Rosettastenen

The Rosetta Stone is a granodiorite stele inscribed with a decree issued at Memphis, Egypt, on behalf of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes in 196 BC. The decree appears in three scripts: the upper text is Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the middle portion is Demotic script, and the lowest is Ancient Greek.

Discovered in 1799 by French soldiers near the town of Rosetta (modern Rashid) in Egypt, the stone quickly became a subject of intense interest due to its potential to unlock the mysteries of ancient Egyptian writing. Prior to its discovery, the ability to read hieroglyphs had been lost for centuries.

The parallel texts provided the key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs. Scholars, most notably Jean-François Champollion, utilized the known Ancient Greek text to translate the Demotic and hieroglyphic sections. Champollion's groundbreaking work in the 1820s revealed the phonetic and symbolic nature of hieroglyphs, opening a window into thousands of years of Egyptian history, culture, and religion.

The Rosetta Stone is now housed in the British Museum in London, where it is a major attraction and a symbol of decipherment and the recovery of lost knowledge. Its discovery and subsequent decipherment are considered one of the most important linguistic achievements in history.