Eclaircissemens sur l'inscription grecque du monument trouvé à Rosette, contenant un décret des prêtres de l'Egypte en l'honneur de Ptolémée Epiphane, le cinquième des Rois Ptolémées. Imprimé par ordre de l'Institut

First edition illustrated with a large folding plate inserted out of text reproducing the Greek portion of the Rosetta Stone (cf. Quérard I, 48.)

Our copy is preserved in its original wrappers, in temporary root-pattern paper covers.

A key figure in the establishment of literary repositories during the Revolution, and their transformation into libraries, the antiquarian Hubert-Pascal Ameilhon (1730-1811) remains an important, though far too neglected, figure in bibliography and the sciences.

This relative oblivion owes much to the small number of works published during his lifetime : the work offered here constitutes an essential link in the decipherment of the hieroglyphic inscription of the Rosetta Stone, and its stages merit recalling.

As early as 1800, Gabriel de La Porte du Theil, a member of the Institut national, had been entrusted with translating the Greek portion from the copies brought to Paris by General Dugua. He was obliged to abandon the task and was replaced by Hubert-Pascal Ameilhon, who first presented his study to the Institut on 6 January 1801.

He nevertheless preferred to wait until the stone itself reached France before publishing his results, so that he might compare them with the original, having observed differences of script between the copies. Following the French defeat and the definitive loss of the monument, he resolved at last to publish these Éclaircissemens, containing the Greek text (accompanied by warnings, as he expressed doubts concerning several letters), a "very literal" translation into Latin, and another, "less servile" (in his own terms), in French.

It was not until 1841 that Jean-Antoine Letronne published another French version correcting Ameilhon’s errors.