The Rosetta Stone and the ancient Egyptian language
Discovered in Egypt beneath the rubble of the Citadel of Qaïtbay, and brought back to Great Britain, the Rosetta Stone is world-renowned as the key to Jean-François Champollion's deciphering of hieroglyphics. This stone will forever remain an important icon marking the great Egyptian civilization, as well as a witness to the genius of the Ancient Egyptians through the ages.
July 15, 1799, the Egyptian expedition is in full swing. In search of glory, Bonaparte led his troops to the land of the Pyramids. His aim was above all to control the Mediterranean and the route to India, in order to oppose Great Britain, then at war with France. But this military project was coupled with a veritable scientific adventure: behind the soldiers were more than 167 artists and scientists, who made a complete study of the country. Fauna, flora, arts, customs: everything was observed, measured and studied.
In the village of Rachid, or “Rosette”, in the Nile delta, officer Pierre-François-Xavier Bouchard was commissioned to repair fortifications. In the foundations, he uncovered a black stone covered with inscriptions. The object had probably been moved to this location during the Middle Ages. The officer had just made a decisive discovery for history and linguistics.
Of course, this stone was no ordinary stone. It held the secret to deciphering a language that had remained enigmatic for countless ages. Because of this stone, mankind has discovered and deciphered the mysteries of the ancient Egyptian language, and from here the science of Egyptology has been reborn.
The Rosetta Stone - 1 metre high, 75 cm wide, 28 cm thick and weighing almost 760 kg - is a fragment of a black granodiorite stele. But what immediately struck the discoverers as exceptional were its inscriptions.
It's the engravings on this fragment that really catch the eye. It features three distinct inscriptions separated into three parallel bands: the first is composed of hieroglyphs, the second of a text in demotic - a simplified script of ancient Egyptian - and the third of ancient Greek.
This is the first time such a stone has been found. And although none of the three texts is complete, it is in a remarkable state of preservation. The stele was sent to Cairo to have its “fifty-four lines of very fine, very well carved characters” translated, as the letter recounts.