Finally, our Nile voyage has also shown us how we gain knowledge of ancient men and their deeds from the monuments and records which they have left behind. We have also noticed how greatly the use of the earliest written documents aids us in putting together the story. If we had made our journey up [NEXT]
*Champollion found an obelisk bearing on its base a Greek inscription, showing that the obelisk belonged to a king Ptolemy and his queen Cleopatra. The obelisk shaft bore an inscription in hieroglyphics which he therefore thought must somewhere contain the names Ptolemy and Cleopatra. Other scholars had shown that the ovals, or “cartouches” (see opposite page), so common on Egyptian monuments, contained royal names. Examination showed two such ovals on the shaft of the obelisk. He concluded that the hieroglyphs in these two ovals spelled the names Ptolemy and Cleopatra. He then proceeded to compare them with the Greek spelling of Ptolemy (Ptolemaios) and Cleopatra. These Greek spellings (in our letters) will be found in Fig. 76, each paired with its corresponding hieroglyphic form. All signs and letters in the left pair are numbered with Roman numerals, and in the right pair with Arabic numerals. The first sign (I) in oval A is an oblong rectangle, and if it really is the first letter in Ptolemy’s name, it must be the letter P. Now the fifth letter in Cleopatra’s name is also a P, and so the fifth sign in the oval B ought also to be an oblong rectangle. To Champollion’s delight oval B did not disappoint him, and sign 5 proved to be an oblong rectangle. He was at first troubled by the fact that in his next comparison, II and 7 in the two ovals did not prove to be alike as the sign for T, but he concluded, that 7 must be a second form for T, and he was right. The next two signs in oval A (III and IV) corresponded exactly with 4 and 2 in oval B, and showed him that lie was certainly on the right road. Although the vowels (e.g. VII and 3) caused him some trouble, he soon saw that Egyptian was inaccurate in writing the vowels, or even omitted them (see Fig. 29). From these two names he had proved that the Egyptians possessed an alphabet and not merely signs for whole syllables or whole words. He had also learned the sounds of twelve of the letters (see table of signs below the names) and laid the foundation for completing the decipherment, by the aid of the Rosetta Stone (Fig. 207), which he then for the first time understood how to use, after scholars had been working on it in vain for over twenty years. This was in 1822, and Champollion then announced his discovery to the French Academy in Paris. |
127. In modern times noone able to read Egyptian writing before 1822 |