French prodigy and scholar from youth, knowing Greek, Latin, Arabic and Persian by age 13. Poor, supported by his brother, he was given permission to study the Rosetta Stone in 1824 and eventually cracked the Egyptian hieroglyphics code. Champollion, sometimes referred to as Champollion le Jeune, is considered the founder of the science of Egyptology.
Jean-Francois was the younger son of Jacques Champollion and his wife Jeanne Françoise. He received much of his early education under the tutelage of his older brother, Jean Jacques Champollion-Figeac, an archaeologist and paleographer. When he was ten, he enrolled in the Lyceum in Grenoble, and while there, the early signs of what later became his major life interest appeared in a paper he wrote comparing the language of the Copts in contemporary Egypt to the language used by the Egyptians of antiquity. He continued his education at the College de France, specializing in the languages of the Orient. By age 19, he had earned his Doctor of Letters, and in 1814, his book, “Introduction to Egypt Under the Pharaohs,” was published.
His life at this point was one of destitute scholar, his attention fully on his research of ancient Egypt, but shortly thereafter, he was offered a teaching position in history and politics at the Royal College of Grenoble. In 1818, he was appointed to a chair in history and geography, a post he held until 1821. In 1826, he was appointed conservator of the Louvre’s Egyptian Collection, and two years later, Champollion and his student, Ippolito Rosellini, traveled to Egypt where they spent a full year doing firsthand observation of the ancient monuments. His voluminous notes from the trip formed the basis for his later works, including “Egypt of the Pharaohs: Researches in the Geography, Religion, Language and History of the Egyptians Before the Invasion of the Cambyses,” 1836.
In 1818, he married Rosine Blanc. They had one daughter, Zoraïde, born in 1824.
Champollion died of a stroke on 4 March 1832 in Paris, aged 41.
Link to Wikipedia biography