Jean-François CHAMPOLLION - The secrets of Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Jean-François CHAMPOLLION (1790.1832)

Autograph manuscript.

A folio page, slnd (circa 1828-1830).

Exceptional manuscript by Champollion, father of Egyptology, containing around a hundred characters, including around 80 hieroglyphs.

“It is a complex system, a writing that is at once figurative, symbolic and phonetic, in the same text, the same sentence, I would say almost in the same word. » (Letter to Mr. Dacier, September 27, 1822, relating to the alphabet of hieroglyphs)

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Written around 1828-1830, while he was in Egypt to verify in situ the veracity of his discovery, Champollion found Étienne Paris there and came to study the mechanisms of transmission of the plague.

On the back of a sheet numbered “4” filled with biographical notes written by Pariset on the naturalist Lacépède, who died in 1825, Champollion, the father of Egyptology, explains in a few lines how to read and decipher hieroglyphs.

This is what these enigmatic signs thrown on this sheet are: they are the formulation of one of the most considerable advances for the Human Sciences, an invitation to discover a vanished world. In this document, the main principles of hieroglyphic writing are summarized and illustrated by the very person who unraveled their mystery.

When Champollion, fascinated, undertook to decipher the mysterious hieroglyphs which covered the surfaces of the ancients and the temples of Egypt, the first question which tormented him was a question of method: Should we read all these ideograms for what they represented: a lotus for a lotus, a sun for a sun? or was it necessary, on the contrary, that each of these signs correspond to a sound, and thus attribute to them a phonetic value?

Let us listen to his response, delivered in 1831 before the royal college of France, the fruit of his discoveries: “ My work demonstrated that the truth lay precisely between these two extreme hypotheses: that is to say that the entire Egyptian graphic system simultaneously used signs of ideas and signs of sounds. Sixteen whole months spent among the ruins of Upper and Lower Egypt, thanks to the munificence of our government, have not brought any sort of modification to this principle, of which I have had so many and such important opportunities to 'experience certainty like admirable fertility. The ideographic or symbolic characters, intertwined with the characters of sound, became more distinct; I was able to grasp the laws of their combinations, either between them, or with phonetic signs, and I successively arrived at the knowledge of all the forms and grammatical notations expressed in Egyptian texts, whether hieroglyphic or hieratic . »

The simultaneity of the senses is illustrated by the mentions at the head of the sheet: at the very top, under the word “ fig [uratif]”, Champollion draws a man walking; next to it, under the word “ symbol [ic]”, legs in movement; finally, under the word “ phone [tique]”, the Egyptian verb “to come”. Everything is there, the mechanism is revealed!

In addition to the different values ​​of hieroglyphs: graphic value, phonetic value, symbolic value, a second difficulty was added for Champollion. In fact, Egyptian hieroglyphs changed shape over time, their writing becoming stylized little by little until they formed abstract characters: the letters of the Coptic alphabet. Thus the perfectly identifiable hieroglyphs were simplified into hieratic characters, then demotic, and finally into Coptic characters.

Our document is an extremely rare testimony and demonstration of this evolution noted by Champollion in Egypt. Here are three particularly eloquent images.

Still below, the verb “ open ” is transcribed phonetically “ ouin ”. This verb also appears several times on the sheet, in hieratic, twice, a little further down on the right, and in Coptic too (“sôch”). On this draft of research and explanations is also inscribed, in three forms probably noted in situ, the verb " to be thirsty " in several forms of conjugation: "ib, eb, ob".

On the other hand, Champollion gives a sentence in hieroglyphs with its French translation just below, which allows us to emphasize the specific value of hieroglyphs translated “word for word. »

« Happy life to you, kind friend of me ».

Finally at the foot of the page is transcribed a long hieroglyphic sequence which resembles certain hymns to the sun " I adore Ra when he rises and illuminates all the lands with his rays ". We know that Champollion's trip to Egypt allowed him to reinforce his theses and his Précis, by noting numerous examples from the temples in situ illustrating his remarks.

We will also note the proximity between the variations of bodily attitude, or even the different kinds of birds, visible on this sheet, and certain pages of the Egyptian Grammar. The series of signs representing characters in different attitudes is found in a very similar way at the bottom of page 3 of the first volume of Egyptian Grammar .

This tends to support our hypothesis that these notes were part of the preparatory work for the publication of the Egyptian Grammar. We know in fact that Champollion on his return gathered all the notes he had collected to compose his most famous work in his retreat at Quercy. Tool of his demonstration and fruit of his labor, they remain a unique trace of his work and the progression of his thought. This manuscript should be considered a fundamental step in Champollion's discoveries.

Born in Figeac in the midst of the Revolution, Champollion died aged only 41, probably lost to cholera. However, in his short life he made an epic, revealing ancient Egypt to the world.

Aware of the inestimable treasure that his work represented, the French State promulgated after his death, on April 24, 1833, a law ordering the acquisition of all the manuscripts, drawings and books of Jean-François Champollion. Those which still remain in private hands are therefore absolutely rare.

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Provenance : Étienne Pariset (1770.1847), doctor, permanent secretary of the Academy of Medicine.

Attached are 9 documents addressed to Étienne Pariset during his mission to Egypt.