The Rosetta Stone
Many ancient civilizations used languages that are lost to us in the modern era. Without a method to translate the writings or drawings left behind, scholars can only guess at their meanings. For many years, the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt were one such mystery, but this changed with the discovery of the Rosetta Stone.
In 1799, a French officer of Napoleon's engineering corps discovered a dark gray granite-like rock with a pinkish tone and a pink streak at the top. The stone was quite large, measuring 11 inches thick, 3 feet 9 inches high, and 2 feet 4 1/2 inches wide. Sections of the right side and top of the stone were missing.
The Rosetta Stone contains a decree by Egyptian priests marking the crowning of a king. The decree is carved on the stone three times. The first time, the decree is carved in ancient hieroglyphics. The second carving of the decree is written in demotic, which was a language commonly spoken in Egypt at that time, and the third is written in Greek.
Using the three carvings and knowledge of demotic and Greek, scholars were able to interpret the hieroglyphics. It was believed that the hieroglyphics were drawings of the objects that they represented, for example, that a drawing of a man represented a man. Through studying the hieroglyphics, it was discovered that some hieroglyphics represented sounds.
What is the Rosetta Stone?
How was the Rosetta Stone used to discover the meaning of the hieroglyphics?
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