http://tinyurl.com/2tuv75 (calendarlive.com)
"Resistant to artificial barriers and educated in various countries, Young became one of the first truly international scientists, corresponding with experts from all over the world. . . . The best part of the book may be Robinson's detailed tour through the labyrinth of languages and historical misconceptions around that Holy Grail of archeology, the Rosetta Stone. Gradually, Young's insights (and occasional errors) accumulate as he compares the stone's three languages — Greek, Egyptian demotic and Egyptian hieroglyphic. The tragedy of his life may be that, for reasons that Robinson explores at length, the name in your mind's file about the Rosetta Stone is the mellifluous Jean-François Champollion, now considered the founder of Egyptology, instead of Thomas Young."
The Last Man Who Knew Everything - Thomas Young, the Anonymous Genius Who Proved Newton Wrong and Deciphered the Rosetta Stone, Among Other Surprising Feats
By Andrew Robinson
Thomas Young claimed to be the first to decipher the name Ptolemy in a cartouche on the Stone, amongst other words, and some of his findings were documented in a letter, which can be found here:
Thomas Young claimed to be the first to decipher the name Ptolemy in a cartouche on the Stone, amongst other words, and some of his findings were documented in a letter, which can be found here:
A biography of Thomas Young can be found at:
Plume: 304 pp., $15 paper
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