Champollion book on hieroglyphics. Title page of the 1824 book published by French Egyptologist Jean-Francois Champollion (1790-1832). The full title translates as 'Precis of the Hieroglyphic System of the Ancient Egyptians'. This book was the culmination of Champollion's initial work to decipher the hieroglyphics used in Ancient Egypt. He achieved this by using the Rosetta Stone. Discovered by Napoleon's army in 1799 in Rashid (Rosetta) in Egypt, the Rosetta Stone's three parallel languages (everyday script, Greek, and hieroglyphics) allowed researchers to decode hieroglyphics. Champollion's book was dedicated to King Louis XVIII.