Cracking a Three-Thousand-Year Code

Champollion's breakthrough came when he realized hieroglyphics were not purely symbolic but contained phonetic elements — signs that stood for sounds. The royal cartouche of Ptolemy gave him the first confirmed sound values.

The impact of decipherment reached far beyond academics. Suddenly the voices of ancient Egyptians could be heard directly — their love poems ("I found my brother in his bed, and my heart was sweet to excess"), their legal contracts, their letters, and their everyday complaints.