In September 1822, in Paris, Egyptologist Jean-François Champollion made his initial announcement of the decipherment of the Egyptian hieroglyphs. In the audience was physician, physicist, and linguist Thomas Young, visiting Paris from London, who had published a partial decipherment of the hieroglyphs in the Encyclopaedia Britannica three years prior to Champollion, in 1819. It was the first personal meeting between the two scholars, having only corresponded since their relationship began in 1814.
The disparate personalities of the two scholars are reflected in these contrasting, posthumously created portraits. Champollion is shown ‘in Egyptian Costume’ (above) on his expedition to Egypt in a painting by expedition member Giuseppe Angelelli. The engraving of a medallion in Westminster Abbey by sculptor Sir Francis Chantrey (below) depicts Young who never visited Egypt in a more modest manner. [Images: Guiseppe Angelelli, private collection – public domain; Sir Francis Chantrey, engraving in George Peacock’s biography of Young – public domain]
A short while after Champollion’s announcement, Young wrote a lengthy letter about the meeting to British antiquarian William Richard Hamilton, who had been responsible for bringing the Rosetta Stone – discovered by the French army in Egypt in 1799 – to the British Museum in 1802. Young began as follows:
I have found here, or rather recovered, Mr. Champollion, junior, who has been living for these ten years on the Inscription of Rosetta, and who has lately been making some steps in Egyptian literature, which really appear to be gigantic. It may be said that he found the key in England which has opened the gate for him, and it is often observed that c’est le premier pas qui coûte [it is the first step which costs]; but if he did borrow an English key, the lock was so dreadfully rusty, that no common arm would have had strength enough to turn it…
