ROSETTA STONE

Rosetta is a town in Egypt.
In Arabic, the town's name is Rashid.

WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL?
The Rosetta Stone carries an inscription in different languages which helped decipher the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic script. It is the only surviving fragment of a larger stone slab (stela) recording a decree on March 27, 196 BC.


THE WRITING ON THE ROSETTA STONE
At the top section, the decree was written in Egyptian hieroglyphs, the traditional script of Egyptian monuments, already 3000 years old.

In the middle the same decree was written in demotic, the everyday script of literate Egyptians.

At the bottom in Greek, the language used by the government.

Photo of the Rosetta Stone, (CLICK PICTURE TO ENLARGE)
which you can check out yourself
at the British Museum, London.

THE DISCOVERY OF THE ROSETTA STONE
In 1799 and just north of the town of Rosetta, one of Napoleon's officers accidentally stumbled over the stone.

What was Napoleon's expedition doing in Egypt in the first place? Check out Napoleon's Egyptian Campaign.

French archaeologist and expert on all things Egyptian Jean-François Champollion knew what to do with the engravings and managed to decipher the Rosetta Stone, and consequently Egyptian hieroglyphics. The year? 1822.

See more under Ancient Egyptians.