Hieroglyphics decoded by Arabs 800 years before Champollion.

A report on the Guardian Unlimited website describes the claim by UCL's Institute of Archaeology researcher Dr Okasha El Daly that "Arabian scholars broke the code a thousand years ago." Dr El Daly, who scoured ancient Arabic manuscripts, discovered that an alchemist, Abu Bakr Ahmad Ibn Wahshiya, had worked out what hieroglyphs represented and was able to read ancient Egyptian texts back in the 9th century (AD).