Rosetta Stone

A granodiorite stele inscribed in 196 BCE with a decree in Egyptian hieroglyphs, Demotic, and Ancient Greek. Its parallel texts helped scholars decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Jean-François Champollion: A French scholar who deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs using the Rosetta Stone and other inscriptions. His 1822 decipherment established how the stone’s scripts could be compared.
Ptolemy V Epiphanes: A Ptolemaic king of Egypt who ruled from 204 to 180 BCE. The decree commemorates his accession and was issued during his reign.
Egyptology: The study of ancient Egyptian history, language, culture, and material remains. Reading hieroglyphic texts opened a major new body of evidence for the field.
Canopus Decree: A 238 BCE Egyptian priestly decree preserved in hieroglyphic, Demotic, and Greek versions. It is an earlier trilingual parallel that confirms the Rosetta Stone was not unique.
Thomas Young: An English polymath who identified several phonetic hieroglyphic signs and advanced the study of Egyptian scripts. His work on the stone’s names and scripts preceded Champollion’s breakthrough.
French campaign in Egypt: Napoleon Bonaparte’s military and scientific expedition to Egypt from 1798 to 1801. French forces encountered the stone during this campaign.
Egyptian language: An Afroasiatic language documented in Egypt over several millennia, from ancient inscriptions to Coptic. The stone helped recover a written language that had long been unreadable.
Decree of Memphis: A name sometimes used for the 196 BCE priestly decree inscribed on the Rosetta Stone. This alternate title can be confused with the stone itself, which is the surviving inscribed object.
Demotic: A cursive script used for the ancient Egyptian language, especially in administrative and literary texts. The stone’s middle inscription is written in this later Egyptian script.
Rashid: A city in the Nile Delta known in European languages as Rosetta. The stone was found near this city, from which its European name derives.

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