Was Ibn Wahshiyya actually close to reading hieroglyphs?

The useful distinction is between recognizing that signs might represent language and actually being able to read them. Ibn Wahshiyya is associated with an early attempt at interpretation, but it did not produce a reliable decipherment. That makes it historically interesting, not a solution to the script.

I’d describe it as a precursor, not a breakthrough. The attempt came centuries before Champollion’s nineteenth-century work helped open the way to modern decipherment. Saying nobody had tried before that would erase earlier efforts, but saying Ibn Wahshiyya decoded the inscriptions goes too far.

Also be cautious with broad claims about what whole regions or peoples thought of the inscriptions. Some accounts treated hieroglyphs as magical signs, but that alone doesn’t establish what everyone believed or knew. It’s better to keep the claim focused on Ibn Wahshiyya’s particular attempt.