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[[File: Rosetta_Stone_London.jpg|300px|thumbnail|left|The Rosetta Stone in the British Museum, London]]
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Today, Egyptology – the study of ancient Egyptian history, culture, and language – is a worldwide discipline studied and taught at major universities on nearly every continent. It has evolved from a more esoteric study known only to elites in a handful of schools and museums in Europe to something much more global that is accessible to a wider range of people, which has come to influence many aspects of modern society. The very definition of Egyptology and what makes one an Egyptologist has also changed over the last 200 years because it involves a variety of sub-disciplines that include but are not limited to some of the following: archaeology, art history, history/chronology, and philology. Essentially, Egyptology is a modern study that can trace its roots to the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century.
===Early Interest in Ancient Egypt===
[[File: Pyramids.jpg|300px|thumbnail|rightleft|250px|“Pyramids of Gerzah” Lithograph by David Roberts, 1838-9]]
Although the ancient Egyptians wrote about their own history, the first true critical analysis of ancient Egyptian history was conducted by the early Greek and Roman historians and geographers. The fifth century Greek historian, Herodotus, is perhaps best known for the in-depth treatment he gave to pharaonic history in Book II of <i>The Histories</i>, which influenced others, such as Diodorus and Strabo, to follow with their own observations of the Nile Valley. The accuracy of the classical accounts of ancient Egyptian history could vary widely. The further back in time the accounts went, the more likely that the chronologies were garbled and facts were simply wrong. The reason for these problems is directly related to the fact that even the most educated Greeks and Romans never took the time to learn the ancient Egyptian language so they were often forced to rely on the Egyptian priests for translations and explanations of texts. The priests were only human, which meant that some parts of Egyptian history were sacrificed for others they believed more important. <ref> Krebsbach, Jared. “Herodotus, Diodorus, and Manetho: An Examination of the Influence of Egyptian Historiography on the Classical Historians.” <i>New England Classical Journal.</i> 41 (2014) pgs. 98-99</ref> The classical historians were able to more critically examine events closer to their own period, though, because many of those events were already written about in Greek.
While medieval Europeans viewed ancient Egyptian civilization through the lens of the Bible, but with some emphasis on the culture’s more arcane aspects, the people who lived in the pyramids shadows also offered their explanations for the once seemingly great but lost civilization. The Muslim Arabs who conquered Egypt in AD 642 saw ancient Egyptian monuments and particularly the Pyramids of Giza, as simultaneously being “monuments of ignorance” and therefore an affront to Islam, but also as sources of wisdom and power, During the Middle Ages in the Middle East, a number of fictional tales were written in Arabic and Persian where the Pyramids of Giza played a central role. In one legend, an Egyptian king named Surid was said to have built the pyramids as both a tomb – which was the purpose of pyramids – and as a repository of ancient wisdom. In another Islamic legend, the pyramids were said to be tombs of ancient Yemeni kings. Many medieval Islamic sources also give credence to the legendary figure, Hermes Trismegistus, and how he ordered the construction of the pyramids to preserve ancient esoteric knowledge from floods. <ref> Dykstra, Darell. “Pyramids, Prophets, and Progress: Ancient Egypt in the Writings of ʿAli Mubārak.” <i>Journal of the American Oriental Society</i> 114 (1994) pgs. 57-58</ref> Although medieval Muslims were correctly able to deduce that pyramids were tombs, their lack of understanding of the ancient Egyptian language kept them from understanding the depth of pharaonic civilization.
The curiosity that Europeans felt toward ancient Egypt during the Middle Ages began to evolve into a genuine desire to view pharaonic culture more objectively during the Renaissance. While Renaissance artists were influence by Greek models to create some of the finest pieces of work in the history of Western Civilization, some scholars began looking at ancient Egypt from beyond the perspective of the Bible. By the fifteenth century, most educated Europeans knew that pyramids were used as tombs, not granaries as they had previously believed. <ref> Curran, Brian A. “The Renaissance Afterlife of Ancient Egypt (1400-1650).” In <i>The Wisdom of Ancient Egypt: Changing Visions through the Ages.</i> Edited by Peter Ucko and Timothy Champion. (London: University of London Press, 2003), p. 103</ref> The interest in ancient Egypt began to permeate throughout some of Europe’s oldest universities, but the key to understanding all aspects of pharaonic culture were still unknown – the language. Some Renaissance scholars were able to correctly surmise that the enigmatic hieroglyphic script contained both phonetic and idiomatic elements, but it may as well have been a script from another planet because its decipherment still remained far out of reach. <ref> Curran, p. 108</ref>
===The Enlightenment and Ancient Egypt===
The first legitimate attempts to understand ancient Egyptian civilization objectively came during the period known as the Enlightenment. Many are familiar with the political aspects of the Enlightenment put forth by seventeenth century writer John Locke or eighteenth century writers Voltaire, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, but just as important are the cultural changes during the period. Enlightenment philosophers, historians, and philologists all began to study pre-Hellenic ancient civilizations without the veneer of the Bible. Although they viewed ancient Egypt and the other ancient Near Eastern civilizations as exotic and “other,” these early modern scholars all had a will to understand ancient peoples objectively. <ref> Outram, Dorinda. <i>The Enlightenment.</i> (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 63</ref> It was from within this intellectual milieu that the modern study known as Egyptology made its first true steps.
If one were to identify Egyptology’s first true patron, it would be none other than the conqueror Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon is best known for his rise and fall as a military commander and dictator over much of Europe, which in many ways demonstrates that the French-Corsican commander eschewed many of the Enlightenment’s ideas about democracy and representational government. Although it is true that Napoleon only used the political ideas of the Enlightenment when they were to his advantage, he was a firm believer in the cultural aspects of the Enlightenment as discussed above. Napoleon’s conquest brought the French to Egypt, which they occupied from 1798-1801. Even before he invaded Egypt, Napoleon was awed by Egypt’s legacy so he brought 167 scholars, known as <i>savants</i>, from the Commission of the Sciences and Arts with him during the initial invasion. The <i>savants</i> studied all aspects of Egypt, from the flora and fauna to its history, and compiled all of their findings in a multi-volume work known as <i>Descripton de l’Égypte</i>. The volumes of interest to the proto-Egyptologists of the time were labeled <i>Anitquités</i>, which contained numerous drawings of the monuments with accompanying French text. <ref> Jeffreys, David. “Introduction – Two Hundred Years of Ancient Egypt: Modern History and Ancient Archaeology.” In <i>Viewss Views of Ancient Egypt Since Napoleon Bonaparte: Imperialism, Colonialism, and Modern Appropriations.</i> Edited by David Jeffreys. (Walnut Creek, California: Left Coast Press, 2011), p. 2</ref> Despite the strides that Napoleon’s scholars were quickly making, understanding the ancient Egyptian language was still a stumbling block that needed to be overcome.
===The Discovery and Decipherment of the Rosetta Stone===
A few years after the Rosetta Stone was brought to London, a young polymath named Thomas Young (1773-1829) took up the challenge. He knew that the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt was the modern successor to the ancient Egyptian language and therefore any understanding of Egyptian would be made through Coptic. He also determined correctly that some signs in the hieroglyphic script were phonetic (alphabetic), while others were idiomatic (non-alphabetic). With this knowledge, in 1814, Young was able to decipher the cartouches (names of kings written inside of circle) of King Ptolemy and Queen Bernike and was partially able to make a list of alphabetic signs, but was unable to translate the entire stone. <ref> Reid, p. 41</ref>
While Young was laboring away in England, across the channel in France an equally impressive polyglot named Jean-Francois Champollion (1790-1832) worked equally as furiously to decipher the enigmatic script. Using his background in the Semitic languages of Arabic and Hebrew, Champollion was able to complete a useable translation of the Rosetta Stone’s hieroglyphic lines in 1814. Although there were later found to be problems with some of Champollion’s translations and his theories on Egyptian grammar, his work provided the basis for the modern Egyptological understanding of the ancient Egyptian language and writing. <ref> Griffith, F. “The Decipherment of the Hieroglyphs.” <i>Journal of Egyptian Archaeology.”</i> 37 (1951) pg. 41</ref>
===After the Rosetta Stone===
