.

I have read many popular books on Egyptology. This would have to be the best so far.

It seems that the older I get the more I am impressed with stories of the youth of yesteryear. I am always intrigued by the great strides young people made in personal study compared to the mtv generation of today.
Jean-Francois Champollian was a child prodigy (savant) in languages. It is no surprise that he eventually broke the code that allowed the reading of ancient hieroglyphs. More important than his knack for languages was the tenacity he displayed. He often became discouraged buy never gave up.
Further, Champollian is a good example how the truly virtuous and truly brilliant are often overlooked by those less gifted then they. Jean was ignored by the academic community for years because of his lack of "political correctness". How this plays today? Personal jealousies both in and out of France could have destroyed someone of lesser fortitude.
All of these are subplots to the wider, more popular story which Lesley and Roy Adkins do such a good job of telling. While the story in general is captivating, it is the subplots that linger.
I recommend this book to anyone interested in history well told.

The wonderful story of the French savant Champollion, who in the early 1800's discovered the secrets of Egyptian hieroglyphics. Born in obscurity in Grenoble, France during the beginning of the Revolution, his genius was discovered early but never really nurtured, except by his older brother. Indeed, had it not been for the brother, Champollion would probably never had the time to concentrate on his Egyptian studies.

The book wonderfully illustrates this story of a man obsessed with deciphering this new language and the level of genius required to open the secrets to the Egyptian civilization. The authors present much additional information on other savants who were in competition with Champollion (most notably Thomas Young of England) and the political turmoil which forever kept Champollion busy. Indeed, you get the feeling that is a stable government had been in place and Champollion had the time, he would have much sooner discovered the key to the language.

I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in language and history. The authors write in an economic style and yet convey their story quite well.

How we came to be able to understand what the strange pictures of hieroglypics said is the triumph of Jean-Francois Champollion, and his story is newly and excitingly told in _The Keys of Egypt: The Obsession to Decipher Egyptian Hieroglyphs_ by Lesley and Roy Adkins. They begin their story with a useful account of the campaign of Napoleon into Egypt in 1798. The savants accompanying the soldiers brought back the records from which people tried to translate the ancient Egyptian texts, but the translations were idiosyncratic and faulty. Champollion wrote: "It is a complex system, a script at the same time figurative, symbolic, and phonetic, in the same text, phrase, I would almost say in the same word." The grueling work was conquered by Champollion's stubbornness, overcoming illness, poverty, and betrayal in a triumph that caused a sensation in the academic and popular worlds.

This is a superb biography of a truly heroic scholar who made a difference, written by two archeologists; it is the first English-language story of Champollion. The details of the task of translation are well laid out, and the pressure Champollion was under makes the tale surprisingly exciting. Champollion did not just give understanding of a language; he brought us into another world which we had lost.

From the Renaissance through 1824, numerous Europeans strove to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics. It was Jean-Francois Champolion who succeeded. This book is the best introduction to the subject I've found, containing a biography of Champolion, much on his contemporaries and rivals, and a clear explanation of how and why he was able to do what no one one else did.

Champollion's story is a fascinating one, cleverly interespersed with the story of Napoleon's attempts to bring mysterious Egypt under French control, and the introduction of "Egyptomania", which is still around today! As well, we are treated to interesting insights into life in France in the aftermath of the Revolution - for example, who would have thought that an education was so hard to secure after the church was frowned upon, because it was the church that provided the bulk of the schools?

The heart and soul of this book is our hero Champollion, who was a child progidy, a professor at the age of 18, and always struggling with poverty and his thirst for knowledge. This book cleverly details his struggle to unravel the mystery of heiroglyphics - what really becomes a true obsession for him, and how he was totally driven by his need to succeed. Indeed his life was frequently difficult - somehow he usually managed to be on the wrong side of whatever was fashionable at the time.

So from this point of view - as a study of a fascinating, driven and obsessed man, this is a very good book. If it has one flaw, and I guess its a major one - there is not enough detail of how he finally deciphered the heiroglyphics. We the reader are given only tastes of his true genius and persistence. Maybe this is fair enough, maybe it is so complex that the subject deserves a whole book of its own - this is after all the story of Champollion, but there is an expectation of more, and it really doesn't deliver.

It still makes for a very entertaining read. Champollion was a fascinating man, and he has a fascinating story. Read this book for this reason, and enjoy it.

If one was writing a biography on Champollion, or doing a thesis on his life, well then this is a great book. If you wanted to know about the Egyptian Hieroglyphs and how they were finally deciphered, or about the history of the ancient Egyptians, this is not the best. This is so long, and so drawn out. SO boringly written and as dry as the Egyptian deserts they write about. THis book in my opinion could be shortened by two thirds. There was way too much background history of Napoleon's battles in Egypt, the political and religious history of the times in France. There was way too much information on too many insignificant characters surrounding Champollion or family members in his life. His father, his brother, his teachers, his rivals, their input and output, the letters to these people back and forth, the petty interactions from his rivals. And on the opposite side, way too little information on the history of Egypt, the language and hieroglyphs. Even the very poor photo section in the center of the book showed us illustrations of these insignificant people, we even get to see their tombs in the cemeteries. Who cares? That photo section should have been glowing with color photos or Egypt, the writings, the tombs and obelisks, not pictures of peoples burial grounds. Gosh, this was so boring I was skipping pages at a time, skimming down pages to get a sentence here or a paragraph there that was interesting. On the whole this was profoundly dull for a very interesting topic.

A thoroughly absorbing book - I managed to read it whilst my wife was in the early stages of being induced. Come the end I was able to put it down and reflect on a first foray into the history of Egyptian Hieroglyphic decipherment. It managed to clear a couple of minor points up for me, such as the difference between hieroglyphs, demotic and hieratic which other books had simply, and somewhat erroneously, assumed I knew. And therein lay their failure and this book's success. If you're a scholar or a doctor, this isn't for you. It is for the average person on the streets who has an interest in the history of what clearly comes across as an obsession to decipher Egyptian Hieroglyphs.
The bickering and snideness that Young brought to the affair set against the political background of France and England gives an air of reality rather than the somewhat dry and musty scholarship lecturers and doctors of history profess is the only true way of disemminating information. This book simply isn't about that.
It begins in almost travelogue style with an account of Napoleon's venture into Eygpt and spends a delightful opening 40 or so pages irrelevantly giving a chronology of the ill-fated trip. Quite why it took 40 pages to give a tenuous link between Napoloeon and Champollion (other than the suggested revolution at Grenoble later in Champollion's life) I don't know, but it doesn't detract at all. If I wanted to be critical it does seem like the book comprises 8 separately written essays on the history of Egyptian Hieroglyphic decipherment with a bit of glue to hold it all together, but that would be being critical for the sake of it.
Yes, it is not for the discerning scholar, but there are plenty of books out there to satisfy that urge. What this area of study desperately needed, and the Adkins' have provided us with, is a beginner's biography, an exciting glimpse of the reality around the man who is rightly heralded as one of France's greatest scholars. If this to be his biography then the Adkins have achieved something worth reading.