Hieroglyphics.- Champollion (Jean Francois) Precis du Systeme Hieroglyphique des Anciens Egyptiens

Hieroglyphics.- Champollion (Jean Francois) Precis du Systeme Hieroglyphique des Anciens Egyptiens, 2 parts in 1, first edition, half-title, 48 lithograph plates, some folding, some foxing, specially bound for Pope Leo XII in contemporary red straight-grain morocco, the covers with his gilt arms in centre within elaborate gilt border and fillet, spine richly gilt with dark green morocco label, blue glazed endpapers, uncut and partly unopened, spine ends very slightly rubbed, preserved in modern velvet-lined morocco slip-case, 8vo, Paris, Strasburg & London, Chez Treuttel et Wurtz, 1824.*** A stunning copy of Champollion's landmark work on the deciphering of hieroglyphs from the Rosetta Stone, establishing him as the father of scientific Egyptology.In this remarkable work the author describes, step by step, with numerous examples and details, the method he followed to discover and document the three aspects of hieroglyphics: the phonogram images, the figurative representations, and the symbolic representations.Pope Leo XII was an active supporter of Champollion's endeavors to decipher hieroglyphs. Champollion (1790-1832) was an extraordinary philologist, who, by the age of sixteen, besides Greek and Latin, had mastered six ancient Middle Eastern languages, among these Coptic, the knowledge of which, unlike that of Egyptian, had never been lost. Champollion recognised the connection between the Coptic and the Egyptian language, and was able to identify many of the Egyptian words on the Rosetta Stone, as he could read them with their Coptic equivalents. He was the first to believe that both Demotic and hieroglyphs represented symbols, and not sounds as earlier presumed. After that he quickly realised that each single hieroglyph could represent a sign, and he began compiling a hieroglyphic alphabet.