A child prodigy, a teenage professor fluent in several languages, Champollion
seemed set to succeed in any field he entered, and it was Egyptology that became
his obsession. Andrew Robinson arrived at Hay Festival equipped with a
slideshow to explain how the hieroglyphics went from a series of beautiful
images to an understandable language, thanks to the work of Champollion.
Jean-François Champollion died at the young age of forty-one, but achieved a
great deal before then. Robinson took the audience through Champollion’s
successes and failures in an entertaining way, showing paintings, sketches and
the hieroglyphs themselves on a large screen. The story was an intimate one,
both in biography and detail, with the inclusion of personal sketches
Champollion had made of his sleeping quarters during his time in Egypt.
Champollion’s death at a young age simply to the mystery as the
audience marvelled at what he achieved during his short life. Robinson explains how
Champollion had flaws, and even mistook some of the deciphers but “he got
the essence of the system right.”
If you missed this you may enjoy Event 314 Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918
and How it Changed the World at 11.30pm, on Friday, 1 June.