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As engraved copies of the Rosetta Stone became common in Europe—for which object the English scholars had provided without delay—confidence was entertained that the hieroglyphs would be deciphered. One of the earliest workers was Dr Thomas Young.

However (says Mariette), we must not imagine that the deciphering of hieroglyphs by means of the Rosetta Stone was accomplished at the first trial, and without groping in the dark. On the contrary, the savants tried for twenty years without much success. At last Champollion appeared. Prior to him people thought each of the letters that compose hieroglyphic writing was a symbol; that is, that in every single one of these letters a complete idea was expressed. The merit of Champollion consisted in proving that Egyptian writing contains signs which express sounds; in other words, that it is alphabetic. He noticed that wherever in the Greek text the proper name Ptolemy is met with, there may be found, at a corresponding place of the Egyptian text, a certain number of signs enclosed within an elliptic ring. From this he concluded (1) that the names of kings were indicated, in the hieroglyphic system, in a sort of escutcheon, which he styled a cartouche; (2) that the signs contained in the cartouche must be letter for letter the name of Ptolemy (Ptolemaios).