M.Naci KAYAOĞLU

Ayşe ÇETINOĞLU

The paper examines the long and complex process of the decipherment of the Egyptian hieroglyphs, highlighting the decisive role that the linguistic theories played in unlocking the secret behind the Egyptian civilization. Through the three different languages on the same inscription on the Rosetta Stone with Ancient Hieroglyphs at the top, another unknown language in the middle and the Greek at the bottom, scholars such as Jean- François Champollion was able to decipher the script, and showed that the Egyptian writing system was a combination of phonetic and ideographic signs through the cartouches used in the Rosetta Stone, proper names from Ancient Egyptian Coptic, Philae Obelisk on the temple island, Philae with Greek translation and an Egyptian historian Manetho who recorded the Egyptian Pharaoh lineage in Greek. It is obvious that Champollion’s solution is achieved through analyzing certain linguistic aspects of hieroglyphs, namely, (a) appropriate use of translation, (b) interaction between different languages, and (c) distinguishing between living and dead languages.

Key words: Egyptian hieroglyphs, linguistics, Rosetta Stone, JeanFrançois Champollion