The Rosetta Stone PDF

*Have you ever heard someone speak a different language or read a text you simply could not understand? That is how historians and linguists felt when hieroglyphs were first discovered. They spent many years trying to figure out what the ancient Egyptians had written on temples, tombs and papyrus, b...

*Have you ever heard someone speak a different language or read a text you simply could not understand? That is how historians and linguists felt when hieroglyphs were first discovered. They spent many years trying to figure out what the ancient Egyptians had written on temples, tombs and papyrus, but they just could not crack the code. That was until the Rosetta Stone was discovered, which would change the world forever, unlocking the mysteries of ancient Egypt!* **A treasure lost in time** It all started with the French General Napoleon Bonaparte, who was fascinated with ancient Egypt. In order to dominate the East Mediterranean area and threaten the British, Napoleon tried to conquer Egypt from 1798 to 1801. In 1799, the French army was digging the foundations to build a fort near a town called Rashid, which translates into Rosetta, when they found what seemed to be an ordinary black granite slab. The stone was discovered by the officer in charge at the time, Pierre-Francois Bouchard. He realised the importance of the discovery and handed it over to Napoleon, who was determined to find out the secrets written on the stone. **The multilingual puzzle** The Rosetta Stone held the key to the secrets of ancient Egypt. But there was one problem: it was written in a language nobody understood. The stone was broken and measured 114 centimetres long and 72 centimetres wide, about the same size as a small coffee table. Imagine the Rosetta Stone being like a cryptic puzzle, with three sections of writing. None of the sections were complete, since portions of the top and bottom sections were missing. The stone features 14 lines of hieroglyphics. Hieroglyphics is the ancient Egyptian script that has baffled scholars for centuries. In the middle, there are 32 lines of demotic script, another form of ancient Egyptian writing. At the bottom, there are 53 lines of ancient Greek text, a language that scholars of the time *could* read. This part was the key that helped unlock the hieroglyphic code. It was like finding a secret code to interpret a treasure map. **Cracking the code** So who was able to crack the code? Although numerous academics from all over Europe tried to help break the code, the two most important contributions to the study came from France and England. The English physicist Thomas Young approached the mystery as a mathematical problem and figured out that some of the hieroglyphs sounded like royal names. But it was the French academic Jean-Francois Champollion who realised that the Rosetta Stone had the same message written in two languages. Jean-Francois could read Greek and Coptic script and spent a long time trying to match the segments. Coptic was the late form of ancient Egyptian, phonetically written in Greek. Jean-Francois and the team of scholars knew that if they could understand the hieroglyphics, they could read the stories carved on the walls of ancient Egyptian temples and tombs, which would help us to learn more about ancient Egypt. After many years of studying and hard work, in 1822 he realised that hieroglyphics were not random symbols, but a combination of images and characters. With the Greek text on the Rosetta Stone as a reference point, Jean-Francois Champollion managed to translate the hieroglyphics, unlocking the doors to Egypt's rich history. Jean-Francois Champollion had cracked the code, allowing us to learn about the lives of pharaohs and ordinary Egyptians alike. **A message lost in time** You might wonder what was written on the Rosetta Stone. The translations revealed that the carvings on the stone were announcing the reign of Ptolemy I Soter, and included a list of all his achievements in Egypt. It is said the stone was carved in 196 bc and that priests of the ancient city of Memphis in Egypt composed the inscription on the Rosetta Stone. **Unlocking the past** The translation provided by the Rosetta Stone meant that other Egyptian hieroglyphs could be translated as well. The Rosetta Stone became the key to unlocking the Egyptian language and all its mysteries. Through the Rosetta Stone, we have been able to uncover the tales of mighty pharaohs, the construction of grand pyramids and the everyday life of the ancient Egyptians from thousands of years ago, giving us insights into the ancient world. **The travelling stone** After the Rosetta Stone was found, Napoleon continued his conquest of Egypt and Syria. But soon after, Napoleon found himself defeated and had to sign the Treaty of Alexandria in 1801. The Treaty required the French to hand over their most precious archaeological treasures, including the Rosetta Stone. The Rosetta Stone was then shipped to England and arrived there in 1802, where it is still displayed in the British Museum in London and has become one of the most visited exhibits. The Rosetta Stone reminds us that the world is full of hidden mysteries waiting to be discovered. It may have been found by accident, but it was the relentless pursuit of knowledge that allowed us to understand and appreciate the wonders of ancient Egypt to this day!