Marie Gicquel 12:33 p.m., April 26, 2022, modified at 12:33 p.m., April 26, 2022

200 years ago, Jean-François Champollion succeeded in unlocking the secret of the hieroglyphs of the Rosetta stone and thus offered the world knowledge of the names of the pharaohs who built the pyramids, the deciphering of the books of the dead found in the tombs and the understanding of a lost language and literature.

The National Library of France is celebrating the anniversary of this major discovery with a well-documented exhibition.

On the occasion of the bicentenary of the decipherment of hieroglyphs, the National Library of France (BnF) offers an exhibition which focuses on the figure and discoveries of Jean-François Champollion (1790-1832), father of Egyptology.

Jean-François Champollion was only 32 years old when he addressed the

Letter to M. Dacier

, the secretary of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres.

This invaluable letter, exhibited at the BnF, announces the deciphering of Egyptian writing.

To succeed in this historic challenge, Champollion was able to count on three things: his knowledge of ancient languages, he speaks about ten of them, the famous Rosetta stone and a lot of patience.

The revival of ancient Egyptian civilization

A task similar to the web developers of our time, like Alexis: "In computing, we spend a lot of time transforming languages ​​into others, but computer language is very strict, it leaves little room for improvisation or poetry", he testifies at the microphone of Europe 1. "There, we are facing the Rosetta Stone, it is a human language, so it is more complicated, there is more of hieroglyphs. But there are commonalities, so it's true that in computing, there is this idea of ​​translating, but translating for our computer friends."

The route presents nearly 350 pieces, from the collections of the BnF but also loans, notably from the Louvre Museum.

We discover the precious notes of the scholar: hieroglyphs drawn, colored, precise Egyptian grammar...

Deciphering centuries of Egyptian mythologies

This deciphering not only made it possible to read the Rosetta stone (the very faithful reproduction of which is on display), it dusted off centuries of Egyptian mythology: the names of the gods, their function, the funeral rites (like this papyrus of the prayer of the breaths inserted in the sarcophagi, too, exposed) and the life of the pharaohs.

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The exhibition presents thousand-year-old objects, canopic jars, sarcophagi, in a barely believable state of preservation… And strives to describe Champollion's quest for life.