Yes, it's really an amazing story- there's a book called
The Keys of Egypt: the obession to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics which gives a very detailed account of the whole process. Did you know, for instance, that it wasn't actually the Rosetta stone which was the source of Champollion's first breakthrough? It was a far more obscure obelisk which had been brought to England and I believe had been set up in someone's garden. It had a cartouche on it, which was the only part of Egyptian writing which Champollion was able to recognize from the bilingual inscriptions he'd been studying. He was challenged to translate it by a fellow scholar, and with the progress he'd made by looking at cartouches he was actually able to read the inscription.
It was the first inscription ever fully translated from scratch, and the one which finally proved Champollion's theory that the signs were phonetic in nature- rather than symbolic.^_^ The Rosetta stone was actually more of a mascot for linguists- holding out hope that a translation
would one day be possible. What really cracked the code were the cartouches on various multi-lingual inscriptions, and the obelisk to which they were eventually applied.
It's been a long time since I read that book- I really ought to get it out again.
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