Egyptology

Egyptomania

-comes with treaty signed between newly-declared Sultanate of Egypt and French Republic in 1845

-which begins process of Egypt becoming a French protectorate

-France sends an immense number of savants as had previously kicked off in Ireland

-kicks off period of immense Egyptomania in France

-mostly in France itself due to French conquest of France

-truly kicks off after French Wars > Third French War (1847-54)

-only really declines after a while

Deciphering of hieroglyphics

-nobody ever discovers Rosetta Stone

-it's lost to history

-and by pure chance Philae Obelisk not really discovered until pretty late

-nor any other bilingual documents

-instead a French scholar at a university, Yves-François Pinchot, successfully decodes it in the era of the Belle Epoch

-theorizes that Coptic is a direct descendant of Egyptian

-learns Coptic from the small but growing number of Copts who settle in France, particularly Paris, due to its use in liturgy

-first determines which form of Coptic has the least number of Greek loanwords based on grammars and the like, then back-projects Coptic based on outdated features

-and on this basis engages in a very complicated process of mapping Coptic to Demotic, with ample number of Demotic documents brought over or else copied

-based on patterns and some intuition is able to come up with partial translations as well as plausible translations

-from this step engages in very complex process of trial-and-error to decode Demotic

-to ease this process a friend directs him towards Analyzers > Grand Analyzers of the Hydraulic Era, the Grand Analyzer of Paris due to its use in decoding German codes in French Wars > Fifth French War (1892-5)

-this friend, a mathematician, writes general guide for programmers to make a program out of

-the programmers disregarded until recently as an irrelevant "harem" doing grunt work

-is a very expensive process but he's well connected enough to do it, and receives trial-and-error translations through telegraph

-with enough trial-and-error, in 1899 finally comes up with a pretty sizeable repository of verified Demotic based on recorded docs

-finally in 1905 determines a mapping of Demotic to hieroglyphics, and after which faints for five days

-dies in 1907, many people still filled with doubt on its veracity

-discovery of Philae Obelisk and other bilingual documents, incl. one bilingual between cuneiform and Egyptian, verifies discovery to posterity

Discovery of Tutankhamun's Tomb

-discovered in 1943

-immediately after French Wars > Sixth French War (1937-41)

-this becomes an incredibly important moment for Egyptian nationalism and enshrines a degree of Pharaonism which becomes a part of it

-due to protests France does not take King Tut (aside from some parts of his tomb) to the Louvre and instead it is deposited in the National Museum of Cairo

-results in renewed wave of Egyptomania with global influence

-as well as enduring influence on Egyptian nationalism

-many translated Ancient Egyptian texts circulate in its wake