Many think that the French campaign that came to Egypt and stayed there for three years (1798-1801) is the one that discovered the hieroglyphic language through Rosetta Stone. But the fact that the world Champillion discoverer of the language was not a scientist of the campaign.


Who is Champollion, how did he discover the hieroglyphic language, and how did the Rosetta Stone end up in the British Museum in London now?


The Rosetta stone was found in the city of Rachid in 1799. It was found by one of the French soldiers of the French expedition. He was digging a trench. He was transferred to the Egyptian scientific complex that Napoleon had established. It was composed of a group of leading French scientists who came with the campaign.

Rosetta Stone is written in three languages
The stone was a royal publication written by Ptolemy V during the Ptolemaic period. The publication is written in three languages: Ancient Greek, Hyuglipic and Demotic. Demotic is the popular language spoken by the people of Egypt at a time when the hieroglyphic language was spoken by the high priests and the ruling class.

Rosetta Stone remained with the campaign's scientists until the date of departure from Egypt in 1801. The agreement required the departure of the Egyptian expeditionary soldiers and their transfer to France on the vessels of the English fleet that besieges the shores of Alexandria.


As the French withdrew from Egypt, the commander of the British fleet, Hutchinson, insisted that the French hand over all the artifacts they had found in Egypt to the British, including the Rosetta stone.


The British took the Rosetta stone and placed it in the British Museum in 1802, and still has it.



But the question is what is the importance of Rosetta Stone and what is the difference between it and all the Pharaonic writings on the walls of temples, statues and statues. The difference lies in the fact that the carved inscription on Rosetta Stone is written in three different languages. Thus, comparing the letters of a language known to another unknown will facilitate the discovery of characters and symbols of the unknown language, namely, hieroglyphics.


The English scientists could not decipher the hieroglyphic language, and they sent a copy of what was written on the stone to scholars and museums throughout Europe. A copy came to France in 1803.

And began a difficult journey of research and study lasted about 20 years until finally French scientist Jean-Francois Champollion finally arrived in Paris in 1822 to decipher the hieroglyphic language that opened the way to study the ancient Egyptian civilization and established a new science of Dhahro Egyptology .

Jean-François Champollion

But why did the decoding of the language delay 20 years after the discovery of the stone?

The discovery of the hieroglyphic language has gone through several stages. Preliminary discoveries have been made. The first is the discovery that the book is written in three different languages ​​and that the Greek-written word is written in Hieroglyphics and Demotic, in 1799.


The second achievement is the discovery that hieroglyphic language used symbols for the pronunciation of foreign words (Greek, for example), and was the owner of this discovery Thomas Young in 1814. And the last achievement was the discovery of Champollion for the vocal symbols to pronounce the Egyptian words, and that was in 1822.

Finally, since 2003, the Egyptian government has been demanding the return of Rosetta Stone to Egypt on the basis that he left Egypt without the consent of the government and during a foreign occupation. This demand has not yet been met, claiming it has become a legacy
Tags: discoveries
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