Chapter 5 5

Champollion wrote an article after reading the original "Old Testament" when he was 12 years old, arguing that only a republic is a reasonable form of state.Champollion, who grew up under the influence of the social trend of thought at that time, was paving the way for an enlightened new century and at the same time preparing the strength for the French Revolution, he was disgusted with the emerging autocratic system.With frequent transfers, autocratic rule developed invisibly, and it became public when Napoleon proclaimed himself emperor.Unlike his elder brother, Champollion did not fall under the banner of Napoleon.

After Champollion became an Egyptian archaeologist, with a strong desire for freedom, he raised the banner of righteousness and participated in the battle against Granoble.He tore down the lily flag from the tower and erected the tricolor flag.After that, Napoleon's army swept across Europe, and the tricolor flag flew in front of the army for 15 years. Champollion returned to Grannoble again, and on July 10, 1809, he was hired as professor of history at the university.He was only 19 years old that year, and many of the young people who listened to his lectures were his classmates in public schools two years ago.It is understandable that he is easy to make enemies like this.Sure enough, soon he was plotted against by the partners of certain older professors, who were less educated than Champollion, and who had been insulted by him unintentionally.

What's more, the thinking of this young history professor is so weird!He publicly stated that the highest ideal of historical research is to seek truth, and his concept of truth is very unique, that is, he seeks absolute truth, not the truth stipulated by the rulers of the Bonaparte or Bourbon dynasties.In order to achieve this ideal, he demanded academic freedom at a time when academia was heavily restricted by various political prohibitions.He believes that historians should ignore the powerful.The slogans of liberty, which had been chanted from the rooftops by the fanatical masses at the beginning of the revolution, were now constantly being trampled underfoot, and he demanded that they be preserved.

Such political views naturally caused conflicts among a group of lu beetles under Champollion at the same time.Despite setbacks from time to time, his faith never wavered.At such moments, he would mention an idea to his brother, which may have come from Voltaire's "Candide", but as an oriental scholar, Champollion felt that the expression in an oriental religious book More agreeable: "Cultivate your fields! Zender-Assinstad said: Cultivating 6 acres of wasteland is better than winning 24 battles. My opinion is the same." At this time, Champollion was confused by the intrigue within the college. Embarrassed and depressed, the professors conspired to cut Champollion's salary by a quarter.He wrote: "My destiny is settled. I must be as poor as the ancient Greek philosopher Diogenes, and I must try to buy a vat for shelter and a sack to wear around me, so that I may hope to rely on live on the charity of the Athenians."

He wrote some articles satirizing Napoleon.But after the fall of Napoleon and the invasion of Granoble by the allied forces on April 19, 1814, Champollion did not believe that there would be a strict legal system to replace the tyranny of the Bonapartist dynasty, and he believed that even in the future this hope is very small. slim. Although Champollion was very concerned about political and scientific freedom, his enthusiasm for the study of ancient Egypt never diminished. Various problems distracted him, some of which were of little importance, but he continued to produce amazing results.

He compiled a Coptic dictionary for his own consultation, and also wrote plays which were performed in several theaters in Grannoble, one of which was the story of Ingenia.According to the French tradition initiated by the 12th-century writer Peter Abela, Champollion often wrote some political ballads, and every time he wrote a song, he was immediately recited by the masses in the streets.Meanwhile, he continued his main work, which was to delve ever deeper into the mysteries of Egypt.No matter how loud the shouts of "Long live the Emperor!" and "Long live the King!He wrote countless essays, and made writing outlines for the authors. Many people asked him for advice on creation, and he never refused. These mediocre students took up a lot of his energy.These onerous burdens slowly wore him down.He wrote in December 1816: "The Coptic dictionary is getting thicker every day, but the author of the dictionary is getting thinner." When he saw that the dictionary had compiled 1069 pages and the main work had not yet been completed, he He let out a long sigh.

The Hundred Days Restoration followed, and Europe once again came under Napoleon's rule.In an instant, the persecuted become the persecutors.The ruler becomes the ruled, the flamboyant king becomes a refugee.Champollion was too excited to do anything else. "Napoleon is coming back!" everyone was saying.The attitude of the newspapers in Paris is shameless and stern.The headlines in these newspapers are typical of lies, and they reflect the character of this chameleon.At the beginning, one of the news headlines was "The monster is out of the cage", and then developed into "The wolf monster landed in Kans", "The tyrant is now in Lyon", "The usurper is 60 hours away from the capital", "Approached by Nabal at full speed" , "Napoleon will come to Paris tomorrow", but in the end it became "His Majesty the Emperor is coming to Fontainebleau".

On March 7, Napoleon led his army into Gran Noble.He took the lead and knocked on the city gate with his snuffbox, the light of the torch shining on his face.Napoleon was fully aware of the dramatic role he played in this historic scene. He stood alone for a moment facing the cannon on the top of the city, which was a hair-raising moment.The gunners on the top of the city ran around.Then "Long live Napoleon" shouted loudly, "When you enter the city, you are still an adventurer, but when you leave the city, you are already an emperor."Gran Noble is the capital of the Dauphiny Province, and it is also a must-see place on the way to victory in Napoleon's counterattack.

■Meeting of the two Egyptian conquerors Champollion's elder brother, Fizik, had already publicly expressed his support for Napoleon, and he was particularly active at this time.When Napoleon was looking for a capable private secretary, the mayor brought Fizik and specially changed his surname to "Shangpoleon".The emperor said happily: "This is really a good omen! Half of his surname is the same as mine!" Champollion was present when the emperor summoned Fizik.Napoleon asked what the young professor was doing and learned that he was writing a Coptic dictionary and grammar.Champollion himself was calm, but the emperor greatly appreciated this childish scholar, talked with him for a long time, and promised him in the emperor's tone that his Coptic works would be published in Paris in the future. .Unsatisfied, Napoleon went to the university library to visit Champollion the next day, and talked with the young professor again about his research work in language.

This is the meeting of the two conquerors of Egypt.One included the hometown of the Nile River in his plan to conquer the world, and planned to build a huge irrigation system to restore Egypt's economy; The ancient ruins have been observed a thousand times and will one day bring their lore back to life.After seeing Champollion, Napoleon's imagination was greatly inspired by the emperor, so he announced on the spot that he would make Coptic the official language of Egypt from now on. But Napoleon had a short life, a sudden restoration, and then a sudden downfall.He was exiled to the island of Elba and later buried on St. Helena.

The Bourbons are back in Paris.Their strength is not enough, so they can't take any strong revenge action, but it is obviously necessary to sentence hundreds of people to death.According to the saying at the time, "the order of punishment continued one after another, just like the manna, which was given to the Jews in the Bible, fell on the heads of the Jews." Fizik once entered Paris with Napoleon, completely exposed himself, and must be punished List.The political materials used to punish Fizik treated him as the same as his brother Champollion, which was wrong; however, because a group of people secretly acted out of jealousy for him, they maintained the original proposal without changing it.To make matters worse, at the end of the Hundred Days Restoration, Champollion mistakenly contributed to the creation of the Delphi League, an organization whose purpose was to fight for various liberties.By this time the Delphi League had become a group of serious suspicion.The reason why Champollion made such a serious strategic error was because he was trying to raise a thousand francs to buy a papyrus from ancient Egypt, but this was also impossible at the time. When the Royalists attacked Granoble, Champollion assisted the defenders in the resistance on the walls, completely failing to see which side would bring greater freedom.What was the result?When General Latour ordered the bombardment of Granoble, thus endangering the precious manuscripts of Champollion, the young man, forgetting all politics and war, rushed down the ramparts and up to the third floor of the library.He was there until the shelling stopped.Picking water and sand to extinguish the flames, one man risked his life in the building to preserve his ancient Egyptian papyrus. Champollion finally set about deciphering the hieroglyphs after he was suspended from the university for treason.After a one-and-a-half year suspension, he worked tirelessly again in Paris and Grannoble.Soon the government was preparing to accuse him of treason again, and in July 1821 he fled Granoble, where he had made his journey from student to professor.A year later he published "Letter to M. Dacier Concerning the Pronunciation of Hieroglyphic Letters", a monograph outlining the essentials of a successful deciphering method.Since its publication, it has been commented by many people who are trying to solve the mystery of Egyptian pyramids and temples. ■ Standard mistakes Several ancient writers mentioned hieroglyphs.By the Middle Ages, various interpretations of hieroglyphics had emerged.Herodotus, Stella, and Diodorus all went to Egypt, and they believed that hieroglyphs were an incomprehensible written form of solid representation.In the 4th century BC, Holabolon gave a detailed description of Egyptian writing (the claims of Clement of Alexandria and Porphyry about Egyptian writing cannot be established).Hola Polon's opinion is often regarded as a guide by later generations, because there is no sufficient material as a basis for it, and Hola was considered by Long as pictographs. Therefore, for centuries, people have mainly focused on exploring the symbolic meaning of these graphics.Under the influence of such a tradition, many people make arbitrary guesses regardless of science, while those who want to study are helpless. It wasn't until Champollion translated the hieroglyphs that people realized that Heraporon was terribly wrong.The development of Egyptian characters has actually surpassed the original symbols, such as using three curved lines to represent water, using the plane outline of a house to represent a house, and using a flag to represent gods and so on.Using this method of explaining in form to explain the later developed characters resulted in serious and even absurd mistakes. The Jesuit Athanasios Ketchel, credited with inventing the magic lantern, published a four-volume book in Rome between 1650 and 1654 that contained several so-called "translations" of hieroglyphics ; Comparing with the original text, there is no article that is not wrong.For example, there is a group of symbols representing "dictator", which was originally a title of a Roman emperor, but Ketcher explained that "Osiris is the creator of all plants and fruits; the holy Mofta sent this creative power from heaven. Bring in your own kingdom." Despite the fallacies, Ketchel pioneered Champollion and others in recognizing the importance of the Coptic language.Coptic is the latest form of Egyptian, but some scholars do not acknowledge the importance of studying Coptic. 100 years later, when De Guignes delivered a speech at the Paris Academy of Letters, he proposed a theory based on comparative pictographs that the Chinese were descended from Egyptian immigrants.However, anyone who puts forward such false theories is always right at one point; for example, De Guignes correctly pronounced the name of the Egyptian king "Mannes", while one opponent pronounced it "" Manuf".Voltaire, the sharpest critic at the time, therefore lashed out at certain etymologists, saying that they "neither consonant nor vowel." Human ancestors came from China! One might think that with the advent of the Rosetta Stone, such wild guesses would have died down, but in fact the opposite is true: problems with obvious solvability attract people with no expertise in them.An anonymous author in Dresden read the full text of the Greek corresponding to the broken hieroglyphs on the Rosetta Tablet.An Arab named Ahmad ibn Abu Bakr "revealed" a passage of text, and then Oriental scholar Hamer Bogstall took pains to translate it, and this Scholars are always serious.An unknown Parisian claimed to have identified the hundredth Psalm on an inscription in a temple in Dendera, and a translation of an inscription on the so-called "Pamophilus Obelisk" has appeared in Geneva, which is said to contain It's about "A Report of the Victory of Good over Evil in 4000 BC". At this time, some people have developed to the point of whimsy.Earl Palin showed a rich imagination, and at the same time was very arrogant and stupid. He even claimed to have seen the contents of the Rosetta Stone at a glance.Relying on the theories of Horabolon and Pythagoras and the mystical philosophy of Hebrew, the earl accomplished it in only one night.After 8 days, he published his own translation. He said that by virtue of his quick decision, he "avoided all the mistakes that would inevitably be caused by too much thinking." ■Different methods Although there was a lot of noise around, Champollion ignored it and just patiently arranged, compared and experimented with the materials and moved forward slowly.Then he came across a pedantic pamphlet by Father Dondo de Saint-Nicolas, which said that hieroglyphs were not letters at all, but merely ornamental patterns.Champollion was unmoved.As early as 1815, he wrote in a letter on Hola Pollon: "This book is called Hieroglyphs, but it explains not what we call hieroglyphs, but the very opposite of them. Different carvings of religious symbols, that is, various symbolic patterns used by the Egyptians. My opinion is contrary to that of ordinary people, but my basis comes from Egyptian antiquities. Egyptian religious carvings clearly show the symbols that Hola Polon said, such as Snakes biting swans, eagles in certain poses, rain, headless men, doves, laurel leaves, etc., but true hieroglyphics have no symbolic content." Hieroglyphic writing thus became the concentrated object of various mystical Epicureanisms during these years. It is believed that the theories of Hebrew mysticism, astrology, and gnosis all came from hieroglyphics, just as the theories of agriculture, trade, and administration came from real life. Biblical words appeared in hieroglyphics, and found In addition to Flood literature, even passages in Chaldees, Hebrew, and Chinese are not a problem.Champollion wrote: "It seems as if the Egyptians had absolutely nothing to express in their own language." All these methods of explaining hieroglyphics come from Horaquil to some extent.There is only one real method of deciphering, and it runs counter to Hella Bollon, and Champollion took this path. Great academic discoveries are seldom made on exactly schedule.It is the sum of countless results obtained by the researcher in the process of exercising his mind on a particular problem for a long time. It is the intersection of conscious and unconscious things, conscious observation and unconscious meditation.It is very rare for a brainstorm to happen overnight. Some great discoveries are overshadowed when dissected from their historical background.Looking back after understanding the principles connected with them, many mistakes will appear absurd, many misconceptions will appear to be the result of sheer blindness, and many problems will appear simple.Today it is hard to imagine how much courage Champollion would have had to break away from the tradition of Horabolon and start anew.It must be remembered that there were two important reasons why both the professional researchers and the intelligentsia of the time adhered to the norms of Horapollon. Ritutotle and later theologians venerate the priests of the ancient church in a very similar nature. Second, though some privately may have doubts about Horabolon, they cannot see any other way of treating hieroglyphs than as Kazuo symbols or simplified figures.Unfortunately, on the face of it, the appearance of the hieroglyphs is very convincing.Also, Horapolung lived 1,500 years ago and is closer to late hieroglyphs than modern humans are.If this can be counted to his advantage, it makes his ideas more acceptable.In the eyes of ordinary people, hieroglyphs are nothing but countless shapes, and that's exactly what Halbelong said. Champollion, however, discovered that hieroglyphs were "letters," or more precisely, as he himself initially put it: "not a complete set of alphabets arranged in sequence, but phonetic letters." The exact date is not available, but it should be said that after this discovery, he definitely abandoned the theory of Holabolon.And found the correct way to decipher hieroglyphs.But is this harvest of years of hard work an inspiration? Can it be said that this is the luck brought by a momentary accident?In fact, when Champollion first thought of using hieroglyphs as phonetic letters, he himself immediately rejected the idea; at that time he also regarded the figure of a horned viper as the letter f, and mistakenly believed that there could be no such thing in hieroglyphs. The whole set of pinyin structure.Other people who study hieroglyphs include the Scandinavians Zoega and Akeblad, the Frenchman Desassi and the famous British scholar Thomas Young.They all saw that these ancient Egyptian secular inscriptions on the Rosetta Tablet were a kind of "words made up of the universe", which solved part of the problem, but so far they could not move forward a step. Some stopped there, some stepped backwards, and de Sassi openly admitted that he had completely failed, saying that the hieroglyphs "remain as elusive as Noah's ark." Thomas Young made outstanding achievements in deciphering the ancient Egyptian secular inscription on the Rosetta Tablet because of the method of phonetic alphabet, but he also changed his opinion in 1818; he translated "Ptolemy When writing the hieroglyphs of the word, these words were arbitrarily divided into three categories: letters, monosyllabic words, and disyllabic words. So far it's clear: two different approaches lead to very different results.One approach is represented by the naturalist Thomas Young.He had talent, no doubt about it, but he didn't know much about linguistics.He adopted the method of solving according to the picture, compared and studied the text, and added some things skillfully.Although he translated very few pictographs and did not understand their pinyin meaning at all, Champollion later confirmed that 76 of the 221 sets of words translated by Young were correct, which shows that Young had Extraordinary intuitive understanding.Champollion is proficient in more than a dozen ancient languages. Because he understands Coptic, he is far superior to Thomas Young in exploring the essence of ancient Egyptian.Yang only guessed the meaning of a few single words or letters, but Champollion saw the inner system of language itself.He did not translate a few words piecemeal, but made the ancient Egyptian language readable and mastered. After finding the basic principles, he immediately saw that the deciphering work must be done by the names of several kings; But it was an idea he had been brewing for a long time. Why must it be from the name of the king?As mentioned above, the inscription on the Rosetta Tablet is a notice expressed in three languages, and the content is about the sacred honor bestowed by the church on Ptolemy Echinphanes.The Greek in it, which is directly readable, makes this clear; among some of the hieroglyphs there is an oval circle: inscribed in it are several symbols which were later thought to be a decoration. It can be seen that in the entire inscription, only this kind of decoration is used to express emphasis. It is reasonable to think that the symbol inside is the name of the king written in Egyptian, because only the name of the king should be special. of.It is also conceivable that any person with general knowledge can find several letters (archaic letters) that make up the universe of "Ptolemy" and recognize which are the pictographic symbols representing these eight letters. ■Unlocking the Doors of Ancient Egyptian Culture Any great discovery seems simple in hindsight. For 1400 years, the study of Egyptian writing has been smothered by the traditional concepts of Holabronn; therefore, Champollion's opening of the stream is an extraordinary achievement. It is confirmed in the inscription on the obelisk.This tablet was transported to England by archaeologist Banks in 1821. It is also engraved with hieroglyphs and Greek, which is equal to the second Rosetta tablet.Similarly, there is also a decorative pattern engraved with the name of Ptolemy in the text; there is also a set of hieroglyphs, which are determined to be "Cleopatra" in Egyptian after comparison with the Greek inscription.Champollion arranged these groups of symbols up and down and wrote them down, as shown in the figure below. It can be clearly seen that the second, fourth and fifth symbols representing the word "Cleopatra" correspond to the fourth, third and first symbols of the hieroglyphs of "Ptolemy", so that The key to deciphering hieroglyphics was found, and this is the key to unlocking all the doors of ancient Egyptian culture. Modern people understand that hieroglyphs are a very complex and ever-changing writing system.It is a matter of course for modern students to learn pictographs, but this is the research result of Champollion's great efforts on the basis of original ideas.Despite Champollion's achievements in understanding hieroglyphics, it was difficult at the time because of the many variants of pictographs that have emerged over 3,000 years.Modern people are well aware of these variants, of the "archaic" Egyptian as distinct from the "new", which in turn differs from the "modern", but no one knew of these changes before Champollion; even Some scholars made a discovery and translated a word, but they were at a loss for the next word.People without special knowledge today know that the first decorative letter of medieval writing is just a letter, and there is absolutely no more meaning, but medieval writing belongs to the same category as modern culture, and the gap in time is not enough 1,000 years, and the original hieroglyphics, but an ever-evolving set of scripts, are the 3,000-year-old product of a completely alien culture. Today it is not difficult to distinguish which are pictographs, which are signifiers and determiners, and this is the first step in understanding pictographs.Today we see some words read from right to left, some from left to right, and some from top to bottom, we are no longer surprised.Scholars such as Rossellini in Italy, Limans in the Netherlands, De Rougier in France, Lepsias and Bruggesch in Germany have all made discoveries one after another.Tens of thousands of ancient papyrus documents were shipped to Europe, and later experts have been able to successfully read the long inscriptions from tombs, steles and temples.After Champollion's death (1836-1841), his "Egyptian Grammar" was published in Paris, and then successively published the first Evan dictionary compiled by later generations, "Comments", "Inscriptions" and other books.These and the results of continued research made it possible for later Egyptologists not only to read, but also to write ancient Egyptian texts.The Egyptian Hall at the Crystal Palace in Hidenham has the names of Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Alfred, engraved in hieroglyphs.The dedication to the courtyard of the Egyptian Museum in Berlin is also written in ancient Egyptian.Lepsias erected a monument on a pyramid in Giza, Egypt, on which he wrote the name of Frederick William IV, the sponsor of his expedition, in ancient script. Scholars who are buried in their studies often cannot get first-hand information to prove their theories.Some places have been wandering for decades, but have no chance to see them in person. Champollion made extraordinary achievements in theory, but he did not excavate ancient cultural relics in the field.However, he actually went to Egypt in person, so that his study theory was verified by reality.Champollion has studied the history and topography of ancient Egypt since he was young. Over the years, despite the lack of data, he has verified the time and place of making many ancient statues and inscriptions. Forced to imagine.When Champollion came to Egypt, it was like a zoologist who restored the body of a dinosaur with bone roads and fossils, and then suddenly returned to the self-care period to stand in front of the living dinosaur. ■Victorious March Champollion led the expedition to Egypt from July 1828 to December 1829. This was a successful march.At this time, except for the French officials, the Egyptians had long forgotten that Champollion had been accused of "treason".Local residents flocked to visit this "person who can understand ancient steles".Champollion was warmly welcomed by the Egyptians, which greatly moved the expedition team. They sang the Marseillaise and the song of freedom in "Peditch's Hunting House" for the governor of Grigor Province, Mohamed Bey.But these Frenchmen also did some practical work in addition to their high spirits: Champollion made discoveries one after another, and many of his ideas were confirmed everywhere.As for the ancient architectural remains of Memphis, he can identify the era of their construction at a glance.He found two temples and an ancient tomb in Rit Laina, and when he found the ancient royal family's surname Onnos in Saqqara, he immediately concluded that this was the earliest Egyptian royal family.A few years later, Mariette (French Egyptologist, 1821-1881) made great achievements in Saqqara archeology. To the great delight of Champollion, six years earlier, a vision which had been ridiculed by the entire Egyptian committee, had now been proved to be correct: at Dendera, where the ships of the expedition On the port, there is a temple built by successive emperors.The Twelfth Dynasty of the Middle Kingdom built the Dendera Temple, and Tothemis III, Ramses, the hero of the New Kingdom, and his successors also sent people to repair it, as well as the Ptolemaic Dynasty and later Rome The conquerors Augustus and Nerva, and finally Domitian and Turalyon built the gates and walls. On May 25, 1799, Napoleon's army arrived in Dendera after a arduous march. When they saw this majestic relic, the whole army was amazed.General Desai led the whole army to pursue the Mamluks, and stopped here temporarily in order to appreciate the luxurious buildings left by the ancient emperors.Champollion had already known the monument in detail through documents, pictures and reproductions of engravings, and now he was finally there.It was a clear, Egyptian night with a full moon in the sky. The 15 members of the expedition begged the captain to allow them to go ashore.Seeing that they could not be stopped, Chambo led everyone into the temple. "If the Egyptians saw us," he wrote, "we would have taken us for Bedouins, and the Europeans might have thought we were a group of armed Carths. meeting monks." Roth, who participated in the tour, recalled the experience at that time with great excitement: "We ran through a coconut grove in a panic, it was a fairyland under the moonlight! Then there was a piece of tall grass, thorns and bushes. Go back No? No, we don't want to go back. Go forward? We don't know the way at all, we shouted loudly, only a few dogs barked in the distance. Then we saw a thin and wiry farmer sleeping under a tree, There is a wooden stick beside him, and several pieces of black rags are wrapped around his body. He looks three parts human and seven parts ghost." Champollion called him "a walking mummy". "He stood up when he saw us, frightened to death, thinking that he must die... After walking for another two hours, the monastery finally appeared in front of us. Under the soft moonlight, it is really an intoxicating picture... Before we arrived, we sang a few songs on the way to ease our anxiety, but now we are standing in front of the temple gate, it is bathed in a holy In the moonlight, the scenery is really heart-stirring!Thick columns support the hall, below is a silent, dreamlike and mysterious realm, but outside is the dazzling moonlight, what a strange and wonderful contrast! " "We used dry grass to light a spring fire in the temple, and the light of the fire once again brought us a burst of joy. We were so intoxicated, and no one was overjoyed... This is a magical picture, full of dreamy colors, but It is the reality beneath the mansion of Dendera." How did Champollion report on this trip?Others call him "Master", and his steady narrative tone is in line with this identity, but people can feel the surging passion from his calm diction.He wrote: "I don't want to describe how impressive this temple is, especially the columned portico in the temple. The size of the building is measured, but it is impossible to explain the whole of the temple. It is magnificent. The perfect combination of majesty and majesty. We happily looked inside for two hours. We asked the poor peasant as a guide, walked all over the halls of the temple, and looked at the inscriptions outside by moonlight." This is the first well-preserved large-scale Egyptian temple that Champollion saw.From the notes he wrote that night and later, it can be seen how much he devoted himself to the study of ancient Egypt.He had prepared so well in his imagination and mind for what he saw that day that nothing surprised him when he saw it.Everything in front of him confirmed what he had already thought.Some of the companions were very knowledgeable, but not as agile as him. They were all surprised by Champollion's knowledge.Most of the expedition members saw the temples, gates, columns, and inscriptions as dead stone carvings, inanimate objects commemorating the past, which, to the expedition leader, were part of a living scene. All the staff led by Champollion had their hair shaved, wore a large Muslim headscarf, a jacket embroidered with gold, and yellow leather boots.“We dressed up like we were serious,” says Roth. But Champollion had no such tongue-in-cheek attitude about the attire.For many years he was called "Egyptian" in Grannoble and Paris, and he always dressed in Egyptian clothes, as if he had lived in this Nile country from his childhood, and this was obvious to his friends. During this trip to Egypt, Champollion did a lot of work explaining ancient sites and deciphering ancient texts.He is often awakened, and new insights are always emerging.He announced a discovery that surpassed the Egyptian Commission: the temple was not the Temple of Isis, as the Egyptian Commission had said, but the Temple of Hessor, the goddess of love.Is it "extremely ancient" as the committee said?The building in the temple was actually finalized by the Ptolemy dynasty, and the Romans renovated it after that.Even though it looked imposing in the moonlight, Champollion saw that the temple was "certainly worthy of being an architectural masterpiece", but that the carvings were "very poor in style".He wrote: "Let the committee take no offense: I think the Dendera temple reliefs are very bad. This is necessary, because they are the work of a period of decline, when the art of sculpture is decayed, and the art of architecture as mathematics is a It is relatively stable, so the architecture of this temple does not disgrace the gods of Egypt, and it is worthy of the admiration of later generations." Champollion died three years later, a great loss for the fledgling Egyptology.Immediately after Champollion's death, British and German scholars attacked his views.They blindly dismiss Champollion's method of deciphering ancient texts as a work of fantasy, completely disregarding the recognized achievements of this method of translation.But Champollion received strong support from the German scholar Richard Lepsias. In 1866, Lepsias discovered the Edict of Canopsis, which was written in both the secular Egyptian hieroglyphs and Greek.The results of careful research fully confirmed Champollion's theory. In 1896, Sir Peter Le Paige Ranoff gave a due and lofty evaluation of Champollion in his speech at the Royal Society of London. At this time, Champollion had died 64 years ago. Champollion solved the mystery of ancient Egyptian writing, and the long-term excavation work can begin from now on.