John Gee has asked the right question: \u201cWhat was known about Egyptology in Joseph Smith\u2019s day?\u201d[1]<\/a> Gee\u2019s account of Egyptology\u2019s disciplinary history in the United States offers an admirable level of detail and nuance; disciplinary knowledge matters. What he misses, though, are the off-ramps from scholarly discourse to popular dissemination that are most relevant for the GAEL.<\/p>\n In the early 1830s, a reasonably literate person in New England could have read in some detail about what Champollion had discovered in at least the following two sources. The first is J. G. H. Greppo\u2019s Essay on the Hieroglyphic System of M. Champollion<\/em>, with a preface and notes by Moses Stuart and translation by Moses\u2019 son Isaac, published in Boston in 1830.[2]<\/a> Gee notes that Greppo\u2019s work wasn\u2019t available in the Manchester Public Library, but the publication does show that knowledge of Champollion was available in New England.[3]<\/a> Direct consultation of Greppo wouldn\u2019t have been necessary, but it isn\u2019t entirely implausible; Sam Brown suggests another of Moses Stuart\u2019s works, his 1831 grammar of Hebrew, as the model for the layout of the GAEL in columns.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n The second source is an extensive article, \u201cHieroglyphics,\u201d in the Encyclop\u00e6dia Americana<\/em>, published in Philadelphia in 1831, that drew on Greppo and other sources.[5]<\/a> For the question of what Joseph Smith and his associates are likely to have known, it\u2019s these venues for disseminating and popularizing scholarly advances that are the key documents. They were as accessible or even more accessible than other works that have been cited as evidence for a strictly 19th-century context for Joseph Smith\u2019s revelations.<\/p>\n Both Greppo and the Encyclop\u00e6dia Americana<\/em> article describe Champollion\u2019s breakthrough as recognizing that Egyptian hieroglyphs could be used not just as iconic or metaphoric representations of things or concepts, but phonetically \u2013 first in one name on the Rosetta Stone, then with additional names, and then with words of all kinds from all stages of Egyptian literature. The Encyclop\u00e6dia Americana<\/em> article describes how Champollion<\/p>\n discovered the principle on which these signs were chosen to express one certain sound; it is this, that the hieroglyphic of any object might be used to represent the initial sound of the name of that object. The following table shows this more clearly: the first column gives the letter expressed by a hieroglyphic; the second, the English name of the object represented; and the third, the corresponding word in the Coptic (i. e., Egyptian) language.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n What the table summarizes is both the principle of phonetic representation and the potential for multiple hieroglyphs to be used for one sound, or to represent multiple related sounds. The Encyclop\u00e6dia Americana<\/em> article further explains, \u201cThe rule which may be considered as having generally guided, in choosing between so many signs for the same sound, was, to take that sign which seemed most appropriate to the meaning of the word which was to be written phonetically. If the name of a king was to be written, those phonetic hieroglyphics would be taken, which represented things of a noble character.\u201d (I assume Egyptology has specified the relationship more precisely in the meantime; what\u2019s important here is what Joseph Smith and his associates were likely to know.)<\/p>\n It can be expected that Joseph Smith and his associates would have known at least this much about the decipherment of Egyptian. If they had consulted the translation of Greppo\u2019s essay directly, they could even have viewed a table of hieroglyphic, hieratic and demotic characters along with their associated sounds.<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n Next time: the GAEL as evidence of what Joseph Smith and his associates did know about the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics.<\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Gee, \u201cJoseph Smith and Ancient Egypt,\u201d 435.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> John T. Irwin, American Hieroglyphics: The Symbol of the Egyptian Hieroglyphics in the American Renaissance<\/em> (JHU Press, 2016), 6\u20138.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Gee, \u201cJoseph Smith and Ancient Egypt,\u201d 434; Givens and Hauglid, The Pearl of Greatest Price<\/em>, 116; Lindsay, \u201cA Precious Resource with Some Gaps,\u201d 85\u201386.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/greppo-table1-800x385.png\")
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