Johan David Akerblad (1763-1819) contributed to the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs and Demotic and is known as a predecessor of Jean-Francois Champollion. This intellectual biography offers a new and less heroic interpretation of the first reading of the Egyptian scripts. Akerblad, an exceptional linguist, was a diplomat and orientalist who spent several decades living in the Ottoman Empire, France and Italy. Of humble birth, he was a supporter of the French Revolution - something that stymied his career. His life cannot be understood in a purely Swedish national framework, and this...