The Keys of Egypt

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   人類史上多くの人々が、その生涯をかけて、過去に失われた文明を探求してきた。きっと彼らは自分たちのルーツに思いを馳せ、すでに文献の上、または言い伝えのみの存在となった文明を確認したい一心で探し求めているのだろう。その情熱は、ときに身を損なうことになろうとも衰えることがない。

   考古学において言語解読はきわめて重要な要素だ。文字をもつ文明ならば必ず何らかの文献が残っており、それを解読することが研究の大部分を占めるからだ。そして言語考古学のさきがけとしても、またその功績の大きさからも最も有名な仕事は、本書で述べられるヒエログリフの解読だろう。

   本書では、シャンポリオンがロゼッタストーンを手がかりに、エジプトの神聖文字（ヒエログリフ）の解読を成し遂げるまでのストーリーを追っている。ナポレオンのエジプト遠征に始まるエジプト学の発生、シャンポリオンの生い立ちと彼が学んだこと、そして同じくヒエログリフ解読に挑んだ男たちとのレース。時はフランス革命からナポレオンの登場にいたる、いわば混乱期であり、多くの政治的な制約があった時代でもある。シャンポリオン自身も十分な資料を得ることができず、ときには政治的な理由で移動を余儀なくされ、また金銭的な理由に縛られるなど、多くの制約を受けながら研究を続けており、ヒエログリフ研究は何度も中断してはまた再開するという苦難の道だったことがうかがえる。

   また当時の世界的なヒエログリフ研究の流れが述べられているのも興味深い。ロゼッタストーンは肝心のヒエログリフ部分の破損が激しく、多くの研究者が各々の見識に従い補完を試みているが、それらの作業が実に容易ならざるものであり、当時の研究者たちが自分たちの代で解読できるかどうかわからないほどの難物であったことなども理解できる。この仕事がいかにドラマチックで、いかに偉大なものか、あらためて知ることができるだろう。（斎藤牧人）

Product Description

When Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1798, his troops and scientists were astonished to discover ancient temples, tombs, and statues, all covered with strange markings-the last remnants of a language lost in time.  After the Rosetta Stone was uncovered, hope was raised that the mystery of this ancient writing could be solved.  Egyptomania spread throughout Europe, and the quest to decipher the hieroglyphs began in earnest, for it was understood that fame and fortune awaited the scholar who succeeded.

In rural France, Jean-Francois Champollion, the brilliant son of an impoverished bookseller, was obsessed with breaking the code of the ancient Egyptians texts.  At sixteen years of age he decided that he would dedicate his life to the decipherment of hieroglyphs.

Suffering from hardships of poverty, but with devoted support from his older brother, Champollion made slow but significant progress in decipherment.  After the Revolution, however, France was a dangerous place; an unguarded word could mean ruin, exile, or even death.  Always possessed of strong political beliefs, Champollion often found himself in grave personnel danger.  Yet he continued to strive for the key to the ancient texts, and he persevered despite ill health and the knowledge that he was at the mercy of vicious political enemies. Even more troubling to him was the threat of failure-his closest competitor, the English physician Thomas Young, also working to solve the puzzle of the hieroglyphs, and he was rapidly gaining ground.  In 1812,  Champollion made the decisive breakthrough, beating Young to the prize and becoming the first person to be able to read the ancient Egyptian language in well over a thousand years.

The Keys of Egypt is the fascinating true story of the race to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs and of the rediscovery of the world of ancient Egypt- a world that had been closed to the West for centuries.

Amazon.com Review

Jean-François Champollion's biography is neatly interwoven with Napoleonic history and the functions of Egyptian hieroglyphs in The Keys of Egypt. A gifted bookseller's son born in Revolutionary France, Champollion was to become "gripped by energetic enthusiasm" for Egypt. By the age of 12, he was studying several ancient languages, and, amid a "wave of Egyptomania," he would beat rivals to discover the key to deciphering hieroglyphs. If this was a race, it was a marathon. The breakthrough came after "20 years of obsessive hard work," not through the quick-fix solution often thought to have been provided by the Rosetta stone. The Keys of Egypt details Champollion's life and work, which were hampered by politics, poverty, and an almost hypochondriacal series of health problems. Its sources include letters and journals, the authors having undertaken researches in major libraries and museums. Chapters on Champollion's travels in Italy and Egypt include a good smattering of excerpts from his writings. Although no bibliography is given, there is a helpful passage on various levels of further reading. Highly instructive and fast-paced, The Keys of Egypt is perhaps less dramatic than it might be in portraying troubled times and groundbreaking discovery. It is, however, a clearly expressed and wide-ranging book explaining the complexity of hieroglyphic interpretation and revealing the man whose achievements "meant the discovery of a whole new civilization." --Karen Tiley, Amazon.co.uk