The exciting prospect of decoding a modern-day puzzle

I recently read the extraordinary book Mastery, by Robert Greene. (As an aside, if Outliers left you a bit dejected, you'll want to check out this book.) I was inspired by the story of Jean-François Champollion, who was the first to crack the Egyptian hieroglyphic text on the Rosetta Stone. Champollion's interests in Egyptology and Coptic—and his novel …