representative of a spoken language attempts to relate them to the Coptic language of Egypt's ancient Christian communities. Young makes a number of breakthroughs including the spelling of Ptolemy in hieroglyphs while Champollion finds work as assistant professor at the University of Grenoble. France is thrown into political turmoil in 1815 following defeat at the Battle of Waterloo and the republican Champollion is arrested for sedition and exiled to Figeac until 1821. Eccentric Egyptologist Giovanni Belzoni discovers an obelisk inscribed with the name of Cleopatra in Greek and hieroglyphs at Philae and sends it back to Young in England. Young makes a mistake in translating the obelisk setting back his work whilst Champollion using a copy of the obelisk creates a hieroglyphic alphabet that he uses along with Coptic to translate the name of Ramesses the Great from sketches of Abu Simbal. Champollion's discovery arouses the suspicions of the Catholic Church who fear hieroglyphs might disprove the historical accuracy of the Bible. Young wishes Champllion good luck in proving his theories but Sacy and the Church are determined to stop him. Episode six: The Secrets of the Hieroglyphs Champollion is determined to travel to Egypt to prove his theory but poor and jobless he is reduced to buying up whatever scraps of papyrus he can find and this obsession alienates his wife. The Dendera zodiac purchased by the French King Charles X threatens to challenge the biblical chronologies of church scholars, as it is believed by some to date to before the Great Flood of 2349 BC. Champollion is called in to confirm Sacy's dating of the antiquity to around 2000 BC; he disputes Sacy's dating but not Church authorities by dating it to some 2,000 years later than that during the Roman period. Champollion is sent to Turin by the King to value a collection put up for sale by the French Consul to Egypt Bernardino Drovetti. Prior to his departure Champollion's wife announces that she is pregnant and she is not pleased by his new job. Champollion builds a strong reputation for himself in Italy even being invited for an audience with Pope Leo XII. Returning to Paris with a large collection of antiquities for the King he is put in charge of the Egyptian collection at the Louvre. The King finally agrees to fund Champollion's expedition to Egypt on the proviso that he does not publish any