News
-
ARC2AME essay: Napoleon and Champollion
A leader in the revolution, Napoleon I’s expedition into Egypt in 1798 may have been unfortunate from a military point of view, but the consequential finds brought back to France (and the British museum) such as drawings, notes, plaster models and other artefacts, ensured a revived interest in Egypt. One such artefact, the Rosetta Stone, led to the decoding of hieroglyphs - the “key to the mysteries of Egypt” (Ceram, 1967: 99). Jean-François Champollion was the sensation responsible for the eventual decoding of the hieroglyphs, aided by work from some who had previously tried but failed or given up on the task; and later conducting his own expedition into Egypt. Although Napoleon’s hold over Egypt was short lived, his decision to take numerous savants along to investigate Egypt (Daniel, 1976: 22) and spread science and enlightenment (Lyons, 1994: 24) begat theDescription de l’Égypte,the Egyptian Institute in Cairo and the aforementioned renewed interest in Egypt that continues on today. The French revolution with Napoleon at its head also played a part in Champollion’s life, almost resulting in conscription into the army, and republican zeal leading to a dismissal from his university position but allowing him the chance and time to work on the decipherment of the hieroglyphs. Napoleon’s expedition is perhaps most famed for revealing the Rosetta Stone, containing the same inscription in Greek, demotic, and hieroglyphics. The stele was found by an unnamed soldier working at Fort Rachid (later Fort Julien) near Rosetta, but its discovery is often attributed to the officer in charge, Bouchard, who also shipped the tablet to Cairo (Ceram, 1967: 111). Other legacies of the expedition include Dominique Vivant Denon’sVoyage dans la Haute et la Basse Egyptein 1802, with many of his own drawings and sketches, and theDescription de l’Égypte, published between 1809 and 1828 in twenty-odd volumes (Stiebing, 1993: 58).The role he played in the French Revolution evidently features more strongly in Napoleon’s life than his exploits of antiquities in Egypt. History books are dedicated to Napoleon as a military man, yet his expedition in Egypt deserves more than to mention that it failed to conquer the country and unearthed the Rosetta Stone. Despite the defeat, the outcome from his scientific journeyinto Egypt would soon provide plenty of enlightenment for his contemporaries, and open up a world hitherto inaccessible and almost forgotten about – “[The] final achievement [of the Commission] was the only fair thing that remained from this sorry, futile campaign” (Greener, 1967: 95).Napoleon’s motivations for his expedition were not just in hopes of conquering Egypt and establishing a base but also as an ‘enlightened individual’, to bring to European scholars more knowledge about Egypt and other lands under the Ottoman Turkish empire. His ‘brains trust’ (the Commission of Arts and Science) of astronomers, geographers, cartographers, engineers, chemists, orientalists, artists and historians came, saw and conquered Egypt on paper. Their resultant drawings, notes and information were all they had left after the British demanded the French hand over the antiquities they had found. These notes and drawings were eventually published in theDescription de l’Égypte(Stiebing, 1993: 57). Napoleon’s approach to his findings was to produce the aforementioned publication, via the Commission of Arts and Science as well as to set up the Egyptian Institute, aimed at enlightening Egypt about it’s history and natural phenomena (Brier, 1999: 48). Via these avenues, he hoped to open up these exotic seeming countries to Europe. Unfortunately, this new interest in Egypt shortly led to a “scramble for antiquities” that left many sites in ruin and resulted in the theft of objects from tombs and temples (Stiebing, 1993: 60). Jean-François Champollion was a child of revolution, and born into an age of enlightenment. By the age of seventeen, he had learnt languages such as Hebrew, Arabic, Parsi, Persian, Coptic, English, German, Italian and Chinese (Greener, 1967: 145). All this was in order to achieve his main goal – the decipherment of the Rosetta Stone hieroglyphs. He was not, however, the first person to strive to do so. William Warburton had written hisEssay on Egyptian Hieroglyphsin 1738 (Greener, 1967: 142), Alexandre Lenoir claimed to have deciphered the hieroglyphs inNouvelle Explication(quickly laughed off by Champollion as nonsense) and numerous others had championed all kinds of ideas about the glyphs– as picture writing, as derived from Chinese, as a decorative device (Ceram, 1967: 122-123).Champollion ignored these theories and continued with his work. He had great support from his older brother, Champollion-Figeac, who helped draw up petitions and wrote letters to prevent Champollion being conscripted in 1808. Aged twelve, Champollion had written an essay providing argument for the republic as the only reasonable form of state (Ceram, 1967: 117). In 1815, such troubled political times and his“republican zeal and advocacy of academic freedom” led to accusations of treason and he lost a teaching position he held at the Grenoble university (Stiebing, 1993: 72). In 1821, he fled from Paris and began his work on the inscriptions he so dearly wished to decode.By 1821 he had realised that demotic was a shorthand form of hieroglyphic, and cartouches enclosed names such as Ptolemy which he could compare in the three translations, the Greek having been translated as being a decree issued in Memphis about Ptolemy V (Patterson, 1981: 9; Maisels, 1993: 29). Greener (1967: 149) states that, inDe l’écriture hiératique des anciens Egyptiens,Champollion took a stance opposing Thomas Young’s theory that Egyptian writing was alphabetic but by 1822 Champollion had begun working towards a hieroglyphic alphabet, thereby being accused by his opponents of stealing Young’s work and not recognising it as such. In September, 1822, when he read at an assembly hisLettreà M. Dacier, secretaire perpétuel de l’Académie royale des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, relative à l’alphabet des hieroglyphs phonétiqueshe acknowledged using de Sacy and Young for his first conclusions about the demotic text. Yet, he stated in a footnote as considering Young as having done“work analogous to that which has occupied me during so many years” (Champollion in Greener, 1967: 150). Overall, while Young contributed to the first reading some of the hieroglyphs, Champollion was the one who, in 1824, published hisPrécis du système hiéroglyphique,his decoding of Egyptian hieroglyphs and an answer toyears of Egyptian mysteries.In 1828, Champollion and his pupil Ippolito Rossellini embarked on an expedition of their own, traversing Egypt and confirming Champollion’s ideas from Memphis to Sakkara to Dendera, deciphering and interpreting years of writing that had been misread up until their time. Champollion thus encouraged a growth in archaeology in the Middle East for decades following, where great Egyptian discoveries are linked to Belzoni, Lepsius, Mariette and Petrie, amongst others (Ceram, 1967: 135). Overall, both men contributed a vast amount of knowledge to their peers. Along with the discoveries or their expeditions, Napoleon and Champollion opened the door for future research into Egypt’s past. The expedition he had undertaken resulted in far greater consequences than Napoleon might have expected. Whereas a primary goal would have been the taking of Egypt to strike a blow to England’s economy by inhibiting trade to India (Brier, 1999: 46), the enterprise that did succeed presented to the world from then onwards a much more detailed and true view of ancient Egypt than they had had on offer.The French expedition produced theDescription de l’Égyptewhich provided detailed, accurate drawings and notes of everything in Egypt– monuments, natural history and geography – not the unbelievable views offered up by classical writers such as Herodotus, Diodorus or Strabo who were overawed by Egypt when compared to their own countries (Ceram, 1967: 121; Aldred, 1998: 15). The French, through drawings of architecture, artefacts and the country, presented a different view of this exotic land than Europe had known and, as in the case of Antinopolis, destroyed in the nineteenth century, ended up preserving places through their accounts and illustrations (Brier, 1999: 53).The revolution and enlightenment presented both help and hindrance to Champollion. He grew up in a time and place where he could learn and absorb a great deal of information, and would give back so much more to society yet he had to watch what he said and did or he could end up conscripted or jailed. While he supported certain freedoms and did not fall as easily to Napoleon’s charm as his brother, he was more willing to protect his work than help defend the city, evidenced when royalists marching on Paris proved a threat to his manuscripts.Napoleon’s expedition and Champollion’s determination to decipher the hieroglyphs made known to the world not only what was inscribed on the Rosetta Stone but before long gave them a chronology of ancient Egypt and an ability to know what had happened so many thousands of years ago. Bibliography Aldred, C1998.The Egyptians, 3rdedition, Aidan Dodson (editor). London, Thames and Hudson. Brier, B1999. Napoleon in Egypt.Archaeology52/3: 44-50. Ceram, C.W1967.Gods, Graves and Scholars: The Story of Archaeology. Suffolk, Penguin Books. Daniel, G1976.A Hundred and Fifty Years of Archaeology. Massachusetts, Harvard University Press. Greener, L1966.The Discovery of Egypt.New York, The Viking Press. Lyons, M1994.Napoleon Bonaparte and the Legacy of the French Revolution. London, Macmillan Press. Maisels, C.K1993.The Near East: Archaeology in the‘Cradle of Civilization’.London, Routledge. Patterson, T.C1981.Archaeology: The Evolution of Ancient Societies.New Jersey, Prentice-Hall. Stiebing, W.H1994.Uncovering the Past: A History of Archaeology. New York, Oxford University Press.
-
CLIO FOR sale dk green
1.2, t reg, 128,000 miles, new exhaust, M..T till october 07, needs new cam belt! sold a....O
-
joyork on The Virgin Birth and Natural Law
A truly crackpot view you mean, shurely?
-
Forest
Forest
-
sixstrings on Americans now view being Fat as Normal
It's essentially the same problem you find with inexperienced programmers. They think they can wing it, that they don't need controls in place to measure and assess progress, and they can't. In the case of programmers you get spaghetti code; in the case of obese people, you just get spaghetti. With decent management and code version-tracking solutions you get better software. With Weight Watcher's, you get thinner people.Also, people will generally default to the course of least emotional resistance. Since food is often perceived as reassuring, they will tend to abuse it, if they can. A real solution to obesity involves monitoring and controlling caloric intake, sure, but also addressing the need for reassurance in other ways.Why this is anewproblem I couldn't tell you, unless it's the rise of fast-food culture.Certainly the argument that some people have X metabolism and others have Y metabolism is true, but it's always been true. What hasn't always been true is 25% of the population carrying around 80 extra lbs or more.
-
Bodyshop Manager Our client is
one of the UK’s most prestigious retail groups and is currently recruiting for a forward thinking, driven and passionate Bodyshop Manager. The successful candidate will be responsible for ensuring the efficient and profitable operation of the Bodyshop department. Establish operating policies and standards to achieve both high levels of customer satisfaction and profitability. Control stocks and assets commensurate with profit requirements and enhan...
-
eFinanceDirectory.com Releases San Francisco Bay Area Housing Market Report
The San Francisco Bay Area housing market continued its downward spiral during the month of July. Homes sold at the slowest pace since 1995, median prices dropped, and foreclosure activity increased. (PRWeb Aug 23, 2007) Post Comment:Trackback URL: http://www.prweb.com/pingpr.php/WmV0YS1GYWx1LUZhbHUtSGFsZi1UaGlyLVplcm8=
-
Kitesurfing - Hiszpania
Kitesurfing to efektowna dyscyplina w której spadochron i deska tworzą zgrany zespół. Jeśli lubisz latać i surfować to jest coś dla Ciebie.
-
Sin Sundays @ Sugar - 2007-08-26
Sin Sundays at Sugar nightclub are packed with beautiful people. London Trash brings out a huge crowd at there new, *permanent* location for the always popular 18+ dance party, at Sugar in Capitol hill. Dj Risk One rocks the house at this event, so come ready to dance. 18+ to party, 21+ to drink. Thanks to the London Trash boys who always hook it up, and know how to have a good time.
-
Inflaţia invizibilă - editorial de Gh. Cercelescu
Există în rândul guvernanţilor noştri sentimentul că lucrurile merg atât de bine în economie încât o decizie eronată nu poate inversa actualele tendinţe favorabile.Ministrul Economiei şi Finanţelor, Varujan Vosganian, a venit chiar cu un...
-
elliothere: Just spent $250 in 5 minutes. Darn greedy college publishers...
elliothere: Just spent $250 in 5 minutes. Darn greedy college publishers...
-
HOCKEY STICK 87cm, Slazenger panther
shadow, bag and 2 balls. £10....
-
7. Photographer Documents Somali Exile
COLUMBUS, Ohio --A photographic exhibit captures one of the largest mass movements of people in recent history in images ranging from women carrying sacks of grain in Africa to men pushing shopping carts in California."Stories of the Somali Diaspora"starts in...
-
REGULATOR FOR gas bottle.£3.
07960 428042 Bo...
-
TSX Surges Higher In Late-day Trading As Gold Stocks Shine - Canadian Commentary
RTTNews.com Nov 20 2007 10:41PM GMT