A life devoted to hieroglyphs. Jean-Francois Champollion - the beginning of the journey
"Ani's Papyrus" c. XIII century BC e. Book of the Dead. British Museum, London
"In science there is no wide pillar road, and only he can reach its shining peaks, who, not fearing fatigue, climbs along its rocky paths."
Karl Marx
Karl Marx
History great civilizations. Our story, dedicated to deciphering the ancient Egyptian writing, continues. And today we will continue it with the biography of a truly great man, who, through his work and talent, has revealed a whole ancient civilization to mankind. The name of this man is Jean-Francois Champollion Jr. - because that is what he called himself, to distinguish himself from his older brother - Jacques-Joseph. Although later, of course, no one called him "younger". He was born on December 23, 1790 in the small town of Figeac in the south of France and, like many other people whose life path was clearly predetermined for him from birth, from an early age he demonstrated simply amazing abilities. He was not even five years old when, without the help of adults, he learned to read and write.
Leon Conye. Portrait of Champollion (1831)
True, here Fate itself helped him. The fact is that his father was a bookseller, so there were not just a lot of books around little Jean, but a lot. Both in the shop and at home. So he grew up, one might say, in the world of books and very early began to prefer their society to the society of noisy peers.
But his ability to speak foreign languages stood out most strikingly. Already at the age of nine, he knew Latin and Greek so well that on long winter evenings he could act out whole scenes from Homer and Virgil with his household. And seeing his obvious talent, the family tried to give him the kind of education that his parents, and also his older brother and sisters were deprived of. By the way, his elder brother Jacques-Joseph was also a very extraordinary person. As an adult, he studied a number of sciences, became a linguist, and was even able to get a place as professor of Greek literature at the Lyceum in the city of Grenoble. And it is not surprising that it was to him in Grenoble that ten-year-old Jean-Francois moved to study.
There Champollion the younger was assigned to two schools at once - a city and a private one, which belonged to a certain scholarly abbot. But ... neither of them, nor both of them at once satisfied the boy. Moreover, he was suddenly possessed by a passionate desire: to restore (and describe!) The entire world history in chronological order - “from Adam to Champollion the Younger", As he often liked to say. But how can this be done without knowing the ancient languages? And Jean-François began to independently study the Hebrew language so that the books written in it could be read in the original. And he learned it, and quite quickly. And immediately after that he began to learn Arabic, followed by Syriac and Aramaic. And, perhaps, he would have become just a famous historian, the author of his "World History", but here, again, Fate itself sent him a meeting that changed his whole ... biography.
Thanks to the discovery of Champollion, not only the inscriptions on the walls of temples and shards were read, but also the papyrus scrolls that have come down to us. And not only the Egyptians wrote on papyrus. Here is a private 36,19th-48,89th century Arabic script on papyrus, XNUMX x XNUMX cm.Los Angeles County Museum of Art
He met the famous physicist and mathematician Fourier, who had just returned to France from Egypt and, of course, brought with him a large collection of various Egyptian antiquities. Jacques-Joseph brought his inquisitive eleven-year-old brother to him, and now Champollion was visiting him and saw with his own eyes genuine Egyptian papyri, and amulets in the form of scarab beetles with mysterious letters inscribed on them.
All this, coupled with Fourier's stories about Egypt, made an indelible impression on the receptive boy. And it ended with the fact that he ... made a solemn oath - to devote his life to the study of ancient Egypt and to read hieroglyphic inscriptions.
To begin with, he cut up the books of his elder brother, containing information about Egypt, gleaned from the ancient authors Herodotus, Strabo, Diodorus and Plutarch, and arranged them at his discretion. What to do if copiers did not exist then, and a twelve-year-old boy simply could not rewrite dozens of pages.
Blanking papyrus and weaving mats on a painted bas-relief from the tomb of Puemra. New Kingdom, circa XNUMXth century BC e. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
In 1804, Champollion Jr.was assigned to the Lyceum, where he studied for three years. The choice of the place of study was unsuccessful, although it was prestigious to study at the lyceum. The pupils' time was subject to a strict schedule. Even in their free time, students of the Lyceum had no right to engage in extraneous matters that would go beyond the curriculum. And since neither Coptic nor Ethiopian language was listed there, Champollion could not study them either. Meanwhile, he read about the relationship of the Coptic language with the ancient Egyptian and decided that in the matter of deciphering hieroglyphs, he could not do without his knowledge. And the Ethiopian language was spoken in Abyssinia (Ethiopia), close to Egypt, and it could also be useful to him.
Thanks to the finds of many papyri, we today know a lot about the past. For example, the Epistle to the Galatians, rewritten in the papyrus code between 150 and 250 years. Manuscript 6238, 158 r. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
The strange hobbies of a thirteen-year-old boy did not delight the authorities, but Champollion's passion was stronger than prohibitions, and he began to engage in them at night. All these night vigils ended with the fact that he began to have health problems. But then influential acquaintances of his older brother intervened in the boy's fate, and the administration of the lyceum allowed him to study these languages in his free time.
The famous mathematical "Papyrus of Rind". Also referred to as British Museum Papyrus 10057 and pBM 10058, it is one of the most famous examples of ancient Egyptian mathematics. It is named after Alexander Henry Rind, a Scottish antiquarian who acquired the papyrus in 1858 in Luxor, Egypt. It appears to have been found during illegal excavations at or near the Ramesseum. End of the second interregnum (c. 1550 BC). British Museum, London
At the age of 16, he finished his studies at the Lyceum and was immediately elected ... a member of the Grenoble Academy, which included the most educated residents of this city. The fact is that by the end of the Lyceum Champollion had already written several chapters of his work: "Egypt under the Pharaohs." And he not only wrote them, but also drew up a detailed geographical map of ancient Egypt, which he presented to the Grenoble Academy along with ready-made texts. At a public meeting of the Academy, he read an introduction to his book and spoke about plans for the future. And all this amazed the audience so much that they unanimously awarded him the title of academician.
Well, then the young academician moved to Paris and already there for two years studied Sanskrit, as well as Zend and Pahlavi languages, and also worked in the Paris Library on Coptic manuscripts. He wrote to his brother about his life in Paris that “poor as a poet, and even poorer". However, he endured all this, overcame, and already in 1809 he returned to Grenoble as a professor of history, having received this title at the age of 18!
They wrote on papyrus not only by the Egyptians and not only in hieroglyphs. Here is the bilingual text of Cicero's speech "To Catiline" - the original Latin and the Greek translation. XNUMXth century papyrus scroll. University of Manchester Library
Here he continued to work on his book "Egypt under the Pharaohs." The first two volumes were published in 1814. It would seem that life is getting better and there is not so much left to success. However, it was at this time that Napoleon returned to France and headed for Paris via Grenoble. The Champollion brothers were among the zealous Bonapartists. The elder soon followed Napoleon to Paris, and the younger… became the editor of the Grenoble newspaper, which supported Napoleon.
A papyrus containing data on food supplies to workers involved in the construction of the Cheops pyramid. As you can see, accounting documents have always been similar ... Papyri from the time of Cheops' reign in wadi el-Jarf (Gulf of Suez). Pierre Tallet, University of Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV). BULLETIN DE LA SOCIÉTÉ FRANÇAISE D'ÉGYPTOLOGIE N ° 188 Février 2014
And then the Hundred Days ended, and the returning Bourbon supporters remembered all their Bonapartism to the brothers. No, they were not imprisoned in the Chateau d'If, like Edmond Dantes, but for a whole year and a half they were sent into exile in their hometown of Figeac. Then, however, they were allowed to return to Grenoble, but both of them were constantly persecuted there, and moreover, in 1821 they achieved the dismissal of Champollion Jr. from the local lyceum in order to deprive him of his livelihood.
On the back of this papyrus there is such a laconic inscription: "Bread count"
And again he had to go to Paris to see his older brother. However, perhaps it was for the best that Champollion Jr. was kicked out of Grenoble. Now nothing distracted him from the main goal to which he planned to devote his life.
To be continued ...
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