1650 : Athanasius Kircher claims to have solved the mystery of egyptian hieroglyphs. The Europe literate is in an uproar. This feat of the jesuit an expert of science with which we must now reckon.

this corresponds with the mathematician Marin Mersenne (1588-1648), the French astronomer Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655), or even the young Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716), one of the future pioneers of the philosophical rationality. Kircher publishes a number of books on the language of the pharaohs, all received with admiration : Obeliscus Pamphilius (1650), Œdipus Ægyptiacus (1652-1654), Obeliscus Æg…