Character Catalog

Champollion's first major work, a geographical description of ancient Egypt based on the study of Coptic and Greek sources. He published it at the age of 24.

The founding document of Egyptology, in which Champollion announces that he has cracked the secret of hieroglyphs. This letter, read before the Académie des Inscriptions, marks a landmark date in the history of science.

A work in which Champollion develops and systematizes his discovery, demonstrating that hieroglyphic writing is both phonetic and ideographic.

A monumental publication of the surveys and drawings made by Champollion during his expedition to Egypt. The work was completed and published by his brother Jacques-Joseph.

The first grammar of the ancient Egyptian language, published after his death by his brother. It long remained the standard reference work for the study of hieroglyphic Egyptian.

A dictionary of hieroglyphs compiled by Champollion throughout his career and published after his death. It constitutes the first lexicographic tool for the ancient Egyptian language.

I am certain that phonetic hieroglyphs were used in Egypt to write the titles, names, and surnames of Greek and Roman sovereigns, and that analogous signs were also used in ideographic texts carved long before the arrival of the Greeks in Egypt.

Hieroglyphic writing is a complex system, a script that is at once figurative, symbolic, and phonetic, within the same text, the same sentence — I would almost say within the same word.

I am now quite proud that, having followed the course of the Nile from its mouth to the second cataract, I have the right to tell you that nothing was exaggerated by the writers of Antiquity regarding Thebes: it was in reality even greater.

The Egyptian language, considered as a whole, is a language unto itself, not directly linked to any of the known language families, although it does present analogies with the Semitic languages.

Champollion's birthplace, where he was born on December 23, 1790. His childhood home is now a museum dedicated to the world's writing systems.

The city where Champollion grew up and completed his early studies. He became a professor of history at the university there at the age of 19 and conducted his first research on hieroglyphics.

Champollion created and organized the Egyptian antiquities department there from 1826 onwards. He installed the collections that still form the core of the Egyptian department today.

The institution where the first chair of Egyptology was created in 1831, specifically for Champollion. He would only deliver a few lectures there before illness claimed his life.

During his 1828–1829 expedition, Champollion explored the temples of Karnak, Luxor, and the Valley of the Kings, deciphering inscriptions directly on the monuments for the first time.

Champollion spent years working on copies and rubbings of this trilingual stele. It was the comparison between the Greek text, the Demotic, and the hieroglyphs that allowed him to unlock the secret of Egyptian writing.

Champollion had compiled an in-depth Coptic grammar from his adolescence. His mastery of Coptic, the last form of the ancient Egyptian language, was the decisive tool for understanding the phonetic value of hieroglyphs.

During his 1828–1829 expedition, Champollion filled numerous notebooks with drawings and records of inscriptions copied directly from monuments in the Nile Valley.

To study the fine details of hieroglyphic inscriptions on papyri and monument copies, Champollion used magnifying glasses and precise drawing instruments.

The table presented alongside the Lettre à M. Dacier in 1822 catalogued the phonetic hieroglyphic alphabet. This founding document is held at the Institut de France.

Champollion built and studied collections of Egyptian papyri, notably for the Louvre Museum, whose Egyptian section he organised from 1826 onwards.