Jean-François Champollion

He spent two days with the collection of M. Sallier, and in a bundle of papyri found a hieratic roll praising the deeds of Ramesses II, dated to year 9 of his reign.

He arrived on the evening of 24 July. The Tuscan members came on the 29th after a 15-day journey, held up by the quarantine cordon the King of Sardinia had set along the Piedmont border.

On 6 August the Églé anchored off Agrigento, but rumours of plague at Marseille meant landing was refused, and on the 7th they sailed on without seeing the temples.

Landing on 18 August, he was lodged at the French consulate in the room once used by Kléber. He copied the inscriptions of Cleopatra's Needles, and on 24 August was received by Muhammad Ali, who granted the firmans for the journey.

On 16 September he walked from the river to the ruins and examined a great mudbrick enclosure wall, which he estimated at about 80 feet high and measured at 54 feet thick.

He reached the port of Bulaq on 19 September and entered the city the next evening through Ezbekiya square, crowded for the festival of the Prophet's birthday. On the 22nd he climbed to the Citadel and saw Joseph's Well.

On 2 October he went through the limestone quarries opposite Memphis one by one and found two stelae of year 22 of King Ahmose stating that their stone was used for the temples of Ptah, Apis and Amun at Memphis.

He examined the colossus uncovered by Caviglia, about 34½ feet long and lying face down, and from its face and inscriptions identified it as Ramesses II.

He camped in tents from 4 October. Most decorated tombs had been looted, but in one he recorded a row of birds and five kinds of gazelle carved with their names in hieroglyphs.

On 7 October seven camels and twenty donkeys carried the party across the desert. He camped by the pyramids for three days, copying reliefs in nearby tombs, and wrote that the pyramids seem to lose height as one approaches them.

After days of calm he arrived on 20 October and visited the cotton mill fitted with European machinery.

He arrived near midnight on 23 October. He had planned to spend one day on the rock tombs, but found the paintings clear to the smallest detail and stayed fifteen.

On 12 November he found a carved block dating the temple to Ptolemy IV Philopator. That night the commander Mohammed-Aga held a party for the group, and ordered his musicians to learn the tune of Marlborough after the young members sang it.

Arriving on the evening of 16 November, the group walked to the temple by moonlight, spent two hours inside with a lantern and returned to the boat at 3 a.m. They were back at 7 and spent the whole of the 17th there.

He landed at Thebes on the morning of 20 November. On the first day he saw the temple at Qurna, the colossi of Memnon and the so-called tomb of Osymandyas, whose walls gave its ancient name, the Ramesseum.

On 23 November he crossed to the east bank and saw the two obelisks, nearly 80 feet high, in front of Luxor temple, then went on to Karnak, where, he wrote, all the magnificence of the pharaohs appeared to him.

On 27 November he spent the whole day at the temple, whose royal names no one had yet drawn, and concluded from its inscriptions that it was built under the last Cleopatra to mark the birth of Caesarion.

The temple of Contra Latopolis across the river had been pulled down about twelve days earlier to strengthen the quay at Esna. On the morning of the 29th he visited the great temple of Esna, then used as a cotton store.

On the afternoon of 30 November he saw the great temple, still intact, and noted that it was dedicated to Aroeris and that its oldest decoration dated from Ptolemy V Epiphanes.

Landing on 1 December, he found among the sandstone quarries small chapels cut into the rock under Amenhotep III, Ramesses II and other kings, with many inscriptions of the 18th dynasty.

He arrived on the evening of 1 December and hurried to the great temple the next morning, noting that it was dedicated to two gods and that its oldest part dated from Ptolemy V Epiphanes.

He reached the last town of Egypt on the morning of 4 December. The two boats were too large to pass the cataract, so the party left them here and sent the baggage on to Philae by camel.

He reached the island on the evening of 5 December with a painful left foot, and here at last received letters from Europe.

On 20 December he stopped for one hour at the temple of Ramesses II with its avenue of sphinxes, and took a piece of its mortar for his friend Vicat.

He studied the temple from 18 to 20 January, reading in its dedication that it was founded by Thutmose III, and judged its carving finer than that of Derr and even the religious scenes of Abu Simbel.

Passed without landing on the way upstream, the temple of Kalabsha was studied on 27 January. From the 28th to midday on the 31st he worked at nearby Beit el-Wali, copying in full its reliefs of the campaigns of the young Ramesses II.

Arriving on Saturday 28 February, the party was met by rain, which fell in torrents with thunder and lightning on the night of 1 to 2 March. He found not a single column still standing in the temple enclosure.

From 23 March the whole party lived in the tomb of Ramesses IV, using its first three painted halls as rooms. He later had a painted relief cut from the tomb of Seti I and took it for the Louvre.