Overview

The Rosetta Stone was discovered in 1799 by a member of Napoleon's Egyptian expeditionary force. The Stone is a stela fragment carved during the reign of Ptolemy V (205-180 B.C.) and is inscribed in two different languages with three different scripts—hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek. The importance of this artifact as a potential key for deciphering hieroglyphics was immediately recognized and then confirmed when a translation of the Greek established that the other two scripts contained the same message. News of the discovery created a sensation, spawning renewed efforts at decipherment that culminated in the stunning success of Jean-François Champollion (1790-1832).

Background

Discovery of the Rosetta Stone removed one of the three principal impediments to progress in deciphering hieroglyphics—lack of a bilingual inscription. Others were the nonexistence of a large corpus...