Description
Book SynopsisJohan David Åkerblad (1763–1819) contributed to the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs and Demotic and is known as a predecessor of Jean-François Champollion. This intellectual biography offers a new and less heroic interpretation of the first reading of the Egyptian scripts. Åkerblad, an exceptional linguist, was a diplomat and orientalist who spent several decades living in the Ottoman Empire, France and Italy. Of humble birth, he was a supporter of the French Revolution – something that stymied his career. His life cannot be understood in a purely Swedish national framework, and this study firmly situates him as an international scholar. The book discusses European expansion in the Eastern Mediterranean during the tumultuous decades around the year 1800, and traces Åkerblad’s momentous life in relation to the debates on ‘orientalism,’ the tradition of classical studies and the history of science.
Trade Review‘’This is a sad but admirable work, well-written and well-researched. It is also extremely well-illustrated; the color plates of Åkerblad’s work in hieroglyphics are especially fine.’’ In: Reference & Research Book News, December 2013 p. 37.
Table of ContentsList of Figures, Tables and Plates Acknowledgements List of abbreviations Introduction Part I – The making of a diplomat and orientalist 1. Family and education 2. Constantinople – city of rumours 3. Diplomacy and intrigue 4. Travel in the East 5. War in Egypt 6. Mixing East and West 7. “The sabre in one hand and the Koran in the other” Part II – 1789–1801: Revolution and turmoil 8. Return to Europe 9. To Constantinople and back 10. “A dangerous man of Enlightenment” 11. The Roman Republic 1798–99 12. Final year in Sweden Part III – Reading Egyptian: deciphering the Rosetta inscriptions 13. “I am alive only in Paris” 14. Åkerblad’s Rosetta Lettre 15. Geographic competition 16. Egyptology and orientalism Part IV – The Napoleonic wars and Restoration in Italy 17. Book thefts, inkblots and French expropriations 18. Antiquarian in Rome 19. Salons and belle amiche 20. Curses and cabals 21. Oriental Rome 22. Archaeology and art 23. French defeat 24. Digging with the Duchess of Devonshire 25. “Despised by Sweden and by every Swede” Conclusion References Indexes
