Many Questions

The Greek band of text was, happily, almost complete, and could be read and understood. As far as the hieroglyphic and demotic bands were concerned, scholars were faced with many questions. Were the two Egyptian versions essentially the same? Did they offer complete translations of the Greek? Was the Greek a translation of the Egyptian? Was the language written in these strange scripts alphabetic in any sense, syllabic, symbolic, ideogrammatic, or perhaps a mixture? The core of this book deals admirably with the progress of decipherment, concentrating on Champollion's contributions.