During theFrench Campaign in Egypt, theRosetta Stone was discovered and transported toCairo for examination by scholars.[1] Jean-Joseph Marcel, who was also a gifted linguist, is credited as the first person to recognise that the middle text of the Rosetta Stone, originally guessed to beSyriac, was in fact the Egyptiandemotic script, rarely used for stone inscriptions and therefore seldom seen by scholars at that time.[2] It was Marcel, along with the artist and inventorNicolas-Jacques Conté, who figured out a way to use the Stone as aprinting block.[2][3] The prints that were made were circulated to scholars in Europe,[4] who started the work of translating the texts, which culminated just over 20 years later, whenJean-François Champollion deciphered the Egyptian texts in 1822.
When he returned toFrance, on 1 January 1803, Marcel was appointed the Director of the Imperial Press, where he remained until 1815. In 1805, during a visit byPope Pius VII, he had theLord's Prayer printed in one hundred and fifty languages in the Pope's presence, under the titleOratio Dominica.[5] At the time of the conquest ofAlgeria in 1830, he published anArabic-French dictionary.[6]
^Adkins, Lesley and Roy,The Keys to Egypt: The Obsession to Decipher Egyptian Hieroglyphs. p.35 Harper Collins. 2000.ISBN0-06-019439-1
^abParkinson, Richard.The Rosetta Stone: British Museum Objects in Focus. p.27 The British Museum Press. 2005.ISBN978-0-7141-5021-5
^Adkins, Lesley and Roy,The Keys to Egypt: The Obsession to Decipher Egyptian Hieroglyphs. p.38 Harper Collins. 2000.ISBN0-06-019439-1
^C. C. Gillispie, "Historical introduction" in C. C. Gillispie, M. Dewachter, edd.,Monuments of Egypt: the Napoleonic edition (Princeton, 1987) pp. 1-38
^A. Taillefer, "Notice historique et biographique sur J.J. Marcel (1776-1854)",Revue de l'Orient, de l'Algérie et des colonies; obituary,Bulletin des actes de la Société orientale, algériene et coloniale de la France, vol. XVI, October 1854, p. 316-325, both cited by Yves Laissus.
^Edouard de Villiers du Terrage,Journal et souvenirs sur l'expédition d'Égypte, mis en ordre et publiés par le baron Marc de Villiers du Terrage, Paris, E. Plon, Nourrit, 1899, etL'expédition d'Égypte 1798-1801, Journal et souvenirs d'un jeune savant, Paris, Cosmopole, 2001 et 2003, p. 373
"Notice nécrologique et littéraire sur M. J.J. Marcel ... ancien directeur de l'imprimerie impériale, etc. par M. Belin, drogman chancelier, interprète en chef de l'armée d'Orient" inJournal asiatique, 5th ser. vol. 3 (1854) pp. 553–562Online text
