Name Johan Akerblad | ||
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Johan David Åkerblad (born 6 May 1763 in Stockholm, died 7 February 1819 in Rome) was a Swedish diplomat and orientalist.
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Career
In 1778 he began his studies of classical and oriental languages at the University of Uppsala. In 1782 he defended his graduate thesis before Professor Eric Michael Fant. From 1783, he improved his language skills at the Swedish royal chancery in Constantinople.
From 1784 onwards he was a diplomat in Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Egypt and North Africa.
From 1800 he conducted research at the University of Göttingen, and at other places of learning in Paris, The Hague, and Rome. He focused on the study of ancient Egyptian. He also gathered material for a dictionary of Coptic language.
Rosetta stone research
While in Paris, he was a student of Silvestre de Sacy. Sacy's investigation of the Rosetta Stone resulted in him being able to read five names, such as "Alexandros". This was reported by him in 1802. Åkerblad took on his work, and his major contribution in this area was published the same year in Paris.
Åkerblad managed to identify all proper names in the demotic text in just two months. He could also read words like "Greek", "temple" and "Egyptian" and found out the correct sound value from 14 of the 29 signs, but he wrongly believed the demotic hieroglyphs to be entirely alphabetic. One of his strategies of comparing the demotic to Coptic later became a key in Champollion's eventual decipherment of the hieroglyphic script and the Ancient Egyptian language.
In 1810, Åkerblad sent to Sacy for publication his work entitled MÉMOIRE: Sur les noms coptes de quelques villes et villages d'Égypte. Yet, unfortunately, its publication was delayed, and it was not published until 1834. Some scholars saw such delay as motivated by political or personal considerations.