{"collection":"egy","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/egy/trs/trs04.htm","path":"egy/trs/trs04.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/egy/trs/trs04.htm","text":"The Rosetta Stone, by E.A.W. Budge, [1893]\nYoung and Champollion.Here naturally comes an account of the labours of Young and Champollion, two men who stand out pre-eminently as the true discoverers of the right method of decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics. As much has been written on the works of these savants, and as some have tried to show that the whole merit of the discovery belongs to Young, and others that it belongs to Champollion, it will not be out of place here to make a plain statement of facts, drawn from the best sources, and to give the opinions of the most eminent Egyptologists on this point; a few details concerning the lives of these remarkable men must, however, be first given.\nDr. Thomas Young was born at Milverton, in Somersetshire, on the 13th of June, 1773. His parents were both members of the Society of Friends. He lived during the first seven years of his life with his maternal grandfather, Mr. Robert Davis, at Minehead, in Somersetshire. At the age of two he could read fluently, and before he was four he had read the Bible through twice. Early life and studies of Young.At the age of six, he learnt by heart in six weeks Goldsmith's Deserted Village. When not quite seven years of age he went to a school, kept by a man called King, at Stapleton near Bristol, where he stayed for a year and a half. In March 1782, when nearly nine years of age, he went to the school of Mr. T. Thompson, at Compton, in Dorsetshire, where he remained four years. Here he read Phaedrus's Fables, Cornelius Nepos, Virgil, Horace expurgated by Knox, the whole of Beza's Greek and Latin Testament, the First Seven Books of the Iliad, Martin's Natural Philosophy, etc., etc. Before leaving this school he had got through six chapters of the Hebrew Bible. About this time he learnt to use the lathe, and he made a telescope and a microscope, and the Italian, Persian, Syriac, and Chaldee languages all occupied his attention. Young's oriental studies.From 1787 to 1792 he was private tutor to Hudson Gurney, at Youngsbury, in Hertfordshire,\nwhere he seems to have devoted himself to the study of English, French, Italian, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, Samaritan, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Ethiopic, as well as to that of natural Philosophy, Botany, and Entomology. 1 Young's medical studies.In 1792 Young began to study Medicine and Anatomy in London, and in 1793 he entered St. Bartholomew's Hospital as a pupil. In 1803 he read a paper before the Royal Society, and was elected a Fellow the following year (balloted for and elected, June 19). Shortly after he attended medical lectures in Edinburgh and G\u00f6ttingen, and he subsequently went to Cambridge, where he took the degree of Bachelor of Medicine (1803), and afterwards that of Doctor of Physic (1808). In 1798 Young received a splendid bequest from his uncle Dr. Brocklesby, consisting of his house in Norfolk Street, Park Lane, his library, his prints, his pictures, and about \u00a310,000 in money; hence he was free to form his own scheme of life. Discovers undulatory theory of light.In May, 1801, he discovered the undulatory theory of light, and his paper on this subject was read before the Royal Society in the November following; in the same year he accepted the office of Professor of Natural Philosophy at the Royal Institution. In 1802 he was appointed Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society, and on the 14th of June, 1804, he married Eliza, the daughter of J. P. Maxwell, Esq., of Cavendish Square, and of Trippendence, near Farnborough, Kent. The attention of Young was called to Egyptian inscriptions by Sir W. Rouse Boughton, who had found in a mummy case at Thebes a papyrus written in cursive Egyptian characters, and to a notice of this which Young prepared for his friend, he appended a translation of the demotic text of the Rosetta Stone. Young's study of hieroglyphs.As the details of his studies on the Rosetta Stone belong to the history of the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics, they are given further on (p. 141 ff.), but the reader will understand Young's position better by reading Dean Peacock's chapter on \"hieroglyphical researches\" printed in his life of Young, pp. 258-344, and Mr. Leitch's notes in the third volume of the collected Works of Dr. Young. In 1816 Young was appointed\n[paragraph continues] Secretary to a Commission for ascertaining the length of the seconds pendulum, for comparing French and English standards, etc., and in 1818 he was appointed Secretary of the Board of Longitude and Superintendent of the Nautical Almanac. In 1825 he became Medical Referee and Inspector of Calculations to the Palladium Insurance Company. In 1826 he was elected one of the eight foreign Associates of the Academy of Sciences at Paris. In February, 1829, he began to suffer from repeated attacks of asthma, and by the April following he was in a state of great weakness; Young's death.he died on the 10th of May, not having completed his fifty-sixth year. An excellent steel engraving of Young, by R. Ward, from a picture by Sir Thomas Lawrence, P\u1e5a\u0226., forms the frontispiece to his life by Dean Peacock, which, according to J. J. Champollion-Figeac, \"exprime fid\u00e8lement la douceur, la gr\u00e2ce, les traits d\u2019une figure toute rayonnante d\u2019intelligence.\" 1\nJean Fran\u00e7ois Champollion, surnamed le Jeune, the immortal discoverer of a correct system of decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics, was born at Figeac on December 24, 1790. Champollion's physical and classical studies.His family came originally from Champol\u00e9on in the High Alps, where a branch of it still holds property. As a boy he made rapid progress in classical studies, and he devoted himself at the same time to botany and mineralogy; at a very early date however he showed a natural taste for oriental languages, and like Young was, at the age of thirteen, master of a fair knowledge of Hebrew, Syriac and Chaldee. 2 In 1805 his brother J. J. Champollion-Figeac brought him to Paris, and caused him to be admitted to the Cours de l\u2019Ecole des Langues Orientales, and introduced him to Silvestre de Sacy. Soon after his arrival in Paris Champollion turned his attention to the study of the hieroglyphic inscription on the Rosetta Stone, but his powerful friend de Sacy advised the elder brother to warn the younger off a study which ne pouvait donner aucun r\u00e9sultat. In 1812 he was nominated Professor of Ancient History to the faculty of Letters at Grenoble,\nwhere he still carried on his oriental studies. Champollion's hieroglyphic and Coptic studies.When he arrived in Paris he found that the old Egyptologists maintained that hieroglyphics were a symbolic language, and seeking to verify this theory, he wasted a year. He made up his mind, however, to work out this question without having regard to the theories of others, and he sketched out a plan for a large work on Egypt in several volumes. The first part of this appeared at Grenoble in 1811, entitled Introduction; it was never sold, for only about thirty copies were printed, but it appeared, without the analytical table of Coptic geographical names, under the title L\u2019Egypte sous les Pharaons, 8vo., 2 vols., 1814. About this time Young, in England, was studying the texts on the Rosetta Stone, and had actually begun to make a translation of the demotic section, making use of the results obtained by de Sacy and Akerblad, to the latter of whom great credit is due for his acuteness and insight. Whatever may be said as to Champollion's ignorance of Young's results, it is quite certain that he must have known of those of Akerblad, and we know (see p. 135) that a printed copy of Young's paper on the Rosetta Stone had been put into Champollion's hands by de Sacy. Champollion acquainted with Young's labours.In a very short time Champollion discovered where his predecessors had broken down, and having already written De l\u2019\u00e9criture Hi\u00e9ratique des Anciens Egyptiens, Grenoble, 1821, on September 17, in the following year, he read his M\u00e9moire on the hieroglyphics and exhibited his hieroglyphic Alphabet, with its Greek and Demotic equivalents, before the Acad\u00e9mie des Inscriptions. Champollion's paper created a great sensation, and Louis XVIII. wished a statement concerning it laid before him, and M. le Duc de Doudeauville determined that an Egyptian Museum should be formed in the Palace of the Louvre. In the same year Champollion published his Lettre \u00e0 M. Dacier, relative \u00e0 l\u2019Alphabet des Hi\u00e9roglyphes phon\u00e9tiques, in which he showed beyond a doubt that his system was the correct one. In a series of M\u00e9moires read at the Institut in April, May and June, 1823, he explained his system more fully, and these he afterwards published together entitled Pr\u00e9cis du Syst\u00e8me Hi\u00e9roglyphique des Anciens Egyptiens, Paris, 2 vols., 1824. A second edition, revised and corrected, appeared in 1828. In\n[paragraph continues] June, 1824, Champollion arrived in Turin, Champollion's travels. where he devoted himself to the study of papyri. Early in 1825 he arrived in Rome, and thence he went to Naples, where all the museums were opened for him. In 1826 he returned to Paris. In July, 1828, he set out on his long planned voyage to EgyptVisits Egypt., and returned in March, 1830, bringing with him a fine collection of antiquities, and a number of copies of inscriptions which filled about two thousand pages. As soon as he returned to France he set to work to publish the rich results of his travels, but while occupied with this undertaking, death overtook him on the 4th of March, 1832. Louis-Philippe ordered that busts of him, executed at the expense of the civil list, should be placed in the galleries of the palace at Versailles, and in the rooms of the Egyptian Museum of the Louvre; he also ordered that marble for another bust should be given to Champollion-Figeac, and that the carving thereof should be entrusted to the famous sculptor Etex. An etched portrait of Champollion le Jeune will be found in Les Deux Champollion, leur Vie et leurs \u0152uvres, par Aim\u00e9 Champollion-Figeac: Grenoble, 1887, p. 52.\nIn addition to the works of Champollion mentioned above, the following are the most important:\u2014\nChampollion's works.Rapport \u00e0 son Excellence M. le Duc de Doudeauville, sur la Collection Egyptienne \u00e0 Livourne, Paris, 1826.\nLettres d M. le Duc de Blacas d\u2019Aulps relatives au Mus\u00e9e royal Egyptien de Turin . . . . . (avec Notices chronologiques par Champollion-Figeac): Paris, 1824-26.\nNotice sur les papyrus hi\u00e9ratiques et les peintures du cercueil de P\u00e9tam\u00e9noph (Extr. de Voyage \u00e0 Mero\u00eb par Cailliaud de Nantes), Paris, 1827.\nNotice descriptive des Monuments Egyptiens du Mus\u00e9e Charles X, Paris, 1827.\nCatalogue de la Collection Egyptienne du Louvre, Paris, 1827.\nCatalogue des Papyrus Egyptiens du Mus\u00e9e du Vatican, Rome, 1826.\nMonuments de l\u2019Egypte et de la Nubie, iv vols., fol., 440 planches. Publi\u00e9 par ordre du Gouvernement, pour faire suite \u00e0 l\u2019ouvrage de l\u2019Exp\u00e9dition d\u2019Egypte, Paris, 1829-1847.\nLettres \u00e9crites pendant son voyage en Egypte, en 1828, 1829, Paris, 1829; 2me \u00e9dition, Paris, 1833; collection compl\u00e8te. A German translation by E. F. von Gutschmid was published at Quedlinburg, in 1835.\nGrammaire Egyptienne, aux Principes g\u00e9n\u00e9raux de l\u2019\u00e9criture sacr\u00e9e Egyptienne appliqu\u00e9s \u00e0 la repr\u00e9sentation de la langue parl\u00e9e; . . . Avec des prol\u00e9gom\u00e8nes et un portrait de l\u2019\u00e9diteur, M. Champollion-Figeac, Paris, 1836-1841.\nDictionnaire Egyptien, en \u00e9criture hi\u00e9roglyphique, publi\u00e9 d\u2019apr\u00e8s les manuscrits autographes . . . par Champollion-Figeac, Paris, 1841.\nThe results of Dr. Young's studies of the Rosetta Stone were first communicated to the Royal Society of Antiquaries in a letter from Sir W. E. Rouse Boughton, Bart.; the letter was read on the 19th of May, 1814, and was published the following year in Arch\u00e6ologia, Vol. XVIII. pp. 59-72. 1Young's labours on the Rosetta Stone in 1814. The letter was accompanied by a translation of the demotic text on the Rosetta Stone, which was subsequently reprinted anonymously in the Museum Criticum of Cambridge, Pt. VI., 1815, together with the correspondence which took place between Dr. Young and MM. Silvestre de Sacy and Akerblad. In 1802 M. Akerblad, the Swedish President at Rome, published his Lettre sur l\u2019inscription Egyptienne de Rosette, adress\u00e9e au citoyen Silvestre de Sacy, in which he gave the results of his study of the demotic text of the Rosetta Stone; M. Silvestre de Sacy also had occupied himself in the same way (see his Lettre au citoyen Chaptal, au sujet de l\u2019inscription Egyptienne du monument trouv\u00e9 d Rosette: Paris, 1802), but neither scholar had made any progress in the decipherment of the hieroglyphic text. In August, 1814, Dr. Young wrote to Silvestre de Sacy, asking him what Mr. Akerblad had been doing, and sayingCorrespondence between Young and de Sacy., \"I doubt whether the alphabet which Mr. Akerblad has given us can be of much further utility than in enabling us to decipher the proper names; and sometimes I have\neven suspected that the letters which he has identified resemble the syllabic sort of characters by which the Chinese express the sounds of foreign languages, and that in their usual acceptation they had different significations: but of this conjecture I cannot at present speak with any great confidence.\" . . . . . 1 To this M. de Sacy replied: \"Je ne vous dissimule pas, Monsieur, que malgr\u00e9 l\u2019esp\u00e8ceDe Sacy's opinions of Akerblad\u2019s works. d\u2019approbation que j\u2019ai donn\u00e9e au syst\u00e8me de M. Akerblad, dans la r\u00e9ponse que je lui ai adress\u00e9e, il m\u2019est toujours rest\u00e9 des doutes tr\u00e8s forts sur la validit\u00e9 de l\u2019alphabet qu\u2019il s\u2019est fait. . . . . Je dois vous ajouter que M. Akerblad n\u2019est pas le seul qui se flatte d\u2019avoir lu le texte Egyptien de l\u2019inscription de Rosette. M. Champollion, qui vient de publier deux volumes sur l\u2019ancienne g\u00e9ographie de l\u2019Egypte, 2 et qui s\u2019est beaucoup occup\u00e9 de la langue Copte, pr\u00e9tend avoir aussi lu cette inscription. Je mets assur\u00e9ment plus de confiance dans les lumi\u00e8res et la critique de M. Akerblad que dans celles deDe Sacy distrusts Champollion's results. M. Champollion, mais tant qu\u2019ils n\u2019auront publi\u00e9 quelque r\u00e9sultat de leur travail, il est juste de suspendre son jugement.\" (Leitch, Vol. III. p. 17.) Writing to M. de Sacy in October of the same year, Young says: \"I had read Mr. Akerblad\u2019s essay but hastily in the course of the last winter, and I was not disposed to place much confidence in the little that I recollected of it; so that I was able to enter anew upon the investigation, without being materially influenced by what he had published; and though I do not profess to lay claim to perfect originality, or to deny the importance of Mr. Akerblad\u2019s labours, I think myself authorised to consider my own translation as completely independent of his ingenious researches: a circumstance which adds much to the probability of our conjectures where they happen to agree. It is only since I received your obliging letter, that I haveYoung on Akerblad\u2019s labours. again read Mr. Akerblad\u2019s work; and I have found that it agrees almost in every instance with the results of my own\ninvestigation respecting the sense attributed to the words which the author has examined. This conformity must be allowed to be more satisfactory than if I had followed, with perfect confidence, the path which Akerblad has traced: I must however, confess that it relates only to a few of the first steps of the investigation; and that the greatest and the most difficult part of the translation still remains unsupported by the authority of any external evidence of this kind.\" (Leitch, p. 18.) Nearly three weeks after writing the above, Young sent another letter to M. de Sacy, together with a Coptic and demotic alphabet derived partly from Akerblad, and partly from his own researches, and a list of eighty-six demotic words with the words corresponding to them in the Greek version. Of these words, he says: \"Three were observed by de Sacy, sixteen by Akerblad, and the remainder by himself.\" In January, 1815, Akerblad addressed a long letter to Young, together with which he sent a translation of some lines of the Rosetta Stone inscription, and some notes upon it. Regarding his own work he says: \"During the ten years which have Akerblad's doubts about his own labours.elapsed since my departure from Paris, I have devoted but a few moments, and those at long intervals, to the monument of Rosetta . . . . . For, in fact, I have always felt that the results of my researches on this monument are deficient in that sort of evidence which carries with it full conviction, and you, Sir, as well as M. de Sacy, appear to be of my opinion in this respect . . . . . I must however give you notice beforehand, that in most cases you will only receive a statement of my doubts and uncertainties, together with a few more plausible conjectures; and I shall be fully satisfied if these last shall appear to deserve your attention and approbation . . . . . If again the inscriptions were engraved in a clear and distinct character like the Greek and Latin inscriptions of a certain antiquity, it would be easy, by the assistance of the proper names of several Greek words which occur in it, some of which I have discovered since the publication of my letter to M. de Sacy, and of many Egyptian words, the sense of which is determined; it would be easy, I say, to form a perfectly correct alphabet of these letters; but here another difficulty occurs; the alphabetical characters which, without doubt, are\nof very high antiquity in Egypt, must have been in common use for many centuries before the date of the decree; in the course of this time, these letters, as has happened in all other countries, have acquired a very irregular and fanciful form, so as to constitute a kind of running hand.\" (Leitch, p. 33.) In August, 1815, Young replied to Akerblad\u2019s letter, and discussed the passages where his own translation differed from that of Akerblad.\nDe Sacy warns Young against Champollion.In July, 1815, de Sacy sent a letter to Young, which contains the following remarkable passages: \"Monsieur, outre la traduction Latine de l\u2019inscription Egyptienne que vous m\u2019avez communiqu\u00e9e, j\u2019ai refit post\u00e9rieurement une autre traduction Anglaise, imprim\u00e9e, que je n\u2019ai pas en ce moment sous les yeux, l\u2019ayant pr\u00eat\u00e9e d M. Champollion sur la demande que son fr\u00e8re m\u2019en a faite d\u2019apr\u00e8s une lettre qu\u2019il m\u2019a dit avoir re\u00e7ue de vous. . . . . Je pense, Monsieur, que vous \u00eates plus avanc\u00e9 aujourd\u2019hui et que vous lisez une grande partie, du moins, du texte Egyptien. Si jai un conseil \u00e0 vous donner, c\u2019est de ne pas trop communiquer vos d\u00e9couvertes d M. Champollion. Il se pourrait faire qu\u2019il pr\u00e9tend\u00eet ensuite d la priorit\u00e9. Il cherche en plusieurs endroits de son ouvrage \u00e0 faire croire qu\u2019il a d\u00e9couvert beaucoup des mots de l\u2019inscription Egyptienne de Rosette. J\u2019ai bien peur que ce ne soit l\u00e0 que du charlatanisme; j\u2019ajoute m\u00eame que j\u2019ai de fortes raisons de le penser. . . . . Au surplus, je ne saurais me persuader que si M. Akerblad, Et. Quatrem\u00e8re, ou Champollion avait fait des progr\u00e8s r\u00e9els dans la lecture du texte Egyptien, ils ne se fussent pas plus empress\u00e9s de faire part au public de leur d\u00e9couverte. Ce serait une modestie bien rare, et dont aucun d\u2019eux ne me para\u00eet capable.\" (Leitch, p. 51.)\nIn a letter to de Sacy, dated 3rd August, 1815, Young says: \"You may, perhaps, think me too sanguine in my expectations of obtaining a knowledge of the hieroglyphical language in general from the inscription of Rosetta only; and I will confess to you that the difficulties are greater than a superficial view of the subject would induce us to suppose. TheYoung on hieroglyphics. number of the radical characters is indeed limited, like that of the keys of the Chinese; but it appears that these characters are by no means universally independent of each\nother, a combination of two or three of them being often employed to form a single word, and perhaps even to represent a simple idea; and, indeed, this must necessarily happen where we have only about a thousand characters for the expression of a whole language. For the same reason it is impossible that all the characters can be pictures of the things which they represent: some, however, of the symbols on the stone of Rosetta have a manifest relation to the objects denoted by them. For instance, a Priest, a Shrine, a Statue, an Asp, a Mouth, and the Numerals, and a King is denoted by a sort of plant with an insect, which is said to have been a bee; while a much greater number of the characters have no perceptible connexion with the ideas attached to them; although it is probable that a resemblance, either real or metaphorical, may have existed or have been imagined when they were first employed; thus a Libation was originally denoted by a hand holding a jar, with two streams of a liquid issuing from it, but in this inscription the representation has degenerated into a bird's foot. With respect to the epistolographic or enchorial character, it does not seem quite certain that it could be explained even if the hieroglyphics were perfectly understood, for many of the characters neither resemble the corresponding hieroglyphics, nor are capable of being satisfactorily resolved into an alphabet of any kind: in short, the two characters might be supposed to belong to different languages; for they do not seem to agree even in their manner of forming compound from simple terms.\" (Leitch, pp. 55, 56.) Writing to de Sacy in the following year (5th May, 1816) touching the question of the alphabetic nature of the inscription on the Rosetta Stone, he says: \"Si vous lisez la lettre de M. Akerblad, vous conviendrez, je crois, qu\u2019au moins il n\u2019a pas \u00e9t\u00e9 plus heureux que moi dans ses le\u00e7ons Coptes del\u2019inscription. Mais le vrai est que la chose est impossible dans l\u2019\u00e9tendue que vous paraissez encore vouloir lui donner, car assur\u00e9ment l\u2019inscription enchoriale n\u2019est alphab\u00e9tique que dans un sens tr\u00e8s born\u00e9 . . . . . Je me suis born\u00e9 derni\u00e8rement \u00e0 l\u2019\u00e9tude des hi\u00e9roglyphes, ou plut\u00f4t \u00e0 la collection d\u2019inscriptions hi\u00e9roglyphiques. . . . . . Les caract\u00e8res que j\u2019ai d\u00e9couverts jettent d\u00e9j\u00e0 quelques lumi\u00e8res sur les antiquit\u00e9s de l\u2019Egypte. J\u2019ai\nYoung deciphers the name of Ptolemy.reconnu, par exemple, le nom de Ptol\u00e9m\u00e9e dans diverses inscriptions \u00e0 Phil\u00e6, \u00e0 Esn\u00e9 et \u00e0 Ombos, ce qui fixe \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s la date des \u00e9difices o\u00f9 ce nom se trouve, et c\u2019est m\u00eame quelque chose que de pouvoir distinguer dans une inscription quelconque les caract\u00e8res qui expriment les noms des personnages auxquels elle a rapport.\" (Leitch, p. 60.)\nOn 10th November, 1814, Champollion sent to the President of the Royal Society a copy of his L\u2019Egypte sous les Pharaons, and in the letter which accompanied it said, \"La base de mon travail est la lecture de l\u2019inscription en caract\u00e8res Egyptiens, qui est l\u2019un des plus beaux ornemens du riche Mus\u00e9e Britannique; je veux parler du monument trouv\u00e9 \u00e0 Rosette. Les efforts que j\u2019ai faits pour y r\u00e9ussir n\u2019ont point \u00e9t\u00e9, s\u2019il m\u2019est permis de le dire, sans quelques succ\u00e8s; et les r\u00e9sultats que je crois avoir obtenus apr\u00e8s uneYoung and Champollion correspond. \u00e9tude constante et suivie, m\u2019en font esp\u00e9rer de plus grands encore.\" (Leitch, p. 63.) He asked also that a collation of the Rosetta Stone with the copy of it which he possessed might be made, and suggested that a cast of it should be presented to each of the principal libraries, and to the most celebrated Academies of Europe. As Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society, Young replied saying that the needful collation should be made, and adding, \"Je ne sais si par hasard M. de Sacy, avec qui vous \u00eates sans doute en correspondance, vous aura parl\u00e9 d\u2019un exemplaire que je lui ai adress\u00e9 de ma traduction conjecturale avec l\u2019explication des derni\u00e8res lignes des caract\u00e8res hi\u00e9roglyphiques. Je lui avais d\u00e9j\u00e0 envoy\u00e9 la traduction de l\u2019inscription Egyptienne au commencement du mois d\u2019Octobre pass\u00e9; l\u2019interpr\u00e9tation des hi\u00e9roglyphiques ne m\u2019est r\u00e9ussie qu\u2019\u00e0 la fin du m\u00eame mois.\" (Leitch, p. 64.) In reply to this Champollion wrote, \"M. Silvestre de Sacy, mon ancien professeur, ne m\u2019a point donn\u00e9 connaissance de votre m\u00e9moire sur la partie Egyptienne et le texte hi\u00e9roglyphique de l\u2019inscription de Rosette: c\u2019est vous dire, Monsieur, avec quel empressement je recevraiChampollion acquainted with Young's work in 1815. l\u2019exemplaire que vous avez la bont\u00e9 de m\u2019offrir.\" We have seen above from the extract from a letter of de Sacy that a copy of Young's work was lent to Champollion between May 9 and July 20, 1815.\nOn August 2, 1816, Young addressed a letter 1 to the Archduke John of Austria, in which he reported further progress in his hieroglyphic studies, thus: \"I have already ascertained, as I have mentioned in one of my letters to M. de Sacy, that the enchorial inscription of Rosetta contained a number of individual characters resembling the corresponding hieroglyphics, and I was not disposed to place any great reliance on the alphabetical interpretation of any considerable part of the inscription. I have now fully demonstrated the hieroglyphical origin of the running hand, 2 in which the manuscripts on papyrus, found with the mummies . . . . . .\" (Leitch, p. 74) The principal contents of Young's letters, however, incorporated with other matter, were made into a more extensive article, which was contributed to the Supplement of the Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica, Young's work published.Supplement, Vol. IV. He made drawings of the plates, which were engraved by Mr. Turrell, and having procured separate copies, he sent them to some of his friends in the summer of 1818, with a cover on which was printed the title, \"Hieroglyphical Vocabulary.\" These plates, however, were precisely the same that were afterwards contained in the fourth volume of the Supplement, as belonging to the article EGYPT. The characters explained in this vocabulary amounted to about two hundred; the number which had been immediately obtained from the stone of Rosetta having been somewhat more than doubled by means of a careful examination of other monuments. . . . . . The higher numerals were readily obtained by a comparison of some inscriptions in which they stood combined with units and with tens. 3 Young's article in the Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica obtained great celebrity in Europe; and was reprinted by\n[paragraph continues] Leitch in the third volume of the Works of Dr. Young, pp. 86-197; it contains eight sections:\u2014\n| I. | Introductory view of the latest publications relating to Egypt. | \n| II. | Pantheon. | \n| III. | Historiography. | \n| IV. | Calendar. | \n| V. | Customs and Ceremonies. | \n| VI. | Analysis of the Triple Inscription. | \n| VII. | Rudiments of a Hieroglyphical Vocabulary. | \n| VIII. | Various Monuments of the Egyptians. | \n[paragraph continues] This article is of very great importance in the history ofValue of Young's article in Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica. the decipherment of the hieroglyphics, and had Young taken the trouble of having it printed as a separate publication, there would have been less doubt in the minds of scholars as to the good work which he did, and results borrowed from it by Champollion would have been more easily identified. 1\nIt has already been said (p. 130) that Champollion published at Paris in 1814 the two first parts of a work entitledChampollion on them geography of Egypt. L\u2019Egypte sous les Pharaons, ou recherches sur la G\u00e9ographie, la Religion, la Langue, les Ecritures et l\u2019Histoire de l\u2019Egypte avant l\u2019Invasion de Cambyse; these parts treated simply of the geography of Egypt. In a note to the Preface he tells us that the general plan of the work, together with the introduction of the geographical section and the general map of Egypt under the Pharaohs, was laid before the Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 des Sciences et des Arts de Grenoble, 1st September, 1807, and that the printing began on the 1st September, 1810. On p. 22 of his Introduction, referring to the Rosetta Stone, he says: \"Ce monument int\u00e9ressant est un d\u00e9cret des pr\u00eatres de l\u2019Egypte, qui d\u00e9cerne de grands honneurs au jeune roi\n[paragraph continues] Ptol\u00e9m\u00e9e Epiphane. Ce d\u00e9cret est \u00e9crit en hi\u00e9roglyphes, en langue et en \u00e9criture alphab\u00e9tique Egyptiennes, et en Grec.\" Now by the words \"en langue et en \u00e9criture alphab\u00e9tique Egyptiennes\" we are clearly to understand that part of the Rosetta inscription which is written in demotic. Having referred to the studies of de Sacy and Akerblad, and spoken of the words in demotic which the latter scholar had rightly compared with their equivalents in Coptic, \"que nous y avons lus ensuite,\" Champollion adds in a foot-note, \"Ce n\u2019est pas ici le lieu de rendre compte du r\u00e9sultat de l\u2019\u00e9tude suivie que nous avons faite du texte Egyptien de l\u2019Inscription de Rosette, et de l\u2019alphabet que nous avons adopt\u00e9. Champollion's hieroglyphical studies in 1810.Nous nous occuperons de cet important sujet dans la suite de cet ouvrage. En attendant, nous prions le lecteur de regarder comme exacts les r\u00e9sultats que nous lui pr\u00e9sentons ici.\" From this it is clear that as early as 1810 Champollion claimed to have made progress in the decipherment of the demotic text (texte Egyptien) of the Rosetta Stone, and it is now time to ask how much he was indebted to Akerblad\u2019s letter for ideas and results. A comparison of Plate II. at the end of Akerblad\u2019s Lettre sur l\u2019Inscription Egyptienne de Rosette, with Plate IV. in Champollion's Lettre \u00e0 M. Dacier relative \u00e0 l\u2019Alphabet des Hi\u00e9roglyphes Phon\u00e9tiques, will show that sixteen of the characters of the alphabet printed by Akerblad in 1802 were retained by Champollion in 1822; also, if Akerblad\u2019s alphabet be compared with the \"Supposed Enchorial Alphabet\" printed at the foot of Plate IV. Akerblad attributes correct values to fourteen Demotic characters.accompanying Young's article EGYPT, printed in 1818 and published in 1819, it will be found that fourteen of the characters are identical in both alphabets. Thus it seems that a greater degree of credit is due to Akerblad than has usually been awarded to him either by Young 1\nor Champollion, 1 or, indeed, by writers on Egyptology generally. 2\nHaving seen what foundations Young and Champollion had for their own works on the demotic text to rest on, we may return to the consideration of Young's hieroglyphical studies. On the four plates which appeared with his article EGYPT, he correctly identified the names of a few of the gods, Rd, Nut, Thoth, Osiris, Isis, and Nephthys, and he made out the meanings of several Egyptian ideographs. His identifications of kings' names were, however, most unfortunate. Thus of Amen\u1e25etep, he made Tithons; of Thi (a queen), Eoa; of Usertsen, Heron; of Psammetichus, Sesostris; of Nectanebus, Proteus; of Seti, Psammis; of Rameses II., Amasis; of Autocrator, Arsinoe, etc., etc. He correctly identified the names of Ptolemy and Berenice, although in each case he attributed wrong values to some of the hieroglyphic characters which formed these names. The hieroglyphic alphabet given by Young was as follows 3:\u2014\nYoung's hieroglyphic alphabet.\nIn 1822 Champollion published his famous Lettre \u00e0 M. Dacier relative d l\u2019alphabet des Hi\u00e9roglyphes Phon\u00e9tiques, in which he stated his discovery of the Egyptian hieroglyphic alphabet in the following words: \"Vous avez sans doute remarqu\u00e9, Monsieur, dans mon M\u00e9moire sur l\u2019\u00e9criture d\u00e9motique Egyptienne, que ces noms \u00e9trangers \u00e9taient exprim\u00e9s phon\u00e9tiquement au moyen de signes plut\u00f4t syllabiques qu\u2019alphab\u00e9tiques. La valeur de chaque caract\u00e8re est reconnue et invariablement fix\u00e9e par la comparaison de ces divers noms; et de tous ces rapprochements est r\u00e9sult\u00e9 l\u2019alphabet, ou plut\u00f4t Champollion's system.le syllabaire d\u00e9motique figur\u00e9 sur ma planche I., colonne deuxi\u00e8me. L\u2019emploi de ces caract\u00e8res phon\u00e9tiques une fois constat\u00e9 dans l\u2019\u00e9criture d\u00e9motique, je devais naturellement en conclure que puisque les signes de cette \u00e9criture populaire \u00e9taient, ainsi que je l\u2019ai expos\u00e9, emprunt\u00e9s de l\u2019\u00e9criture hi\u00e9ratique ou sacerdotale, et puisque encore les signes de cette \u00e9criture hi\u00e9ratique ne sont, comme on l\u2019a reconnu par mes divers m\u00e9moires, qu\u2019une repr\u00e9sentation abr\u00e9g\u00e9e, une v\u00e9ritable tachygraphie des hi\u00e9rographes, cette troisi\u00e8me esp\u00e8ce d\u2019\u00e9criture, l\u2019hi\u00e9roglyphique pure, devait avoir aussi un certain nombre de ses signes dou\u00e9s de la facult\u00e9 d\u2019exprimer les sons; en un mot, qu\u2019il existait \u00e9galement une s\u00e9rie d\u2019hi\u00e9roglyphes phon\u00e9tiques. Pour s\u2019assurer de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 de cet aper\u00e7u, pour reconna\u00eetre l\u2019existence et discerner m\u00eame la valeur de quelques-uns des signes de cette esp\u00e8ce, il aurait suffi d\u2019avoir sous les yeux, \u00e9crits en hi\u00e9roglyphes purs, deux noms de rois grecs pr\u00e9alablement connus, et contenant plusieurs lettres employ\u00e9es \u00e0 la fois dans l\u2019un et dans l\u2019autre, tels que Ptol\u00e9m\u00e9e et Cl\u00e9op\u00e2tre, Alexandre et B\u00e9r\u00e9nice, etc.\" (p. 5). Throughout this work there\nappears to be no mention whatever of Young's identification of any letters of the hieroglyphic alphabet, although on p. 2 Champollion says: \"A l\u2019\u00e9gard de l\u2019\u00e9criture d\u00e9motique en particulier, il a suffi de la pr\u00e9cieuse inscription de Rosette pour en reconna\u00eetre l\u2019ensemble; la critique est redevable d\u2019abordChampollion admits value of Akerblad\u2019s and Young's labours. aux lumi\u00e8res de votre illustre confr\u00e8re, M. Silvestre de Sacy, et successivement \u00e0 celles de feu Akerblad et de M. le docteur Young, des premi\u00e8res notions exactes qu\u2019on a tir\u00e9es de ce monument, et c\u2019est de cette m\u00eame inscription que j\u2019ai d\u00e9duit la s\u00e9rie des signes d\u00e9motiques qui, prenant une valeur syllabico-alphab\u00e9tique, exprimaient dans les textes id\u00e9ographiques les noms propres des personnages \u00e9trangers \u00e0 l\u2019Egypte.\" That Champollion should not have known of Young's article EGYPT is a thing not to be understood, especially as advance copies were sent to Paris and elsewhere as early as 1818.\nFrom the facts given above we are enabled to draw up the following statement as to the amount of work done in the decipherment of the Egyptian language by the early workers in this field.\nStatement of results of labours of Zo\u00ebga, Akerblad, Young and Champollion.Barth\u00e9lemy 1 and Zo\u00ebga 2 had come to the conclusion long before the labours of Akerblad, Young, and Champollion, that the cartouches contained proper names. Akerblad drew up an alphabet of the demotic character, in which fourteen signs appear to have had correct values attributed to them. Young published a demotic alphabet in which the greater number of Akerblad\u2019s results were absorbed; he fixed the correct values to six hieroglyphic characters, and to three others partly correct values; he identified the names of Ptolemy and Alexander, the numerals and several gods' names. Champollion published a demotic alphabet, the greater part of which he owed, without question, to Akerblad, and a hieroglyphic alphabet of which six characters had had correct values assigned to them by Young, and the\nvalues of three others had been correctly stated as far as the consonants were concerned. There is no doubt whatever that Champollion's plan of work was eminently scientific, and his great knowledge of Coptic enabled him to complete the admirable work of decipherment, which his natural talent had induced him to undertake. The value of his contributions to the science of Egyptology it would be difficult to overestimate, and the amount of work which he did in his comparatively short life is little less than marvellous. It is, however, to be regretted that Champollion did not state more clearly what Young had done, for a full acknowledgment of this would have in no way injured or lessened his own immortal fame. 1\n128:1 For the list of books read by him at this time, see the Life of Thomas Young, by G. Peacock, London, 1855 pp. 14-17.\n129:1 Lettre au Directeur de la Revue Britannique au sujet des Recherches du Docteur Young, Paris, 1857, p. II.\n129:2 On the subject of Champollion's studies, at Grenoble, see Chroniques Dauphinoises, par A. Champollion-Figeac, t. III. pp. 553,156,157-238.\n132:1 Letter to the Rev. S. Weston respecting some Egyptian Antiquities. With 4 copper plates. London, 1814.\n133:1 For these letters I am indebted to the third volume of the Miscellaneous Works of the late Thomas Young, M\u1e0c., F\u1e5a\u1e62., &c., ed. John Leitch, London, 1855.\n133:2 L\u2019Egypte sous les Pharaons, ou recherches sur la G\u00e9ographie, la Religion, la Langue, les Ecritures, et l\u2019Histoire de l\u2019Egypte, Paris, 1814.\n138:1 This letter was printed in 1816, and circulated in London, Paris, and elsewhere; it did not appear in the Museum Criticum until 1821.\n138:2 \"Que ce second syst\u00e8me (l\u2019Hi\u00e9ratique) n\u2019est qu\u2019une simple modification du syst\u00e8me Hi\u00e9roglyphique, et n\u2019en diff\u00e8re uniquement que par la forme des signes.\" Champollion, De l\u2019Ecriture Hi\u00e9ratique des Anciens Egyptiens: Grenoble, 1821. We should have expected some reference by Champollion to Young's discovery quoted above.\n138:3 Young. An Account of some recent discoveries in Hieroglyphical Literature, p. 17.\n139:1 Ich halte mich daher verpflichtet, alles auf unsern Gegenstand bez\u00fcgliche dem Leser nachtr\u00e4glich genau mitzutheilen und zwar mit einer um so gr\u00f6ssem Gewissenhaftigkeit, je h\u00f6her durch dessen Kenntniss die Achtung gegen den trefflichen Forscher steigen wird, der besonders in der Erkl\u00e4rung der symbolischen Hieroglyphen so Manches zuerst aussprach, was man ohne den Artikel der Encyclopaedie gelesen zu haben, meistens als das Eigenthum Champollion's zu betrachten gewohnt ist. Schwartze, Das Alte Aegypten, p. 446.\n140:1 Mr. Akerblad was far from having completed his examination of the whole enchorial inscription, apparently from the want of some collateral encouragement or co-operation to induce him to continue so laborious an inquiry; and he had made little or no effort to understand the first inscription of the pillar which is professedly engraved in the sacred character, except the detached observation respecting the numerals at the end; he was even disposed to acquiesce in the correctness of Mr. Palin's interpretation, which proceeds on the supposition that parts of the first lines of the hieroglyphics are still remaining on the stone, Young, An Account, p. 10.\n141:1 \"Feu Akerblad essaya d\u2019\u00e9tendre ses lectures hors des noms propres grecs, et il \u00e9choua compl\u00e8tement.\" Champollion, Pr\u00e9cis, 1 \u00e9d., p. 14.\n141:2 See Schwartze, Das Alte Aegypten, pp. 160, 162.\n141:3 No. 205, which is omitted here, is really two demotic characters the values of which are BA and R: to these Young gave the value BERE, and so far he was right, but he failed to see that what he considered to be one sign was, in reality, two. In Nos. 253 and 214 his consonants were right but his vowels were wrong. We are thus able to see that out of a total of fourteen signs, he assigned correct values to six, partly correct values to three, and wholly wrong values to five. Champollion-Figeac in his Lettre au Directeur de la Revue Britannique au sujet des Recherches du Docteur Young sur les Hi\u00e9roglyphes Egyptiens, p. 5, gives Young no credit whatever for the three partly correct values assigned to hieroglyphic characters by him.\n143:1 Caylus, Recueil d\u2019Antiquit\u00e9s Egyptiennes, Etrusques, etc., Tom. V. p. 79.\n143:2 In De Origine et Usu Obeliscorum, p. 465. Conspiciuntur autem passim in Aegyptiis monumentis schemata quaedam ovata sive elliptica planae basi insidentia, quae emphatica ratione includunt certa notarum syntagmata, sive ad propria personarum nomina exprimenda, sive ad sacratiores formulas designandas.\n144:1 We have seen above that Champollion did know of Young's work, yet in his Pr\u00e9cis du Syst\u00e8me Hi\u00e9roglyphique, p. 18, he says that he had arrived at results similar to those obtained by Dr. Young, without having any knowledge of his opinion.","title":"The Rosetta Stone: Young and Champollion","type":"page"}