The time of the pharaohs has captured the imagination for centuries. Their temples and pyramids inspire wonder 4,500 years on. These incredible feats of architecture are marked with colourful hieroglyphics, recording the history of ancient Egypt. For a long time, however, they were merely decoration; no-one knew how to read them.
A LOST MESSAGE
Two centuries ago this year, they were finally deciphered, thanks to the Rosetta Stone. The basalt artifact is a broken piece of a larger slab, measuring 114cm by 72cm. On its surface, a message is carved in two languages and three scripts: demotic, hieroglyphics (both Egyptian) and ancient Greek. This combination provided the key to unlock the meaning of the symbols, so the writings of the ancient Egyptians could be understood at last.
THE STONE’S JOURNEY
The Rosetta Stone was found by French soldiers during Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1799. They were building a fort in the town of Rosetta — now Rashid — in the Nile Delta and discovered it buried in an old wall. Pierre-François Bouchard, the officer in charge, realised the importance of the engravings. He correctly guessed that they were translations of the same text. The stone was sent to Cairo, where the inscriptions were copied at the Institute of Egypt. When Napoleon was defeated, the stone was sent to Britain. It was donated to the British Museum by King George III in 1802, where it still resides today.
THREE LANGUAGES
The Rosetta Stone had inscriptions in hieroglyphics, the language of the priests; demotic, the language of the people; and ancient Greek, the language of administration. Hieroglyphics were used until the 4th century AD but, by the 19th century, all knowledge of them had disappeared. However, ancient Greek was largely understood. An English physicist provided the first clue. Thomas Young discovered that the name ‘Ptolemy’ was present in all three inscriptions. He realised that hieroglyphics could describe sounds, as well as concepts. Some signs were symbols, others were alphabetic. French scholar Jean-François Champollion used this key to unlock the language and he succeeded in deciphering hieroglyphics. He announced his discovery in a paper at the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres in Paris on 27 September 1822.
THE MEANING
So what does the writing on the Rosetta Stone mean? The inscription, once translated, is a little anticlimactic. It is simply a decree passed by a council of priests in support of thirteen-year-old Ptolemy V on the first anniversary of his coronation in 196 BC.
