On July 19, 1799, in the Egyptian coastal city of Rasheed, the French were fortifying a castle when a young officer stumbled upon a strange stone buried in the sand, densely carved with unknown symbols or words. At the height of the Napoleonic Wars, no one realized the monument's immense archaeological significance until 1822, when the French scholar Jean-François Champollion (1790-1832) announced that he had discovered the secret of the stele: it was inscribed with three different types of writing, one of which was the ancient Egyptian script, hieroglyphics. This groundbreaking discovery shocked the world and expanded our understanding of the history of human civilization by almost 3,000 years.
Exactly 200 years after deciphering the Rosetta Stone, The Paper learned that "Sacred Scripture: Deciphering Ancient Egypt" is on display at the British Museum, and a special exhibition shows the entire history of deciphering the stele - from the initial efforts of medieval Arab travelers and Renaissance scholars to the more targeted deciphering of French scholar Jean-Français Champollion and Thomas Young of England. At the same time, it will take you back to the various hardships and trials in the process of decrypting ancient Egyptian texts, and the enlightenment brought by this breakthrough achievement.
This is huge for the study of Egyptology. When it was discovered, no one knew how to read the hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt. Because the inscriptions convey the same meaning in three different scripts, and scholars can still read ancient Greek, the Rosetta Stone is a valuable key to deciphering hieroglyphics. As a result, several Egyptian archaeologists have asked the British Museum to return the Rosetta Stone.
Rosetta Stone, St. Julian's Fortress, Egypt, Ptolemaic period, 196 BC
In 1798, the French commander-in-chief Napoléon Bonaparte (1769-1821) led an expedition to Egypt. The following year, a "Rosetta Stone" was discovered by the French expeditionary force during a fortress foundation expansion project near the Egyptian town of el-Rashid. The stele was erected in 196 BC and contains 14 lines of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics in the upper part, 32 lines of cursive Egyptian script in the middle, and 54 lines of ancient Greek writing in the lower part. It was later revealed that these three texts were written in the same matter, the edict of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Ptolemaic V (c. 209-180 BC). However, because the text in it has long been abandoned, the content of the inscription was unknown at the time.
The city of Rosetta when the Rosetta Stone was discovered. Hand-painted watercolor etching by Thomas Milton, 1801-1803.
In the autumn of 1799, Napoleon left behind the troops he had brought to Egypt, quietly returned to France, and seized power through the "Foggy Moon Coup". However, the French army remaining in Egypt surrendered in 1801 after a crushing defeat in the battle against the British. The British captured the Rosetta Stone and transported it back to England in 1802. Later, King George III donated it to the British Museum in his own name. Since then, the Rosetta Stone has been placed in the Egyptian Hall and has become the treasure of the town hall.
The scene of the Rosetta Stone on display at the British Museum
The discovery of the Rosetta Stone has attracted the attention of many archaeologists and philologists, one of the most influential of which is the Swedish orientalist Johan D. Åkerblad (1763-1819). Oakbride studied in Paris under the philologist and Orientalist Silvestre de Sacy (1758-1838). Sassi had already examined the Rosetta Stone and read out the names of five of them. Oakbride inherited his expedition, identifying about half of the correct pronunciations from the 29 symbols. However, he mistakenly believed that the hieroglyphs on the stele corresponded to an alphabet. In 1810, Oakbride sent his report to de Sassi for publication, entitled Memorandum: Coptic Names of Some Towns and Villages in Egypt. Somehow, however, the publication of the book was delayed, and it was not officially published until 1834. The "Coptic Language" in the title is a late form of ancient Egyptian, a combination of Ancient Greek and Ancient Egyptian, with a unique alphabet. Coptic was gradually replaced by Egyptian Arabic, but remains today in some of Egypt's ancient traditions.
A letter written by Thomas Young on February 10, 1818, asked William Banks to look for examples of these hieroglyphs in Egypt.
A key figure in the Rosetta Stone decipher was the English polymath Thomas Young (1773–1829). Thomas Young began using Oakbride 's hieroglyphic symbol alphabet. In 1814, he used an updated alphabet of 86 hieroglyphic symbols to roughly decipher the names of 9 of the 13 royal family members, and also pointed out the correct reading of the hieroglyphic symbols in the upper part of the inscription, which was later published in a book. Thomas Young was so accomplished in language and writing that he compared about four hundred languages and proposed the classification of "Indo-European languages" in 1813. In 1819, Thomas Young published an important article on Egypt in the Encyclopedia Britannica, explicitly claiming that he had discovered the basic principles of Rosetta's stele writing. After Thomas Young's death, descendants inscribed a eulogy on his tombstone: "He was the first to decipher ancient Egyptian texts that no one has been able to decipher for thousands of years."
Next, the French scholar Champollion developed phenomenographic characters with both phonetic and ideographic functions. This statement was initially questioned, but gradually accepted by the academic community. Champollion generally recognized the meaning of most phonetic hieroglyphs and reconstructed much of the grammar and vocabulary of ancient Egyptian. He has made a great contribution to the history of human writing.
Thomas Young and Champollion communicated, but the story was dramatic. In 1814, Champollion published Egypt under the Pharaohs in two volumes. That same year, he wrote to the Royal Society asking for a better interpretation of the Rosetta Stone. Thomas Young, then secretary of the Society, was upset when he received the letter, and the following year replied in a negative manner, saying that the French proposal was not much different from the existing English version. That was Champollion's first knowledge of Thomas Young's study of ancient Egyptian writings and the realization that he had a strong competitor in London. After that, the two men kept their expeditions and research work secret from each other, and there was no correspondence again.
Champollion's Egyptian Grammar Printed edition with hand-colored hieroglyphics, Paris, France, 1836.
Champollion's letter to M Dacier on the phonetic hieroglyphic alphabet, Paris, 1822.
In fact, Champollion began to study the Rosetta Stone through the topography of Abbé de Tersan as early as 1808. In 1822, Champollion officially published the results of a comprehensive study of hieroglyphic translation and grammatical systems. In his "Letter to Dacier on the Phonetic Hieroglyphic Alphabet", addressed to Bon-Joseph Dacier, president of the French Academy of Letters (1795-1833), he systematically reported the results of deciphering the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs on the Rosetta Stone. He wrote: "I believe that long before the Greeks came to Egypt, they used the same phonetic symbols in their hieroglyphics to represent the pronunciation of Greek and Roman proper names, and that these reproduced sounds or pronunciations were consistent with the cartouche ornaments previously carved by the Greeks and Romans." The discovery of this important and decisive fact is based solely on my own research on purely hieroglyphics. Like many of his peers, Thomas Young publicly praised his work. However, Thomas Young is said to have subsequently published a report on the new discoveries of hieroglyphs and ancient Egyptian script, and suggested that his work was the basis of Champollion's research.
With the death of Thomas Young in 1829 and Champollion in 1831, the decipherment of ancient Egyptian script came to a halt. By the 1850s, however, the ancient Egyptian script was largely sorted out.
Details of the hieroglyphs
Ancient Greek details
Details of the popular text part
As seen from the Rosetta Stone, it is a fragment of an ancient stele with decrees written on it. On March 27, 196 BC, an influential priest at a temple in Memphis, Egypt, awarded King Ptolemy V (reigned 204-181 BC) sacred honor in exchange for his good deeds to the country. It is one of many stone tablets that show the decrees established in all the important temples of Egypt. For broad understanding, the decree is divided into three scripts: hieroglyphs (for priests' decrees), popular script (meaning "language of the people"), and ancient Greek script.
Exactly 200 years after deciphering the sacred script, "The Sacred Scripture: Deciphering Ancient Egypt" is on display at the British Museum, showing the entire history of the Rosetta Stone deciphering – from the initial attempts of medieval Arab travelers and Renaissance scholars to the more targeted deciphering by French scholar Jean-Français Champollion and Thomas Young in England. At the same time, it will take you back to the various hardships and trials in the process of decrypting ancient Egyptian texts, and the enlightenment brought by this breakthrough achievement.
The lintel of the temple of Amenhotep III, found in present-day Fayoum, Egypt, the Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt (1855–1808 BC)
Mummified bandages at Aberluit, linen, Egypt, Ptolemaic period, 332-30 BC.
Papyrus Book of the Dead by Queen Nogimet, Egypt, 1070 BC
"Magic Disk". Sarcophagus of Hapmon, Black Granite, 26th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, 600 BC.
Portrait of a clay mummy of Ms. Bhaktenho. Egypt, late 22nd dynasty, 945–715 BC. Authorized by the Northumbria Natural History Society.
Important artifacts on display include the lintel of the temple of Amenhotep III, Queen Nogimet's papyrus book of the dead, the "Magic Disk", Aberruit's mummy bandage, Armenimop's royal wrist ruler, and the clay mummy portrait of Ms. Bacctenho.
It is reported that the exhibition will last until February 29, 2023.
(This article is a synthesis of the British Museum and Champollion – The Genius of Rivaling Thomas Young.) ）