The Riddle of the Rosetta - Jed Z. Buchwald

Written by Jed Z. Buchwald
Read by Diane Greco Josefowicz
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

The Riddle of the Rosetta: How an English Polymath and a French Polyglot Discovered the Meaning of Egyptian Hieroglyphs

Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc.
Release date: February 2, 2021
Duration: 20:27:31

A major new history of the race between two geniuses to decipher ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, set against the backdrop of nineteenth century Europe

In 1799, a French Army officer was rebuilding the defenses of a fort on the banks of the Nile when he discovered an ancient stele fragment bearing a decree inscribed in three different scripts.

So begins one of the most familiar tales in Egyptology-that of the Rosetta Stone and the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs. This book draws on fresh archival evidence to provide a major new account of how the English polymath Thomas Young and the French philologist Jean-François Champollion vied to be the first to solve the riddle of the Rosetta.

Jed Buchwald and Diane Greco Josefowicz bring to life a bygone age of intellectual adventure. Much more than a decoding exercise centered on a single artifact, the race to decipher the Rosetta Stone reflected broader disputes about language, historical evidence, biblical truth, and the value of classical learning. The authors paint compelling portraits of Young and Champollion, two gifted intellects with altogether different motivations. Young disdained Egyptian culture and saw Egyptian writing as a means to greater knowledge about Greco-Roman antiquity. Champollion, swept up in the political chaos of Restoration France and fiercely opposed to the scholars aligned with throne and altar, admired ancient Egypt and was prepared to upend conventional wisdom to solve the mystery of the hieroglyphs.

“Buchwald and Josefowicz deliver an account that sometimes seems as if in real time, describing the blind alleys, intuitions, and thorny debates that surrounded the scholars’ investigations. For example, “Young happily conceded that orthographic shifts could and did occur as writers labored to effect accurate transcriptions…[but] maintained that Egyptian hieroglyphs had never changed from the originals, neither in shape nor in meaning.” Readers will find some grounding in linguistics to be helpful, as the authors discuss phonetics, phonemics, morphemics, and other technical matters surrounding whether the hieroglyphics in particular represented sounds, words, or concepts–the answer being “all of the above.” Knowledgeable fans of Egyptology, cryptography, and languages will enjoy this exploration of the ancient past.”…. Kirkus Reviews