In this first biography in English of the Frenchman who unlocked the secret of the hieroglyphs, the author describes how Champollion started with Egyptian obelisks in Rome and papyri in European collections, sailed the Nile for a year, studied the tombs in the Valley of the Kings, and carefully compared the three scripts on the Rosetta Stone to penetrate the mystery of the hieroglyphic text. This extensively illustrated book also brings to life the rivalry between Champollion and the English scientist Thomas Young, who claimed credit for launching the decipherment, which Champollion hotly denied. There is much more to Champollion’s life than the Rosetta Stone, and the author gives equal weight to the many roles the Frenchman played in his tragically brief life, from a teenage professor in Revolutionary France to a curator at the Louvre.
Cracking the Egyptian Code
The Revolutionary Life of Jean-François Champollion
Andrew Robinson
320 pp.
70 b/w, 20 color
15.6X23.4cm
ISBN 9780500051719
For sale only in the Middle East
$24.95
Related products
Annales du Service des Antiquités de l’Egypte
Vol. 82
Supreme Council of AntiquitiesFor centuries, Egyptian civilization and its antiquities have inspired passionate interest. Archaeologists, engineers, astronomers, poets, painters, people of different cultures, and travelers have been riveted by Egypt’s ancient monuments. How much do we really know about these awe-inspiring wonders of the ancient world? This publication provides an up-to-date account of archaeology in the land of the pharaohs, including new discoveries and recent studies. This authoritative volume remains the definitive source for the findings of the various archaeological excavations undertaken in Egypt. For more than a hundred years, the Annales du Service has been studied by Egyptologists, students, and laypersons alike. Published under the auspices of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, its contributors include some of the most well-known Egyptologists in the world covering a broad range of archaeological disciplines and spectrums. This volume of the Supreme Council of Antiquities’s scholarly journal documents the latest excavations and projects at various sites throughout Egypt, including the Ammoneion project at Siwa Oasis, the Amenmesse project at Luxor, and the conservation of the monuments of Sneferu at Dahshur.
...read more
15 October 2010
Paperback
373 pp.21X29cm
$39.50
Annales du Service des Antiquités de l’Egypte
Vol. 74
Supreme Council of AntiquitiesFor centuries, Egyptian civilization and its antiquities have inspired passionate interest. Archaeologists, engineers, astronomers, poets, painters, people of different cultures, and travelers have been riveted by Egypt’s ancient monuments. How much do we really know about these awe-inspiring wonders of the ancient world? This publication provides an up-to-date account of archaeology in the land of the pharaohs, including new discoveries and recent studies. This authoritative volume remains the definitive source for the findings of the various archaeological excavations undertaken in Egypt. For more than a hundred years, the Annales du Service has been studied by Egyptologists, students, and laypersons alike. Published under the auspices of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, its contributors include some of the most well-known Egyptologists in the world covering a broad range of archaeological disciplines and spectrums.
...read more
31 March 2013
Paperback
200 pp.11 b/w illus., 7 tables
21X29cm
$34.50
Amarna Sunrise
Egypt from Golden Age to Age of Heresy
Aidan DodsonThe latter part of the fifteenth century bc saw Egypt’s political power reach its zenith, with an empire that stretched from beyond the Euphrates in the north to much of what is now Sudan in the south. The wealth that flowed into Egypt allowed its kings to commission some of the most stupendous temples of all time, some of the greatest dedicated to Amun-Re, King of the Gods. Yet a century later these temples lay derelict, the god’s images, names, and titles all erased in an orgy of iconoclasm by Akhenaten, the devotee of a single sun-god. This book traces the history of Egypt from the death of the great warrior-king Thutmose III to the high point of Akhenaten’s reign, when the known world brought gifts to his newly-built capital city of Amarna, in particular looking at the way in which the cult of the sun became increasingly important to even ‘orthodox’ kings, culminating in the transformation of Akhenaten’s father, Amenhotep III, into a solar deity in his own right.
...read more
15 November 2016
Paperback
280 pp.122 b/w illus., 6 maps
15X23cm
$19.95
Abusir
The Necropolis of the Sons of the Sun
Miroslav VernerAt the center of the world-famous pyramid field of the Memphite necropolis lies a group of pyramids, temples, and tombs named after the nearby village of Abusir. Long overshadowed by the more familiar pyramids at Giza and Saqqara, this area has nonetheless been the site, for the last fifty years, of an extensive operation to discover its past. This thoroughly updated in-depth study documents the uncovering by a dedicated team of Czech archaeologists of a hitherto neglected wealth of ancient remains dating from the Old Kingdom to the Late Period. This is Abusir, realm of Osiris, God of the dead, and its story is one of both modern archaeology and the long-buried mysteries that it seeks to uncover.
...read more
1 August 2017
Hardbound
448 pp.210 bw 25 color
15X23cm
$49.95
This book is currently not available for purchase.