Places › Museums outside Egypt
Musée Champollion, Figeac
Museum, Museums outside Egypt · also called Musée Champollion, Champollion Museum, Musée Champollion Les Écritures du Monde, Place des Écritures, Figeac Rosetta Stone, Champollion birthplace
Behind the house in Figeac where Jean-François Champollion was born lies the Place des Écritures, paved with a giant copy of the Rosetta Stone in black granite, so you can walk over the three scripts he used to read hieroglyphs. Inside, the museum of the world's writing keeps a few real Egyptian texts, from a shabti of Seti I to a Book of the Dead written on linen.
Point your camera at the signs
Signs to look for
- Cartouche V10 The cartouche rings Ptolemy's name on the Rosetta text. Champollion began with names inside cartouches because they had to be spelled by sound.
- Stool Q3p The stool is p, the first sign of Ptolemy's name in the square.
- Recumbent lion E23rw The lying lion is l in Ptolemy. Champollion matched it with the Greek lambda.
- Folded cloth S29s The folded cloth is s, the last sign of Ptolemaios, and a common sign on every object in the museum.
- Ankh S34ꜥnḫ The ankh stands in Ptolemy's long cartouche on the decree: living for ever, beloved of Ptah.
Names you can find here
The story of Musée Champollion, Figeac
Champollion was born here in 1790. The house opened as a museum in 1986, first with Egyptian collections in his honour, and now traces writing across the world, from the first scripts of Mesopotamia and Egypt to printing and the typewriter. The ground-floor room on Champollion and Egypt shows his letters to his brother, his working notes and the journey he made up the Nile in 1828 and 1829.
The square outside is a work of art by the American artist Joseph Kosuth, Ex Libris J.-F. Champollion, inaugurated in March 1991 for the bicentenary of his birth. The slab of black Zimbabwe granite is about 11 metres by 8.6 metres, engraved with the Rosetta Stone's text enlarged, in three bands: hieroglyphs, demotic and Greek. The text is a decree of 196 BC in honour of Ptolemy V. In a courtyard next to it, glass panes carry a French translation of the decree.
Egyptian objects inside are few but well chosen to show how the script works. A limestone fragment from the Theban tomb of the vizier Nespakashuty, of the 26th Dynasty, is shown because its signs include every kind the script uses: single sounds, two and three consonants, and signs for whole words.
Inscriptions to see
The Rosetta Stone in the Place des Écritures
Kosuth's slab copies the decree of Ptolemy V at a size you can walk on. The hieroglyphic part is at the top, as on the original in the British Museum, with the king's name in cartouches. Champollion's first readings of sound signs came from this name: p, t, l, m, s.
Book of the Dead of Neferiou
Linen wrappings from a Ptolemaic mummy, written in hieratic, the cursive hand of the scribes. They belonged to Neferiou, a musician, daughter of Renpetneferet. It is shown in the room on Champollion and Egypt.
Shabti of Seti I
A faience servant figure from the tomb of Seti I in the Valley of the Kings, on loan from the Louvre. Royal shabtis usually carry the king's name, and chapter 6 of the Book of the Dead sets out their task: to work the fields of the next world for the dead.
Inscription of the vizier Nespakashuty
A limestone block from his tomb at Thebes, from the reign of Psamtik I. Its carved signs copy the clean style of the Old and Middle Kingdoms, as 26th Dynasty sculptors liked to.
Edict of Ptolemy III
Two greywacke fragments, reunited by the museum between 2006 and 2014, with an official text about a royal visit to a sanctuary and a woman, Oudjarenes, made a goddess by an oracle.
Reading the hieroglyphs here
- Read the slab from the terraces above the square: the whole stone fits in one view and the cartouches stand out in the hieroglyphic band.
- Low sun across the granite shows the engraved signs best. On a wet day the polished stone reflects and the signs are hard to see.
- Point the camera at one cartouche at a time. Then trace the signs of Ptolemy's name to see how Champollion read them.
- Loans such as the Seti I shabti can go back to Paris. Check before you go if you come for one object.
Hiero Lens boxes the signs and names them, on your phone; nothing is uploaded. On worn stone, trace a sign over the photo.
Questions
Is the real Rosetta Stone in Figeac?
No. The original is in the British Museum in London. Figeac has Kosuth's enlarged copy in the square behind the museum, engraved in granite with all three scripts.
Why is there a Rosetta Stone in Figeac?
Champollion, who deciphered hieroglyphs in 1822 using the Rosetta Stone, was born in Figeac. The town and the French state commissioned the square for the bicentenary of his birth.
Does the Musée Champollion have Egyptian antiquities?
Yes, a small number among objects from writing systems worldwide. They include a mummy, a Book of the Dead on linen, inscribed stone fragments and a shabti of Seti I on loan from the Louvre.
Where it is
Open in OpenStreetMap · Written from published sources and not yet checked on site by our team: displays and open tombs change.