1825, ancien fonds no. 689). Guignes's extract contains numerous transcripts in Arabic script. - Today, Joseph de Guignes is best known for his "Histoire générale des Huns, des Turcs, des Mogols, et des autres Tartares occidentaux" (Paris, 1756-1758), for his unsuccessful attempts to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics (before the 1799 discovery of the Rosetta Stone and Champollion's breakthrough), and for his theory that China was an outpost of Ancient Egypt..