Jean-François Champollion has gone down in history as the father of Egyptology, a French passion since the famous expedition to Egypt launched by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1798.

In September 1822, "eureka": he understood this writing whose meaning had been lost for more than a millennium.

The exhibition at the BnF François-Mitterrand in Paris, from Tuesday until July 24, opens with the document that marked the history of philology (study of writings in ancient languages), the "Letter to M. Ironside" where the scientist exposes his discovery.

The general public is more familiar with the Rosetta Stone, a stele engraved in three languages, including hieroglyphs and Greek.

But this one, which the British brought back to London, and which Champollion never saw, is in the British Museum.

The BnF shows two reproductions: a cast and an engraving.

The Franco-British rivalry of the time is still sensitive.

Launched in the same quest, "Thomas Young was not that far from deciphering the hieroglyphs. Except that he lacked knowledge of Coptic to fully understand Egyptian grammar", notes one of the curators of the exhibition. , Vanessa Desclaux.

Sunglasses

Because "Champollion the Younger" (to distinguish him from his older brother Jacques-Joseph, another scholar) was an avid polyglot.

For the anecdote is exposed a manual in Latin thanks to which he studied... Chinese.

Few oriental languages ​​escaped his curiosity: Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, Aramaic, Chaldean, Amharic, Persian, Sanskrit, among others.

"He mastered all the states of the Egyptian language, starting with hieratic writing, which was used on the papyri", underlines Hélène Virenque, another curator.

Close-up view of the Rosetta Stone, a stele engraved in three languages, including hieroglyphs and Greek, on display at the British Museum in London in November 2018 Amir MAKAR AFP/Archives

After 1822, Champollion will be careful to publish his discoveries and transmit them.

He is the author of a grammar and a dictionary of pharaonic writing, and will teach at the College de France, in addition to his role as curator of Egyptian Antiquities at the Louvre.

"While he feels his health declining, he wants to put all his work in order. And he does well: he dies young, at 41. He was not content to find a handwriting. He revived a whole language", explains Vanessa Desclaux.

His sunglasses, a passport, a pipe he brought back from Egypt let you imagine what exploring the Nile Valley was like in his time.

"He was wrong"

"Two centuries later, we see how little Champollion was wrong. He makes these discoveries. And he never lets himself be locked into a problem, he has intuitions that will be useful to others", comments Guillemette Andreu-Lanoë, director honorary of Egyptian Antiquities at the Louvre.

The opportunity is also given to admire the oldest literary text that has come down to us, known as the "Prisse papyrus" (from the name of its discoverer, another French Egyptologist).

In ancient Egyptian and hieratic script, it dates from around 1800 BC.

The very colorful exhibition is aimed at an educated public as well as families, with videos aimed at the youngest, and pieces on loan from the Louvre, such as a magnificent sarcophagus.

An engraving by Jean-François Champollion dit Le Jeune (1790-1832) the French Egyptologist who discovered the solution to deciphering hieroglyphs in 1821 BELGA/AFP/Archives

This Champollion year will be marked in France by a symposium at the BnF from May 16 to 20.

Another exhibition is planned at the Louvre in Lens (Pas-de-Calais, north) from September 28.

And his hometown of Figeac (Lot, south-west), where there is a Champollion museum, has planned various cultural and artistic events from May.

© 2022 AFP