The Rosetta Stone

Description

When the last temple was closed in the 6th century A.D., the skill of reading hieroglyphs was lost until the discovery of this slab of basalt stone found at Rosetta in the western delta in 1779. On the stone are three scripts. The bottom section is in Greek, the center in demotic (popular script originated in the XXVI dynasty, 700-600 B.C. and widely used for the next thousand years.), and the top in hieroglyphs. The stone was first set up in a temple. It was an elaborate “thank you to the Greek ruler of Egypt, Ptolemy V, who reigned in the 2nd century B.C., for favors that he had given to the priests. The three scripts contained the same text, allowing the hieroglyphs to be translated. French archaeologist, Jean-Francois Champollion spent many years deciphering the symbols of the Rosetta stone. Champollions work in the Rosetta stone was an important breakthrough in the translation of Egyptian hieroglyphs.