200 Years Ago Today, The World Learned The Rosetta Stone Had Been Decoded

200 years ago today , the world learned that French philologist Jean - Francois Champollion had decoded the Rosetta Stone – an accomplishment that would countenance the cosmos to read Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic .

In 1799 , during a wipeout of a fortress by one of Napoleon ’s lieutenants in Rosetta ( New - day Rashid ) in Egypt . a giant slab cover in ancient writing was found underneath the debris . It wasfirst sentto the Institut d’Égypte in Cairo , before – like many ancient artifacts that are n’t British seem to do – puddle its wayto the British Museumat therequest of the King .

The slab contain an official message about the king , Ptolemy V , essentiallytelling the people of Egypt to hail Ptolemy V , “ the god who maketh himself manifest , whose deeds are beautiful . ”

crucial though it is to worship the god who maketh himself manifest , the main value of the broken and incomplete Isidor Feinstein Stone lay in the fact it waswritten in three languages : 53 lines of Ancient Greek , 32 line of business in Demotic ( a book used in daily life , translate to"language of the people " ) , and 14 precious contrast of hieroglyph .

A 3D CAT scan of theRosetta StonebyThe British MuseumonSketchfab

Until that stop , hieroglyph were fundamentally undecipherable . However , using these three ( albeit uncomplete ) versions of the same message , plus other hieroglyphical text and referencingearlier attempts to decipher hieroglyphics written in Arabic , Champollion was able-bodied to decipher the hieroglyphs , finally doing so 23 years after the gemstone ’s discovery .

curtly afterward , he give his findings at the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres in Paris on Friday September 27 , 1822 , explaining to anaudience including his rivalthat he had decipher the language of Ancient Egypt , allowing us to learn so much more about the ancient world .

The rock has not been returned to Egypt from the British Museum , despite pressure from the Egyptian governmentand archaeologist . you could read thefull translation of the Rosetta stone here .