Scripts, letters and clothes for the owner of the most prominent cognitive adventure

Champollion: The Way of the Hieroglyphs..a defining moment in human civilization

The exhibition celebrates the 200th anniversary of Jean-François Champollion deciphering the enigma of hieroglyphic writing.

AFP

When deciphering hieroglyphs, which had been neglected for 1500 years, Champollion sheds light on 3000 years of Egyptian civilization surrounded by a great aura in the West.. An exhibition at the Louvre-Lens Museum in northern France relives this most prominent human, intellectual and cognitive adventure.

The exhibition “Champollion the Way of the Hieroglyphs” was launched to celebrate 200 years since Jean-François Champollion deciphered the mystery of hieroglyphs, which constituted “a real turning point in the human sciences,” assures Eileen Bouillon, one of the exhibition’s commissioners.

The exhibition places this genius in its historical context through more than 350 works, allowing to dive simultaneously into ancient Egyptian times, as well as into the era of Champollion, who was born in the “Age of Lights” in 1790 in the midst of the French Revolution, in the care of an educated family, but Modest case.

“It is a history exhibition, the history of museums, the history of science, and it is also a biographical story,” said Marie Lavandier, director of the Louvre-Lens Museum, which sheds light on “this important space in human history” contained in the hieroglyphs.

“Ancient Egypt constitutes one of the foundations of human memory,” she adds, and continues to evoke the dream “through the beauty and richness of myths, as well as exquisitely preserved objects,” welcoming the museum’s hosting of “this major exhibition” on the bicentennial.

One of the main pieces in the exhibition is the sculpture "The Crouching Writer" who has been watching the world with his piercing gazes since 2500 BC.

In addition to this is the cover of a sarcophagus from the fourth century BC, on which is a long text inscribed with hieroglyphs, and a papyrus that has never been shown, containing a prayer to the god Amun-Ra, warnings to a distracted scribe, and delivery of skins to a cobbler.

The Rashid Stone, which was discovered during Bonaparte’s campaign in Egypt, and was later transferred by the English, remained in London in the British Museum, which in turn will be dedicated, starting from October 13, as an exhibition for deciphering hieroglyphs, which was the subject of a race among scholars at that time.

And Champollion himself worked on copies of the Rashid Stone, which includes three inscriptions: hieroglyphic, Greek and demotic.

The exhibition also includes copies of the Rashid Stone from that period.

The exhibition sheds light on the path that allowed Champollion, after he studied the Coptic language in depth, to decipher the mystery of a writing that fell into use around the fourth century AD.

Champollion realized that this writing mixes intellectual drawings and sound drawings, and was "the first to suggest a correct synonym" for it, says Eileen Bouillon.

She stresses that this discovery "restored to the Egyptians their voice, which we had a distorted image of through Greek and Roman sources."

The Greek historian Herodotus published the idea that the Egyptians preferred death to life, but “the texts show us that they hated and feared death,” she explains.

Manuscripts, letters, and clothing, including an Egyptian coat that Champollion wore during his mission along the Nile in 1828–30, provide an idea of ​​this Egyptologist during his work.

Champollion was a brilliant linguist, who died at an early age in 1932, and was also keen to simplify his work to be available to the largest number of people.

In the Louvre, where King Charles V commissioned him the task of developing a concept for an Egyptian museum, “for the first time, he set up halls dedicated to certain topics, such as religion, life, daily life, and others,” according to Bouillon.

The exhibition will continue until January 16th.

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