Jean-François Champollion

Bonjour! My name is Jean-François Champollion. When I was a little boy living in France, I loved learning new words and new languages. My biggest dream was to understand the beautiful picture-writing from a place called ancient Egypt. These special pictures were called hieroglyphs. For a very long time, nobody knew what the pictures meant. It was a giant secret waiting to be discovered.

One day, I learned about a big clue. It was a large, gray stone called the Rosetta Stone. This stone was very special because it had the same story written on it three times, but in different kinds of writing. One of the writings was in Greek, which I knew how to read. Another was in the secret hieroglyph pictures. I had an idea! I thought if I could match the Greek words to the pictures, I could finally solve the puzzle. I worked for many, many years on this puzzle. I spent my days drawing the little birds, lions, and squiggly lines I saw, trying to figure out what sounds they made.

Then, in the year 1822, I did it! I figured out the secret of the hieroglyphs. I was so excited and happy. Because I solved the puzzle, everyone could now read the amazing stories that the ancient Egyptians wrote on the walls of their temples and on tall monuments. I even got to visit Egypt and read the picture-writing for myself. I lived to be 41 years old. People remember me as the person who unlocked the language of ancient Egypt, so their wonderful stories could be shared with everyone, even you.