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. On their return Egyptomania spread rapidly and the quest to decipher hieroglyphs began in earnest. 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. (Oct.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. Savvy booksellers will piggyback the Adkinses' book onto that one. More satisfied will be the novices turned on to ancient Egypt by the promotion around Abrams's Valley of the Golden Mummies. There is a solid core of readers interested in ancient Egypt and hieroglyphs who will grab this book, but they will be disappointed. The authors, in fact, never indicate what sources they utilized for this study. Their description of the French occupation of Egypt at the time that the Rosetta Stone was discovered is superficial and fails to take into account some of the more recent scholarship on the subject. They maintain, rather inaccurately, that Champollion has not received due recognition, which they feel has instead gone to Young. The authors focus primarily on the life and education of Champollion, his extraordinary linguistic skills and his competition with Englishman Thomas Young, who was also seeking to decipher hieroglyphs. Instead of approaching the subject matter with new questions and fresh analysis, the authors' predictable narrative adds little to our knowledge of either the French polyglot Jean-Fran ois Champollion (1790-1832), the genius who deciphered the stone, or of the decipherment process itself. Disappointingly, the Adkinses, though experienced writers and consultants on archaeology, don't make the grade in this bland, lackluster account. Set against a background of academic intrigue and international rivalry, with colorful personalities vying to be the first to unveil the meaning behind ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the story of the decipherment of the Rosetta Stone has all the ingredients of a dramatic scientific quest.
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