CHAMPOLLION, JEAN-FRANÇOIS, THE YOUNGER. - Founder of modern Egyptology, b. at Figeac (Lot) on 23 Dec. 1790, d. at Paris on 4 March 1832.

He studied Oriental languages in Paris (1807-1809), then (1816) was professor of history at Grenoble. On 27 Sept. 1822 he announced his discovery of the phonetic alphabet used by the Egyptians to transcribe Greek and Roman names (Lettre à M. Dacier relative à l'alphabet des hiéroglyphes phonétiques). Two years later, in the Précis du système hiéroglyphique des anciens Égyptiens, he set out many of the ideographic and phonetic elements of which the Egyptian script was composed. A member of the Academy (1830), in 1832 he occupied the first chair of Egyptology at the Collège de France, founded for him.

Posthumous works: Grammaire égyptienne (3 vols., Paris 1836-41); Dictionnaire égyptien en écriture hiéroglyphique (ibid. 1842-44); Monuments de l'Égypte et de la Nubie, notices descriptives conformes aux manuscrits autographes rédigés sur les lieux (ibid. 1844), later continued and brought to completion under the direction of E. de Rougé.

Bibliography

BIBL.: H. Hartleben, C. sein Leben und sein Werk, Berlin 1909.

Giorgio Castellino

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Champollion, Jean-François, the Younger

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