Linguists and historians are inclined to believe that the earliest written texts appeared in Egypt almost five thousand years ago. Ancient written records were discovered a long time ago, but for a long time the texts could not be deciphered. Only two centuries ago, the first of the hieroglyphs that reached the contemporaries were read.
On the threshold of discovery
Deciphering the ancient Egyptian texts and translating them into modern languages turned out to be quite difficult. Indeed, how to read secret letters written in languages that have not been used for a long time and have become the property of history? After all, neither grammar guides nor dictionaries of the ancient language were at the disposal of scientists.
The French scientist and linguist Jean Francois Champollion was able to reveal the secret of Egyptian hieroglyphs. He was a versatile educated and gifted researcher who knew several modern and ancient languages. At an early age, Champollion wondered whether it was possible to find the key to unraveling the mysterious signs that made up the Egyptian script.
An inquisitive researcher had at his disposal a massive stone slab with inscriptions stamped on it, which at the end of the 18th century was discovered by French soldiers near an Egyptian city called Rosetta. The so-called Rosetta stone eventually became an English trophy and was taken to London, where it took pride of place as an exhibit of the British Museum.
At the beginning of the 19th century, a copy of the stone slab with hieroglyphs was delivered to the capital of France.
How were the Egyptian characters deciphered
Champollion began to study the written monument and found that the lower part of the text was executed in Greek letters. Having an idea of the ancient Greek language, the scientist easily restored this part of the inscription. The Greek text referred to the ruler of Egypt, Ptolemy V, who reigned two hundred years before the new era.
Above the Greek text there were icons in the form of hooks, dashes, arcs and other intricate symbols. Even higher were the images of figures, people and animals in combination with household items. Champollion came to the conclusion that the first part of the incomprehensible text was later Egyptian cursive, and the upper part was actually the hieroglyphs that made up the ancient Egyptian script.
As a starting point for decoding, the scientist chose the assumption that all three texts of the monument reported the same thing.
For a long time, the scientist could not penetrate the meaning of the mysterious signs of Egyptian writing. After much searching and painful deliberation, Champollion suggested that the Egyptians in ancient times used signs that carried a semantic load, along with letters. He searched for letters in proper names, which he already knew from the Greek text. Work went very slowly. Composing one word after another, the researcher gradually learned to read ancient hieroglyphs.
In September 1822, a couple of weeks after its discovery, Champollion made a sensational report at the Paris Academy. After some time, the scientist managed to find out the content of other ancient Egyptian texts that contained songs and magic spells. It was during these years that a new science was born - Egyptology.
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