The Riddle of the Rosetta Stone

1
The Riddle of the Rosetta Stone

• The Discovery

2
The Discovery

• In July 1799, Napoleons army was making
  fortifications in northern Egypt after conquering
  the country.
• While digging into the ruins of a wall, (because
  French Brigadier-General Bouchard ordered his men
  to dig in by the old Fort Rashid, later called
  Fort Julien, about five miles from Rosetta in the
  Nile delta) there was a metallic clang as the
  pick, or shovel, hit a large stone with some kind
  of writing covering the flat surface.
• The inscription turned out to be a memorial dated
  equal to March 27, 196 B.C. issued by the priests
  of Memphis in gratitude to Ptolemy V Epiphanes
  for gifts which had increased the honors due to
  the king and his forefathers in the Egyptian
  shrines.

3
What was on the Rosetta Stone?

• It was later determined that, as was customary in
  the Ptolemaic era, this memorial was to be
  inscribed on a commemorative tablet in the three
  languages of the country
• First, the ancient Egyptian-literary language
  long since outdated, but preserved traditionally
  on monuments written in hieroglyphs (the sacred
  signs).
• Second, in the modern spoken language or demotic,
  a cursive script derived from hieroglyphs.
• Finally, in the Classical Greek script.

4
How did the Rosetta Stone unlock the meaning of
hieroglyphics?

• Champollion began looking at many examples of
  ancient hieroglyphs from various tombs and
  temples.
• He tried to find the same hieroglyphs that had
  been used to spell the name Ptolemy.
• Using another inscription (two cartouches
  Ptolemy and Cleopatra written in greek) and his
  understanding of Coptic (Egyptian modern version
  of ancient Egyptian) Champollion made comparisons
  and was able to find repeated symbols. Then he
  was able to assign letters for the Egyptian
  symbols.

5
Why is it important for scholars to share their
discoveries?

• Without Youngs discovery that the demotic was a
  simpler version of hieroglyphics and that the
  hieroglyphs were symbols for sounds, not things,
  Francois Champollion might not have been able to
  associate the demotic text with Coptic.
• Champollion might not have been able to crack the
  code!