Why was the Rosetta Stone so important? - Franziska Naether
For centuries, scholars puzzled
over the hieroglyphs
they found carved onto ancient Egyptian
ruins, tablets, and papyri.
But a unique discovery would
finally help unlock their meaning.
In 1799, as the French military
invaded Egypt,
an officer encountered a curious stone
on the outskirts of Rashid, or Rosetta.
It was inscribed with three different
portions of text:
Egyptian hieroglyphs,
which is the oldest Egyptian script,
dating back some 5,000 years;
Demotic Egyptian,
which is a later derivative of Egyptian;
and Ancient Greek.
It seemed that each section was
a rough translation of the others,
meaning the stone presented
an unprecedented key
to unlocking hieroglyphs.
English troops soon intercepted the stone
and brought it to the British Museum
in 1802,
where it became one of the
most popular displays.
Various European scholars—
including Johan Åkerblad, Thomas Young,
and Jean-François Champollion—
worked to decode the Egyptian scripts.
There were some crucial initial clues.
The Greek section included
the names of royal figures,
while certain areas in the Demotic section
had bracket-like forms
and some hieroglyphic sections
were encircled.
Could these portions encode
the same royal names?
Åkerblad matched some characters up and,
in 1802,
successfully decoded the royal names
and some simple words,
like “much” and “temples”
in the Demotic script.
This led Åkerblad to believe that all
Demotic signs were alphabetic,
meaning each letter represented
a discrete sound—
much like in English.
Thomas Young, in contrast, suspected that
some of the Demotic signs were logograms—
that is, symbols encoding
entire words or phrases.
For example, he believed a sun disk with
a stroke indicated the sun or sun god.
Around 1814, he deciphered some recurring
Demotic words like “pharaoh” and “Egypt.”
Young also had the critical insight
that Demotic was a later iteration
of hieroglyphs.
And, studying the hieroglyphic text,
Young successfully decoded
the royal name “Ptolemy.”
But he still believed
the prevailing misconception
that most hieroglyphs were logograms
representing ideas— not sounds.
Using his knowledge of other
scripts and languages,
like the Egyptian Coptic he’d learned
from a Coptic Christian priest,
Champollion realized that most encircled
hieroglyphs were phonetic.
They represented sounds:
the Egyptian vulture, an “a”;
the three fox skins, “m-s”,
and so on.
This finally allowed him to read the
Egyptian names “Ramses” and “Thutmose.”
Cross-referencing other
hieroglyphic texts,
Champollion confirmed
that many hieroglyphs
beyond the encircled names were phonetic.
And on September 14th, 1822,
he ran to his brother’s house
and declared the breakthrough.
Later, Champollion determined that beyond
alphabetic and logographic hieroglyphs,
some were classifiers that sorted words
into categories,
like occupations, plants,
and abstract concepts.
The first complete translation
of the Rosetta Stone
was finally published in the early 1850s.
So, what did it actually say?
The inscription was marked 196 BCE.
It honored the first anniversary
of 13-year-old
Pharaoh Ptolemy V’s coronation
and outlined a series of benefits
for the Egyptian priesthood.
The inscriptions described laws
for maintaining temples
and performing rituals,
like the burial of sacred animals.
At the time,
Egypt was a multicultural society.
Two main languages were spoken:
Ancient Greek,
brought by Egypt’s conquerors,
and Demotic Egyptian, the native language.
Hieroglyphs represented Middle Egyptian,
a language that was already antiquated
but may have been included
to convey a sense of authority.
The decree was copied onto many stones
and erected in temples.
However, as regimes shifted,
edifices were deconstructed
and reconstructed.
Some scholars think the Rosetta Stone
was originally placed in a temple in Sais.
It’s unclear how it ended
up 80 kilometers away,
but it may have been transported
up the Nile after the late 15th century.
Once deciphered, hieroglyphs helped
overturn misconceptions.
Subterranean chambers
within Egyptian pyramids
were once thought to be secret sites
of priestly initiation and study.
But it was finally confirmed
that pyramids were tombs
housing sacred preparations
for the afterlife.
Soon, entire texts could be
translated that showcased
the complexity of ancient Egyptian
religious compositions.
Experts are still decoding new
hieroglyphs as they arise
and untangling instances
of tricky grammar and wordplay.
The Rosetta Stone helped illuminate one
of the world’s oldest written languages
and the vibrant history it emerged from.
And yet, the pillaged artifact
remains far from its provenance today.
