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The Rosetta Stone

The Rosetta StoneThe ancient Egyptians were a great mystery to scientists until they deciphered hieroglyphics, the writing of the ancient people. The ancient civilization was mentioned in the Bible, but we didn’t know much about the Egyptians until a troop of French soldiers found a stone near the city of Rosetta in 1799. That stone eventually made it possible to decode the ancient text.

The Rosetta Stone was inscribed with a law made in 196BC, written in two forms of hieroglyphics and in ancient Greek. Scientists decided that they could learn hieroglypics if they could decipher the code.

A French scholar named Jean Champollion translated the Egyptian wring into Greek after more than twenty years of work. Champollion concluded that hieroglyphics had originally been pictographs, but they stood for sounds in later times.

Champollion made it possible to understand hieroglyphics, and unlocked many of the mysteries of ancient Egyptian civilization. What mysteries might a modern Rosetta Stone uncover?

NEXT:  Cleopatra

To cite this page:
Dowling, Mike, "Mr. Dowling's Rosetta Stone Page," available from http://www.mrdowling.com/604-rosettastone.html; Internet; up Saturday, October 23, 2004 . ©2009, Mike Dowling. All rights reserved.