What is the Rosetta stone?

It is a big slab of stone found in a village called Rashid known to the Europeans as Rosetta. Rashid is located in western delta. The original stab is in the British Museum. The one in the Egyptian Museum is a replica sent by the British government to Egypt. It is considered the key to deciphering the ancient Egyptian language. The inscriptions on the stone are written in two languages; Hieroglyphic, Demotic and classical Greek. Hieroglyphic and Demotic are two scripts of the same language.

Discovery of the stone:

It was found in 1799 by a French officer called Pierre Francois Bouchard who recognized its importance. An opinion says that it was found lying on the ground while another opinion says that it fell while they were taking it out as it was engraved on the wall. It was transferred to Cairo. These events happened while Napoleon was in Egypt with the French expedition. Due to the classical Greek translation of the inscription on the slab they were able to decipher the inscriptions that were on the stone. The stone reached the British when they forced the French to leave Egypt and give all the antiquities to the British.

The stone:

It is a great slab made out of black basalt measures 114cm in height and 72cm in width and 2.8cm in thickness. It weighs about ¾ of a ton. Some parts of the stone are damaged; the left upper corner and the right upper edge and the lower right corner. It was believed that originally the slab had a round semi circle top crowned with the winged solar disk with two cobras each wearing a crown of Upper or Lower Egypt and each carrying the shen ring as a sign of eternity and the ceremonial fan below the winged solar disk. Probably there have been figures of the king with several deities making some offerings. This belief came from the existence of the Damanhour stela which contains the same Hieroglyphic inscriptions. The slab is divided into three registers:

<!--The first register is inscribed with the hieroglyphic letters only 14 lines remain undamaged thus a complete translation could not be managed

<!--The second register is inscribed with Demotic consisting of 32 lines 14 of which are damaged

<!--The third register is inscribed with the classical Greek language. It contains 54 lines the last 26 lines are not complete due to the damage.

Translation of the text:

Europeans are acquainted with the classical Greek language so they were able to translate the Greek part. In September 1822 Jean Francois Champilion managed to translate the other two texts by comparing them to the Greek text and to the Damanhour stela and to some inscription found on the walls of the temple of Isis at Philae. By comparing the letters that was in the cartouche with the Greek text and with the cartouche of Cleopatra on an obelisk Champilion was able to verify the letters and the name that was in the cartouche belonged to Ptolemy V.

The context of the stone:

It was a decree made by the priests of Re commemorating the first anniversary of the coronation of Ptolemy V and thanking him for reducing their taxes and for the offering he made for the gods and for his respect to the ancient Egyptian religion. Inscriptions at this time were made in several languages because the ruling house was Macedonian and Greek.