The Riddle of the Rosetta - How an English Polymath and a French Polyglot Discovered the Meaning of Egyptian Hieroglyphs

A major new history of the race between two geniuses to decipher ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, set against the backdrop of nineteenth-century EuropeIn 1799, a French Army officer was rebuilding the defenses of a fort on the banks of the Nile when he discovered an ancient stele fragment bearing a decree inscribed in three different scripts.So begins one of the most familiar tales in Egyptology-that of the Rosetta Stone and the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs.This book draws on fresh archival evidence to provide a major new account of how the English polymath Thomas Young and the French philologist Jean-François Champollion vied to be the first to solve the riddle of the Rosetta. Jed Buchwald and Diane Greco Josefowicz bring to life a bygone age of intellectual adventure.Much more than a decoding exercise centered on a single artifact, the race to decipher the Rosetta Stone reflected broader disputes about language, historical evidence, biblical truth, and the value of classical lea