Publishers Weekly
08/09/2021
When the Rosetta Stone was discovered by French soldiers in 1799, “the first guesses were that it might take two weeks to decipher,” according to this stimulating history of a linguistic puzzle that took 20 years to solve. Journalist Dolnick (The Seeds of Life) reveals that Thomas Young (1773–1829) and Jean-François Champollion (1790–1832), the two “rival geniuses” who “did the most to crack the code,” had both been child prodigies and possessed “an uncanny flair for languages,” but were “opposites in nearly every other regard.” Polymath Young made contributions to the fields of physics, medicine, and linguistics, while Champollion “cared about Egypt and only about Egypt.” Though Champollion was the first to truly “read” the language of hieroglyphs, in the 1820s, Young made a key breakthrough in 1816, when he proposed that one grouping on the Rosetta Stone spelled out the name Ptolemy (Champollion insisted that he had come to the same conclusion independently). Dolnick lucidly explains the complex steps taken to decipher the relic, and offers brisk and enlightening history lessons on the first appearances of written language, Roman emperor Constantine’s conversion to Christianity in the fourth century, the Scientific Revolution, and Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt. The result is an immersive and knowledgeable introduction to one of archaeology’s greatest breakthroughs. Illus. Agent: Flip Brophy, Sterling Lord Literistic. (Oct.)
From the Publisher
Masterful. . . . The Writing of the Gods is an engrossing account of one of the greatest breakthroughs in archaeological history, one that brought a dead language, and a buried culture, back to life.” —Christian Science Monitor
"Dolnick exuberantly captures the frustrations and triumphs of scholars as they puzzle out the meaning of long-dead runes." —New York Times Book Review
"An entertaining account of a great intellectual achievement." —The Economist
“Dolnick treats [Young and Champollion's] efforts like a thriller. . . . entertaining." —Minneapolis Star Tribune
"[Dolnick] has a remarkable ability to explain and contextualize complex topics and create compelling, lucid nonfiction narratives. . . . Dolnick brings this period of history to life in the same way the Rosetta Stone revived ancient Egypt." —BookPage (starred review)
"Stimulating. . . . an immersive and knowledgeable introduction to one of archaeology’s greatest breakthroughs." —Publishers Weekly
"A fast-paced intellectual adventure. . . . Highly recommended." —Library Journal
Library Journal
10/01/2021
The year 2022 will mark the bicentennial of the modern decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphic writing, which unlocked many aspects of that ancient civilization. This new volume by journalist Dolnick (The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World) is an account of the breakthrough. He explains that its key was the 1799 discovery at Rashid (called Rosetta by Europeans) in the Nile Delta of a broken stela, by soldiers from Napoléon's army. The Rosetta Stone, as it has come to be called in the Western world, bears a trilingual text in ancient Greek and Egyptian demotic and hieroglyphic. Copies of the text were made and disseminated among European scholars to attempt to decipher the two Egyptian inscriptions. Dolnick focuses particularly on the intense rivalry between two of those savants: Englishman Thomas Young (1773–1829) and Frenchman Jean-François Champollion (1790–1832). Both compared royal names appearing in the stone's Greek and hieroglyphic texts and discovered that hieroglyphs weren't just ideograms but representations of sounds. For more on Champollion, one might seek out Andrew Robinson's outstanding biography Cracking the Egyptian Code. VERDICT Dolnick presents a fast-paced intellectual adventure for general readers that surveys the invention of writing and the processes of deciphering and decoding. Highly recommended for anyone who relishes challenging puzzles.—Edward K. Werner, formerly at St. Lucie Cty. Lib. Syst., FL
Kirkus Reviews
2021-10-20
The story of the Rosetta Stone’s discovery and decoding.
Today, the Rosetta Stone occupies such a prominent role in public interest—not unlike Stonehenge or the Egyptian pyramids—that its actual significance can easily get lost amid the crowds of tourists clamoring for a view. In his latest book, Dolnick, former chief science writer for the Boston Globewho has written for a wide variety of publications, offers a strong corrective, describing not only how the Rosetta Stone was found, but also how, over several long decades, it was deciphered. He creates an engaging portrait of the two men—Jean-François Champollion and Thomas Young—who were mainly responsible for cracking the code of Egyptian hieroglyphs. For centuries, those hieroglyphs had been unreadable. Dolnick provides an exciting narrative of the journey to legibility, and he effectively describes why it was such an important—and excruciating—process. However, the author sometimes goes awry when he strains too hard for wittiness—e.g., describing ancient Alexandria as “Paris to Rome’s Podunk.” Worse are the banalities that stud Dolnick’s analyses. “If you pull the camera back far enough,” he writes, “all cultures look the same. People meet and fall in love; they boast and puff themselves up; they mock their rivals; they pray to their god, or a host of gods; they fear death. The details make all the difference.” Accessibility is no crime, of course, but the author’s desire to make the book accessible to everyone leads him to oversimplify his subject with labored asides: “Imagine how much harder crossword puzzles would be if the answers could be in any language including dead ones.” Despite these flaws, Dolnick makes complicated linguistic challenges not only comprehensible, but also especially vivid for readers new to the subject, and, as in his previous books, his enthusiasm is infectious.
A largely engaging yet sometimes pedestrian look at language and the limits of what we can understand.
