One day Jacques-Joseph brought his younger brother with him, and since then he has been "sick" with Egypt. Later he confessed that already in the first visit to the house of J.B. Fourier he was seized by a passionate desire to decipher incomprehensible Egyptian characters.
However, the eleven-year-old Jean-Francois Champollion understood the difficulty of setting a goal, and within a few years, he studied literally everything that was written over the past 2500 years about Egypt and the hieroglyphs. As early as the ninth year of his life, Jean François knew Greek and Latin (having mastered them from his father's books as a bookseller), at the age of eleven he read the Bible in the Hebrew original, at the age of thirteen he studied Arabic and soon Coptic, and at the age of fifteen he studied Persian and the most difficult languages of the Ancient East: Zendish, Pahlavi and Sanskrit (for fun also Chinese).
Thus, by the age of 25, Jean-François Champollion was fully equipped to attack the Egyptian hieroglyphics. First of all, he wanted to understand what they were. Attempts to decipher them were also made by other scientists, [60] but they have opened value only of separate signs, having achieved it only partial successes.
All scientists of that time believed that with the help of hieroglyphs can be transferred only human thoughts, but no sounds of human speech. J.F. Champollion was the first to understand the mistakenness of such a view, as he had long been convinced that a significant part of the hieroglyphs had a purely sonic meaning and that Egyptians at all times used them to transmit not only their own names but also grammatical endings and even many words.
J.F. Champollion had no proofs for confirmation of the theory, therefore did not dare yet to act against an authoritative opinion of modern scientists, and also against certificates of ancient writers. Therefore, he began to analyze the names of his own Greco-Roman period in the history of Egypt, as the hieroglyphs that made up these names and enclosed in the oval frames (cartouches), by all accounts should have had a purely sounding sound.
In September 1822, J.F. Champollion received several copies of the reliefs of Egyptian temples, which were sent to him by his friend - the French architect Gyuyo. While arranging his papers, which covered his desk in piles, he suddenly saw in one of them a familiar cartouche, inside which there were four hieroglyphs. The significance of two of them was already known: the circle (or disc) depicted was the name of the solar god, who was called Ra by the Egyptians. It remained to explain the meaning of the other two hieroglyphs, which were often found on other Egyptian inscriptions. And suddenly ... mechanically, not even realizing what had happened, J.F. Champollion read the name of Pharaoh Ramses and his title: "Gore, the son of Osiris, born of Isis.
Having read the names of the pharaohs, J.F. Champollion went on to read the names of gods and individuals, as well as all other words found in the ancient Egyptian texts. Egyptian names were often composed of two words: Ramses - the son of the god Ra, Tutmos - the son of the god Tota, etc. Reading such names, J.F. Champollion read their words, and he often noticed that the same words with exactly the same meaning are found in the Coptic language. Using his alphabet, which was gradually expanding and adding new signs, he established how the Egyptian words were pronounced. And when he recognized their pronunciation, he often found their meaning with the help of the Coptic dictionary. "So my system is correct! - Only a happy scientist could exclaim and immediately collapsed from exhaustion on the floor.
It took a few days before the young man recovered from his joyous shock. On September 27, he already spoke about his opening at a meeting of the Paris Academy of Sciences. On that dark and rainy autumn day, the famous German scientist and traveler A. Humboldt and Thomas Jung, an outstanding physicist and astronomer, were present as guests. The Englishman appreciated the merits of J.F. Champollion in the deciphering of Egyptian characters and those who claimed that he was the first to read the cartouches, Thomas Jung, replied: "It is said that he used the English key, but the lock is so rusty that you need an unusual strength hand to turn this key.
On that day, September 27, 1822, was born a new science - Egyptology. In 1824, J.F. Champollion published a great work "Essay of the hieroglyphic system", in which he told in detail about the nature of hieroglyphic writing.
The discovery of J.F. Champollion is the result of great work, hard work and titanic, not an accidental smile of fate. If he was lucky, he was lucky, because this wonderful scientist devoted his whole life to the study of Ancient Egypt. He was the one who entrusted him with the task of preparing the keys to open the doors to the treasury of ancient Egyptian writing through reading the Rosetta Stone. To open them, not to crack them...