Jean-Francois Champollion

French philologist and orientalist who deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphic writing, publicly announcing the breakthrough in his Lettre a M. Dacier, read to the Paris Academy on 27 September 1822, after recognizing on 14 September 1822 that a sign group functioned phonetically by comparing hieroglyphic writing with Coptic. His 1824 Precis du systeme hieroglyphique established the decipherment on firmer footing, and he is regarded as the founder of Egyptology, though English polymath Thomas Young's earlier partial advances remain a point of dispute over credit.