The Rosetta Stone: Key to Egyptian Hieroglyphs
The Rosetta Stone is one of the most famous artifacts in the history of archaeology. Discovered in 1799 by a French soldier in the town of Rosetta (Rashid) in the Nile delta, the stone is a stele of black granodiorite inscribed with the same text in three scripts: Egyptian hieroglyphs, Egyptian demotic, and Greek. The Greek text, which scholars could read, became the key to the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs, the ancient writing system of Egypt that had been lost for more than fifteen centuries. The French scholar Jean-François Champollion published the first successful decipherment in 1822, and the Rosetta Stone has been in the British Museum ever since, where it is one of the most visited artifacts in the world. The phrase “Rosetta Stone” has become a metaphor for any crucial key that unlocks a previously incomprehensible system.
This page is a complete guide to the Rosetta Stone. It explains the history, the decipherment, and the legacy. It links back to the Ancient Egypt pillar, the Egyptian Pharaohs cluster, and the Cleopatra long-tail.
The Stone
The Rosetta Stone is a fragment of a larger stele, the upper part of which is broken off. The surviving stone is 114.4 cm (45 inches) high, 72.3 cm (28.5 inches) wide, and 27.9 cm (11 inches) thick, weighing about 760 kg (1,680 lbs). The stone is made of granodiorite, a coarse-grained rock, and the three inscriptions are cut into the polished surface.
The three inscriptions record a priestly decree issued in 196 BCE on the first anniversary of the coronation of Ptolemy V Epiphanes, the eleven-year-old pharaoh of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt. The decree, in typical Ptolemaic style, praises the king for his many virtues and exempts the priests of the temple of Memphis from various taxes and corvée obligations. The text is in three scripts: the top section is in hieroglyphs, the middle section in demotic, and the bottom section in Greek.
The Discovery
The Rosetta Stone was discovered in mid-July 1799 by French soldiers of the Napoleonic expedition to Egypt, who were digging the foundations of a fort near the town of Rosetta (modern Rashid) in the western Nile delta. The French officer in charge was a young engineer named Pierre-François Bouchard, who recognized the importance of the find and reported it to his superiors.
The French scholars of the Institut de l’Égypte in Cairo made the first copies of the inscriptions, and the stone became the most famous single artifact in Egypt. When the French surrendered to the British in 1801, the stone was ceded to the British under the terms of the Treaty of Alexandria, and it was shipped to England. It has been in the British Museum since 1802, and the French have occasionally requested its return.
The Decipherment
The Rosetta Stone was famous from the moment of its discovery, and the race to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs began almost immediately. The Greek text was the obvious starting point, since Greek was well understood. The Greek text told the scholars that the other two inscriptions were the same text in different scripts, and the demotic (the second inscription) provided a useful intermediate.
The British scholar Thomas Young made important early progress, correctly identifying the cartouches (the royal name-encircling signs) and recognizing that the demotic script was both alphabetic and syllabic. But the breakthrough came from the French scholar Jean-François Champollion, who in 1822 published his Lettre à M. Dacier, in which he demonstrated the phonetic nature of the hieroglyphs and correctly identified the cartouches of Ptolemy and Cleopatra.
Champollion’s method was based on the assumption that the cartouches contained the names of the Greek rulers of Egypt, which he knew in Greek. He compared the hieroglyphic characters in the cartouche of Ptolemy with the Greek letters, and he was able to identify the signs that corresponded to the consonants of the king’s name. He then worked out the rest of the alphabet by comparing the hieroglyphs with the known Coptic language, the last stage of the ancient Egyptian language.
The decipherment of the Rosetta Stone was the foundation of the modern science of Egyptology. The inscriptions on the pyramids, the temples, the tombs, the papyri, and the mummy cases, which had been undecipherable for fifteen centuries, suddenly became readable. The names of the pharaohs, the titles of the priests, the daily life of the people, the religious beliefs, the military campaigns, the laws — all of this was now accessible to modern scholars. The Rosetta Stone had, in a very real sense, opened up an entire civilization.
The Legacy of the Rosetta Stone
The Rosetta Stone is one of the most famous artifacts in the world, and the phrase “Rosetta Stone” has become a metaphor in many languages for any crucial key to a previously incomprehensible system. In the sciences, the “Rosetta Stone” of biology is the genetic code; in the languages, it is the inscription that gives the meaning of a lost tongue. The British Museum’s Rosetta Stone is one of the most visited objects in the museum, with millions of visitors a year.
The Rosetta Stone has also been the subject of political controversy. The stone was acquired by the British under the terms of the Treaty of Alexandria, but the Egyptians have long argued that the stone was taken illegally and should be returned. The Egyptian government has formally requested the return of the stone on several occasions, but the British Museum has so far refused.