Two hundred years ago, on September 14, 1822, Jean-François Champollion (1790–1832) cracked the code of the Egyptian hieroglyphic script and the language behind it. After two years of copying and studying various inscriptions, the French schoolteacher uttered the famous, “Je tiens l’affaire” (I’ve got it!), before fainting from exhaustion and excitement. The first word he could read was the royal name Ramesses. He was then able to make rapid progress, but his Egyptian Grammar appeared only posthumously. The last known hieroglyphic inscription was carved in 394 C.E., and successive generations in Egypt and elsewhere viewed hieroglyphs as purely allegorical […]
