In a letter to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in Paris, Jean-François Champollion announced his initial successes in deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs on the Rosetta Stone (pictured).

Lettre à M. Dacier

Lettre à M. Dacier is a letter sent in 1822 by the Egyptologist Jean-François Champollion to Bon-Joseph Dacier, secretary of the French Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. It is the founding text upon which Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs were first systematically…

Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres

French learned society

The Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres is a French learned society devoted to history, founded in February 1663 as one of the five academies of the Institut de France. The academy's scope is the study of ancient inscriptions (epigraphy) and historical literature.

Jean-François Champollion

French classical scholar, decipherer of Egyptian hieroglyphs (1790–1832)

Jean-François Champollion, also known as Champollion le jeune, was a French philologist and orientalist, known primarily as the decipherer of Egyptian hieroglyphs and a founding figure in the field of Egyptology. Partially raised by his brother, the scholar Jacques Joseph…

Decipherment of ancient Egyptian scripts

The writing systems used in ancient Egypt were deciphered in the early nineteenth century through the work of several European scholars, especially Jean-François Champollion and Thomas Young. Ancient Egyptian forms of writing, which included the hieroglyphic, hieratic and…

Rosetta Stone

Egyptian stele with three versions of a 196 BC decree

The Rosetta Stone is a stele of granodiorite inscribed with three versions of a decree issued in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt, on behalf of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes. The top and middle texts are in Ancient Egyptian using hieroglyphic and Demotic scripts,…