– For litt over to hundre år siden, steg interessen for Egypt i Europa. Engelskmenn, franskmenn og også en svenske, strevet for å kunne lese de gamle skriftene som dukket opp på de praktfulle templene langs Nilens bredder. Var hieroglyfene en form for kinesisk? Flere teorier dukket opp, jo flere som interesserte seg for den gamle skriften. Da Rosetta steinen, som nå befinner seg i London, ble funnet, forstod heldigvis de som fant denne at den muligens kunne være til hjelp. Og det ble den, for den hadde gresk og hieroglyfer side om side. Den ble selve nøkkelen.
Likevel krevde det en mester i språk å tyde denne steinen, som senere ville gi verden forståelse for det gamle riket. Denne boken handler om kappløpet mellom språkmestere, samtidig som den gir et innblikk i Napoleons tid. Lesley og Adkins skildrer, beskriver og forteller så fengslende at det er vanskelig å legge boken fra seg. Dette er overhodet ikke tørr historie, men spennende sannhet. Anbefales!
Keys of Egypt
«
‘A fascinating and elegantly written biography of Champollion, doing justice to one of the great stories of academic heroism.’
Simon Singh, Sunday Telegraph‘A fascinating account of the race to unlock the cryptic language of the pharaohs’
»
Giles Milton, Daily Mail
A vivid and superbly written account of the unravelling of one of the great intellectual puzzles, set against the backdop of Europe in the Napoleonic era.
When Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1798, his troops were astonished to discover ancient temples, tombs and statues, all covered with hieroglyphs - the last remnants of an unreadable script and a language lost in time. On their return Egyptomania spread rapidly and the quest to decipher hieroglyphs began in earnest.
Les mer
When Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1798, his troops were astonished to discover ancient temples, tombs and statues, all covered with hieroglyphs - the last remnants of an unreadable script and a language lost in time. On their return Egyptomania spread rapidly and the quest to decipher hieroglyphs began in earnest.
Jean-Francois Champollion was obsessed with ancient languages from a very young age, and once he heard of the unreadable ancient Egyptian text he had found the challenge to which he would dedicate his life: the decipherment of hieroglyphs. Despite poverty he made gradual progress, although he had to fight against jealous enemies, both professional and political, every step of the way - a dangerous task when in post-Revolutionary France a slip of the tongue could mean ruin, exile or even death.
Failure threatened, as he was only one of many attempting to read the hieroglyphs, and his main rival, the English Thomas Young, claimed that decipherment was imminent, but Champollion refused to be distracted and finally, in 1822, he made the decisive breakthrough: he was the first person able to read the ancient Egyptian language in well over a thousand years.
Medlemsvurdering:
For litt over to hundre år siden, steg interessen for Egypt i Europa. Engelskmenn, franskmenn og også en svenske, strevet for å kunne lese de gamle skriftene som dukket opp på de praktfulle templene langs Nilens bredder. Var hieroglyfene en form for kinesisk? Flere teorier dukket opp, jo flere som interesserte seg for den gamle skriften. Da Rosetta steinen, som nå befinner seg i London, ble funnet, forstod heldigvis de som fant denne at den muligens kunne være til hjelp. Og det ble den, for den hadde gresk og hieroglyfer side om side. Den ble selve nøkkelen.
Likevel krevde det en mester i språk å tyde denne steinen, som senere ville gi verden forståelse for det gamle riket. Denne boken handler om kappløpet mellom språkmestere, samtidig som den gir et innblikk i Napoleons tid. Lesley og Adkins skildrer, beskriver og forteller så fengslende at det er vanskelig å legge boken fra seg. Dette er overhodet ikke tørr historie, men spennende sannhet. Anbefales!Litteraturelsker
Detaljer
- Forlag
- HarperCollins
- Innbinding
- Paperback
- Språk
- Engelsk
- ISBN
- 9780006531456
- Utgivelsesår
- 2001
- Format
- 20 x 13 cm
Om forfatteren
have just completed The Little Book of Egyptian Hieroglyphs. They also run a colour picture library specialising in archaeology and history. Lesley and Roy recently moved to Devon, where they are embarking on the restoration of an extensive garden.
Anmeldelser
«
‘A fascinating and elegantly written biography of Champollion, doing justice to one of the great stories of academic heroism.’
Simon Singh, Sunday Telegraph‘A fascinating account of the race to unlock the cryptic language of the pharaohs’
»
Giles Milton, Daily Mail