(The first English translation of the Foundation of Egypto...)
The first English translation of the Foundation of Egyptology of Champollion le Jeune. Absolutely essential reading for anyone interested in Egyptology.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1484914252/?tag=2022091-20
(Extrait : "APPENDICE N° 1 - NOTICE SOMMAIRE SUR L'HISTOIR...)
Extrait : "APPENDICE N° 1 - NOTICE SOMMAIRE SUR L'HISTOIRE D'ÉGYPTE, RÉDIGÉE A ALEXANDRIE POUR LE VICE-ROI, ET REMISE A SON ALTESSE AU MOIS DE NOVEMBRE 1829. Les premières tribus qui peuplèrent l'ÉGYPTE, c'est-à-dire la vallée du Nil, entre la cataracte d'Osouan et la mer, venaient de l'Abyssinie ou du Sennaar. Mais il est impossible de fixer l'époque de cette première migration, excessivement antique. Les anciens Égyptiens appartenaient à une race d'hommes tout à fait semblables aux Kennous ou Barabras, habitants actuels de la Nubie. On ne retrouve dans les Coptes d'Égypte aucun des traits caractéristiques de l'ancienne population égyptienne. Les Coptes sont le résultat du mélange confus de toutes les nations qui, successivement, ont dominé sur l'Égypte. On a tort de vouloir retrouver chez eux les traits principaux de la vieille race. Les premiers Égyptiens arrivèrent en Égypte dans l'état de nomades, et n'avaient point de demeures plus fixes que les Bédouins d'aujourd'hui ; ils n'avaient alors ni sciences, ni arts, ni formes stables de civilisation. C'est par le travail des siècles et des circonstances que les Égyptiens, d'abord errants, s'occupèrent enfin d'agriculture, et s'établirent d'une manière fixe et permanente ; alors naquirent les premières villes, qui ne furent, dans le principe, que de petits villages, lesquels, par le développement successif de la civilisation, devinrent des cités grandes et puissantes. Les plus anciennes villes de l'Égypte furent Thèbes (Louqsor et Karnac), Esné, Edfou et les autres villes du Saïd, au-dessus de Dendérah ; l'Égypte moyenne se peupla ensuite, et la Basse-Égypte n'eut que plus tard des habitants et des villes. Ce n'est qu'au moyen de grands travaux exécutés par les hommes, que la Basse-Égypte est devenue habitable."................à suivre !
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1549639897/?tag=2022091-20
Orientalist philologist decipherer
He was born on December 23, 1790, in Figeac, France. He was raised in humble circumstances; his father Jacques Champollion was a book trader from Valjouffrey near Grenoble who had settled in the small town of Figeac in the Department of Lot. His father was a notorious drunk, and his mother seems to have been largely an absent figure in the life of young Champollion, who was mostly raised by his older brother Jacques-Joseph.
Jean François Champollion was educated at the lyceum in Grenoble (1801 - 1807). His interest in the civilization of ancient Egypt, and especially in the then-undeciphered hieroglyphic script of that land, was first aroused when as a boy he learned about the Rosetta Stone, a key monument having Greek and Egyptian versions of the same text. At the age of 16 he read a paper before the Grenoble Academy maintaining that Coptic was the ancient language of Egypt. Champollion studied Oriental languages in Paris under the famous Orientalist Sylvestre de Sacy.
In 1824 he went abroad, especially to Italy, to study Egyptian language and archeological finds.
During this period 1807 - 1809 he produced the first parts of his Egypt under the Pharaohs: the Religion and History of Egypt and the Geography of Egypt. In 1809 he was appointed to a teaching post in history and politics at Grenoble. Champollion secured the patronage of King Louis XVIII and then of King Charles X and was thus able to concentrate on his studies of Egyptian language and archeology.
On his return from Italy he was made conservator of the Egyptian collections at the Louvre Museum in Paris. Champollion and a team of assistants visited Egypt in 1828-1829 and made the first systematic survey of the accessible standing monuments. In 1831 the chair in Egyptian history and archeology was created for Champollion at the Collège de France.
He took his first steps in the field of languages and deciphering texts in 1808, when he equated 15 demotic signs with those of the Coptic alphabet; by 1818 he had established a key to the hieroglyphic version of the Rosetta inscription. He was now ahead of all contemporary scholars in the field, and his famous Lettre à M. Dacier (1822) marked a turning point in the story of Egyptology. The centenary of the publication of the Dacier letter was celebrated by a volume of studies from 45 Egyptologists in 1922.
While preparing to publish the results of his Egyptian expedition, he suffered a stroke and died in Paris on March 4, 1832. Champollion's brother, Jacques Joseph Champollion-Figeac, published a number of Champollion's works posthumously, including an Egyptian grammar (1836 - 1841), a hieroglyphic dictionary (1841 - 1844), and, the most famous, Monuments de l'Egypte et de la Nubie . .. (4 vols. , 1835 - 1847).
He was the father of Egyptology and the decipherer of Egyptian hieroglyphs. He presented the first correct translation of the hieroglyphs and the key to the Egyptian grammatical system. His most dfamous works - L'Egypte sous les pharaons ou recherches sur la géographie, la langue, les écritures et l'histoire de l'Egypte avant l'invasion de Cambyse (1814), Lettre à M. Dacier (1822), Précis du système hiéroglyphique des anciens Égyptiens and others.
A museum devoted to Jean-François Champollion was created in his birthplace at Figeac in Lot. In Cairo, a street carries his name, leading to the Tahrir Square where the Egyptian Museum is located. Also named after him is the Champollion crater, a lunar crater on the far side of the Moon.
(Extrait : "APPENDICE N° 1 - NOTICE SOMMAIRE SUR L'HISTOIR...)
(The first English translation of the Foundation of Egypto...)
He had republican sympathies. First skeptical of the Napoleonic regime, after the fall of Napoleon in 1813 and the institution of the royalist regime under Louis XVIII, Champollion came to consider the Napoleonic state the lesser of two evils. Anonymously he composed and circulated songs ridiculing and criticizing the royal regime – songs that became highly popular among the people of Grenoble.
Quotations: "I want to make a profound and continuous study of this antique nation. The enthusiasm that brought me the study of their monuments, their power and knowledge filling me with admiration, all of this will grow further as I will acquire new notions. Of all the people that I prefer, I shall say that none is as important to my heart as the Egyptians. " - Champollion, 1806
Champollion was a liberal and progressive minded man. He possessed a phenomenal flair for languages and a genius for deciphering texts.
Never well off and struggling to make ends meet, he also suffered since youth from chronically bad health.
He married Rose Blanc. They had one daughter, Zoraïde Chéronnet-Champollion (1824–89).
