Rosetta Stone

Kobe Chitolie

The Rosetta Stone is a stone and a human

artefact with ancient writing on it in two languages, Egyptian and Greek. The writing is in three different scripts being used at the time in Egypt, hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek. Hieroglyphic script was used for religious matters, demotic was the common script in Egypt, and Greek was what the rulers of Egypt used. The stone was written with all three so that priests, government officials, and rulers could all read it.

What is the Rosetta Stone?

The Rosetta Stone was written by priests

and the stone was created to honor the Egyptian Pharaoh and lists all the good things the Pharaoh did for the priests and the people.

What does the stone say?

The Rosetta Stone was found in a village in

the Delta called Rosetta (Rashid), Egypt. It was dug up unintentionally by French Soldiers who were rebuilding a fort near Rosetta. The stone was carved in approximately 196 BCE, and found in 1799 CE. The stone was conserved and cleaned by British museums. The Rosetta Stone is named after the town it was found near.

Who found it and where did they find

it?

A lot of people over many years worked on

deciphering the Rosetta Stones hieroglyphics. It was a difficult process and after years of work the stone was deciphered in 1822 by Jean-Francois Champoillion. Champoillion could read Greek and copic. He figured out what demotic signs in copic were and used that to work out what they stood for. He traced the demotic signs to the hieroglyphics and figured out some of them. With that information he made educated guess for the rest of the hieroglyphics.

Who deciphered it and how?

Pic 1: http://

illicit-cultural-property.blogspot.ca/2009/12/hawass-wants-rosetta-stone-loan.html

Info 1: http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/writing/rosetta.html

Info 2: https://

www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/aes/t/the_rosetta_stone.aspx

Pic 2: https://community.dur.ac.uk/penelope.wilson/Delta/Rashid.html

Pic 3:http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/champollion.htm

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