Chairman : Vinciane Pirenne-Delforge
In September 1822, the publication of Lettre à M. Dacier marked a fundamental step in the long road that led Jean-François Champollion to the deciphering of the hieroglyphs : in it, he emphasized the essential role played by a " phonetic alphabet " in the writing of the ancient Egyptians, and asserted - without yet proving - that this was in no way a Greek innovation. This landmark statement contains little insight into the workings of the hieroglyphic system as a whole. It also exposes its author to accusations of appropriating a discovery that his English rival Thomas Young claims as his own. In the months and years that followed, the French scholar had to prove that his decipherment was based on a methodology unrivalled by that of his competitors, and that it opened the door to an understanding of all ancient Egyptian texts. From then on, from the 1824 Précis du système hiéroglyphique to the Grammaire published posthumously in 1836, via letters to supporters and detractors alike, Champollion set out to justify, demonstrate and refine, against the test of written evidence collected on Egyptian antiquities, the " principles " that underpin his " general theory of the hieroglyphic system ".
A former student at the École normale supérieure, agrégé de lettres classiques and former scientific member of the Institut français d'archéologie orientale (IFAO) in Cairo, Laurent Coulon is currently Director of Studies at the École pratique des hautes études, PSL, in the Religion of Ancient Egypt chair, and Director of the IFAO in Cairo since 2019. His work focuses on the history of Egyptian religion, through the study of the cult of Osiris in the 1st millennium BC, particularly within the temple of Karnak. His research also focuses on Pharaonic court society and the role played by oratory and literature.
