Egyptology

A History of Egyptology

Although Athanasius Kircher made a valiant attempt to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs in the mid-1600s, the modern phase of the study of Ancient Egypt is believed to have commenced after Napoleon Bonaparte's invasion of Egypt in 1798. Napoleon employed a number of artists and scholars, an estimated 167 in total, who formed the Commission des Arts et des Sciences, which included Claude Louis Berthollet, Gaspard Monge, Jean Michel Venture de Paradis, Prosper Jollois, Edmé François Jomard,René Edouard Villers de Terrage, and Michel-Ange Lancret; more than 30 from the commission died in combat or from disease. A new organization to focus on the study of Egypt, the Institut d'Egypte, was formed by Napoleon in August of 1798, with Gaspard Monge serving as its president. Baron Dominique Vivant Denon(1742–1825) was urged to join Napoleon's expedition by his protectress Joséphine de Beauharnais, who would later marry Napoleon. Denon was a diplomat, playwright, painter, and renowned society conversationalist; his drawings of Medinet Habu are considered to be some of the most important in the history of Egyptology. Baron Joseph Fourier (1768–1830), who was an outstanding mathematician, facilitated the publication of Description de l'Égypte upon his return to France, and he held a number of prestigious posts, including prefect of the Isère Départment, in Grenoble, and Director of the Statistical Bureau of the Siene; Fourier's publication represents an early attempt at compiling the tremendous amount of Egyptian material that was being discovered apace, making it widely available for other scholars to examine.

The British invaded Egypt shortly afterward and took possession of the priceless “Rosetta stone,” which had been discovered in 1799 near a city known as Rashîd (meaning “Rosetta”), in 1801when the French capitulated. The Rosetta stone was inscribed with three scripts—Egyptian hieroglyphic, Egyptian demotic, and Greek—thus Greek served as a conduit between the ancient Egyptians and the modern world. Thomas Young, a British physicist who had mastered 12 languages by the time that he was 14 years old, is responsible for some of the first creditable decipherments of ancient Egyptian writing, and he shared his findings with Jean F. Champollion, who later became famous as the preeminent figure of the decipherment effort.

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