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Lettre à M. Dacier
' (full title: ': "Letter to M. Dacier concerning the alphabet of the phonetic hieroglyphs") 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 deciphered by Champollion, largely on the basis of the multilingual Rosetta Stone. History On September 14, 1822, while visiting his brother Jacques-Joseph, a great supporter of his ideas, Champollion made a crucial breakthrough in understanding the phonetic nature of hieroglyphs and proclaimed, "''Je tiens l'affaire!''" ("I've got it!") and then fainted from his excitement. On September 27, 1822, he exhibited at the ''Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres'' a draft containing eight pages of text to a packed room. The final version was published in late October 1822 by Firmin-Didot in a booklet of 44 pages with four illustra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Egyptology
Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , '' -logia''; ar, علم المصريات) is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious practices in the 4th century AD. A practitioner of the discipline is an "Egyptologist". In Europe, particularly on the Continent, Egyptology is primarily regarded as being a philological discipline, while in North America it is often regarded as a branch of archaeology. History First explorers The earliest explorers of ancient Egypt were the ancient Egyptians themselves. Inspired by a dream he had, Thutmose IV led an excavation of the Great Sphinx of Giza and inscribed a description of the dream on the Dream Stele The Dream Stele, also called the Sphinx Stele, is an epigraphic stele erected between the front paws of the Great Sphinx of Giza by the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Thutmose IV in the first year of the king's reign, 1401 BC, d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean-François Champollion
Jean-François Champollion (), also known as Champollion ''le jeune'' ('the Younger'; 23 December 17904 March 1832), 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 Champollion-Figeac, Champollion was a child prodigy in philology, giving his first public paper on the decipherment of Demotic in his mid-teens. As a young man he was renowned in scientific circles, and spoke Coptic, Ancient Greek, Latin, Hebrew and Arabic. During the early 19th century, French culture experienced a period of 'Egyptomania', brought on by Napoleon's discoveries in Egypt during his campaign there (1798–1801) which also brought to light the trilingual Rosetta Stone. Scholars debated the age of Egyptian civilization and the function and nature of hieroglyphic script, which language if any it recorded, and the degree to which the signs were p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bon-Joseph Dacier
Bon Joseph Dacier (Valognes, 1 April 1742 – Paris, 4 February 1833) was a French historian, philologist and translator of ancient Greek. He became a Chevalier de l'Empire (16 December 1813), then Baron de l'Empire (29 May 1830). He also served as curator of the Bibliothèque nationale. Biography After studying at the collège d'Harcourt, he became the student and assistant of Étienne Lauréault de Foncemagne. Dacier came to public notice in 1772 via his translation of the ''Histories'' of Claudius Aelianus and the same year became an associate member of the Académie des inscriptions, becoming its president and permanent secretary in 1782. In that position, he wrote the organisation's history from 1784 to 1830. He translated the ''Cyropaedia'' by Xenophon (1777). He became a member of Paris's corps municipal in 1790 and led the imposition of the new system of contributions directes, but refused Louis XVI's offer of the post of finance minister. After retiring to Seine-et-Ois ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Académie Des Inscriptions Et Belles-Lettres
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 was the study of ancient inscriptions ( epigraphy) and historical literature (see Belles-lettres). History The Académie originated in 1663 as a council of four humanists, "scholars who were the most versed in the knowledge of history and antiquity": Jean Chapelain, François Charpentier, Jacques Cassagne, Amable de Bourzeys, and Charles Perrault. In another source, Perrault is not mentioned, and other original members are named as François Charpentier and a M. Douvrier. Etienne Fourmont, 1683–1745: Oriental and Chinese languages in eighteenth ... By Cécile Leung, page 51 The organizer was King Louis XIV's finance minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert. Its first name was the ''Académie royale des Inscriptions et Médailles'', and its mission was to compose or obtain Latin inscr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hieroglyphs
A hieroglyph (Greek for "sacred carvings") was a character of the ancient Egyptian writing system. Logographic scripts that are pictographic in form in a way reminiscent of ancient Egyptian are also sometimes called "hieroglyphs". In Neoplatonism, especially during the Renaissance, a "hieroglyph" was an artistic representation of an esoteric idea, which Neoplatonists believed actual Egyptian hieroglyphs to be. The word ''hieroglyphics'' refers to a hieroglyphic script. The Egyptians invented the pictorial script, which refers to any writing system that employs images as symbols for various semantic entities, rather than the abstract signs used by alphabets. The appearance of these distinctive figures in 3000 BCE marked the beginning of Egyptian civilization. Though based on images, Egyptian script was more than a sophisticated form of picture-writing. Each picture/ glyph served one of three functions: (1) to represent the image of a thing or action, (2) to stand for a sound or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rosetta Stone
The Rosetta Stone is a stele composed of granodiorite inscribed with three versions of a Rosetta Stone decree, decree issued in Memphis, Egypt, in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty on behalf of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes. The top and middle texts are in Egyptian language, Ancient Egyptian using Egyptian hieroglyphs, hieroglyphic and Demotic (Egyptian), Demotic scripts respectively, while the bottom is in Ancient Greek. The decree has only minor differences between the three versions, making the Rosetta Stone key to decipherment of ancient Egyptian scripts, deciphering the Egyptian scripts. The stone was carved during the Hellenistic period and is believed to have originally been displayed within a temple, possibly at Sais, Egypt, Sais. It was probably moved in late antiquity or during the Mamluk Sultanate (Cairo), Mamluk period, and was eventually used as building material in the construction of Fort Julien near the town of Rashid (Rosetta) in the Nile Delta. It was found there ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jacques Joseph Champollion-Figeac
Jacques-Joseph Champollion-Figeac (), also known as Champollion ''l'aîné'' ('the Elder'; 5 October 1778 – 9 May 1867) was a French archaeologist, elder brother of Jean-François Champollion (decipherer of the Rosetta Stone). Biography He was born at Figeac in the ''département'' of Lot. He became professor of Greek and librarian at Grenoble. His research in Grenoble in 1803 revealed the existence of a Merovingian crypt under the church of St. Laurent. He was compelled to retire in 1816 on account of the part he had taken during the Hundred Days. He afterwards became keeper of manuscripts at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, and professor of palaeography at the École des Chartes. In 1850 he became librarian of the Château de Fontainebleau. He was a correspondent, living abroad, of the Royal Institute of the Netherlands from 1832 to 1851. Works He edited several of his brother's works, and was also author of original works on philological and historical subjects, among ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Firmin-Didot
Firmin Didot (; 14 April 176424 April 1836) was a French printer, engraver, and type founder. Early life Firmin Didot was born in Paris into a family of printers founded by François Didot, the father of 11 children. Firmin was one of his grandchildren. The family's paper manufactory was located at Essonnes, a town c. 30 km southeast of Paris near Corbeil, which had notable paper factories. Work Didot invented the word "stereotype", which in printing refers to the metal printing plate created for the actual printing of pages (as opposed to printing pages directly with movable type), and used the process extensively, revolutionizing the book trade by his cheap editions. His manufactory was a place of pilgrimage for the printers of the world. He first used the process in his edition of Callet’s ''Tables of Logarithms'' (1795), in which he secured an accuracy till then unattainable. He published stereotyped editions of French, English and Italian classics at a very low ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central landmark of the city, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement (district or ward). At any given point in time, approximately 38,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century are being exhibited over an area of 72,735 square meters (782,910 square feet). Attendance in 2021 was 2.8 million due to the COVID-19 pandemic, up five percent from 2020, but far below pre-COVID attendance. Nonetheless, the Louvre still topped the list of most-visited art museums in the world in 2021."The Art Newspaper", 30 March 2021. The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, originally built in the late 12th to 13th century under Philip II. Remnants of the Medieval Louvre fortress are visible in the basement ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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