The Rosetta Stone

            The Rosetta Stone

The Rosetta Stone is a hefty section of a larger ancient Egyptian granite like stone stele or marker which is inscribed with a decree hat was issued in 196 BC on behalf of King Ptolemy V who was king of Egypt from 204 BC to 181 BC. The decree is written in three (3) scripts or languages: the top most text is in Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the middle portion is in Egyptian Demotic text, and the lowest text is in Ancient Greek. It presents basically the same text or ‘story line’ in all three scripts (with only minor differences between the three); it opened a doorway which provided the key to the understanding or reading of Egyptian hieroglyphs.  No one, at the time, had a clue about how to read or interpret Egyptian hieroglyphs, so this was immediately recognized as a significant find.

The stone fragment was rediscovered in 1799 by a soldier of the French expedition to Egypt near Rashid (Rosetta) in the Egyptian Nile Delta. It was important because it was the first ancient bilingual text recovered in modern times; the Rosetta Stone aroused widespread public interest with its potential to decipher the previously un-translated Ancient Egyptian language. 

A short while later, British troops defeated the French in Egypt (in 1801) and the stone then came into British custody.   From there, it was transported to London where it has been on public display at the British Museum since 1802; it is the most-visited object in the entire British Museum.

The translation and study of the decree was under way as early as 1803 when the first full conversion of the Greek text appeared. It took 20 more years, however, before the translation of the Egyptian texts was announced in Paris in 1822; but it took a good bit longer before scholars were able to read other Ancient Egyptian inscriptions and literature  with confidence.

You may recognize the terms ‘Rosetta Stone’ as a brand of language learning software published by Rosetta Stone Ltd; the association or use of the terms are obvious in this circumstance.  

Or in the alternative, you may know something about the ‘Rosetta spacecraft’ which was launched on March 2, 2004 by the European Space Agency and is on a ten-year mission to study the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko; mission: determining the comet’s composition is hoped to reveal the origins of the Solar System. The projected time frame places the spacecraft as landing on the comet in mid 2014.  The purpose for using the term ‘Rosetta’ is quite clear in this format as well.

The Rosetta Stone itself is no longer considered unique, since other similar bilingual texts have been found but it was and continues to be an important key to understanding modern Ancient Egyptian literature as well as the civilization in general.

Sources …

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone                                                        http://www.rosettastone.com/                             http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/aes/t/the_rosetta_stone.aspx