ROSETTA STONE

REPLICA OF THE ROSETTA STONE
Full view For nearly 1,500 years, no one could read hieroglyphs, the ancient Egyptian picture-writing. The French scholar Jean-Francois Champollion spent most of his life trying to break the code. He made his first breakthrough in 1822, while studying the Roseta Stone, and soon experts were able to read the inscriptions that cover many Egyptian artefacts. The stone is a slab of black basalt, found near Rosetta in the delta. Inscribed in 196 B.C., the Rosetta Stone was unearthed again in 1799. The text is repeated in hieroglyphs, demotic and Greek. Champollion could read Greek, and so he used this text to translate the other two scripts. The text is a message of thanks to Pharaoh Ptolemy V. Jean-Francois Champollion (1790-1832), is a brilliant linguist who had mastered 12 languages by age 16. The first hieroglyphs he deciphered were pharaoh's names. By 1824, he had translated most of the symbols and begun to unravel Egyptian grammar.
top text - Hieroglyphs
middle text - Demotic
bottom text - Greek

For nearly 1,500 years, no one could read hieroglyphs, the ancient Egyptian picture-writing. The French scholar Jean-Francois Champollion spent most of his life trying to break the code. He made his first breakthrough in 1822, while studying the Roseta Stone, and soon experts were able to read the inscriptions that cover many Egyptian artefacts.
The stone is a slab of black basalt, found near Rosetta in the delta.
Inscribed in 196 B.C., the Rosetta Stone was unearthed again in 1799. The text is repeated in hieroglyphs, demotic and Greek. Champollion could read Greek, and so he used this text to translate the other two scripts.
The text is a message of thanks to Pharaoh Ptolemy V.

Jean-Francois Champollion (1790-1832), is a
brilliant linguist who had mastered 12 languages by age 16. The first hieroglyphs he deciphered were pharaoh's names. By 1824, he had translated most of the symbols and begun to unravel Egyptian grammar.

REPLICA OF THE ROSETTA STONE