Jean-Jacques Barthélemy

Abbot
Jean-Jacques Barthélemy
Born(1716-01-20)20 January 1716
Cassis, Provence, France
Died30 April 1795(1795-04-30) (aged 79)
Paris, France
NationalityFrench
Known forDecipherment of the Palmyrene alphabet and the Phoenician alphabet
Author of Travels of Anacharsis the younger in Greece
Member of the Académie française
TitleAbbé

Jean-Jacques Barthélemy (20 January 1716 – 30 April 1795) was a French Catholic clergyman, archaeologist, numismatologist and scholar who became the first person to decipher an extinct language. He deciphered the Palmyrene alphabet in 1754 and the Phoenician alphabet in 1758.