The Keys of Egypt: The Race to Read the Hieroglyphs

If one was writing a biography on Champollion, or doing a thesis on his life, well then this is a great book. If you wanted to know about the Egyptian Hieroglyphs and how they were finally deciphered, or about the history of the ancient Egyptians, this is not the best. This is so long, and so drawn out. SO boringly written and as dry as the Egyptian deserts they write about. THis book in my opinion could be shortened by two thirds. There was way too much background history of Napoleon's battles in Egypt, the political and religious history of the times in France. There was way too much information on too many insignificant characters surrounding Champollion or family members in his life. His father, his brother, his teachers, his rivals, their input and output, the letters to these people back and forth, the petty interactions from his rivals. And on the opposite side, way too little information on the history of Egypt, the language and hieroglyphs. Even the very poor photo section in the center of the book showed us illustrations of these insignificant people, we even get to see their tombs in the cemeteries. Who cares? That photo section should have been glowing with color photos or Egypt, the writings, the tombs and obelisks, not pictures of peoples burial grounds. Gosh, this was so boring I was skipping pages at a time, skimming down pages to get a sentence here or a paragraph there that was interesting. On the whole this was profoundly dull for a very interesting topic. ( )

Reads like a detective novel, as we move briskly along a fascinating journey. ( )

Egyptian language > Writing, Hieroglyphic

Read this one in a week while on vacation. This is a great, informative book, and my only complaint about it is that it showed me how much more I need to learn about the time period and the subject -- which, come to think of it, isn't really a bad thing. ( )

http://www.lonelymountain.net/books/feb04.html#adkinstkoe ( )