Rosetta Stone
c. 196 B.C.
Reduced-size Reproduction
The Rosetta Stone is so named because it was found at Rashid (Rosetta), Egypt in 1799 when a French soldier, Army Captain Boussard, serving under Napoleon, noticed the stone as they were doing construction at Fort Julien in the Nile Delta. The stone, severely damaged, was once part of a larger stele (probably about 59” tall), though it still weighed 1700 lbs and measured 45” tall and 28.5” wide and 11’ thick. Constructed of granodiorite rock, it was probably inscribed near Memphis, Egypt in March, 196 B.C. as a decree by a congress of priests to establish the rule and expected reverence of King Ptolemy V, and was likely displayed in a temple in that area.
The inscription on the Rosetta Stone is in three different scripts. There are 14 remaining lines of hieroglyphic text, 32 lines of demotic text, and 54 lines of Greek text (although only 27 lines survive in full). These languages represented the priestly linqua, the common language of the people, and the official language of the governing administration respectively. After the 4th century A.D. hieroglyphics were no longer used, and the knowledge of how to write or read the script disappeared. Demotic was likewise undecipherable. Greek was the only known language on the inscription when it was discovered.
The French forces were overcome by the British Navy in 1801, and the Rosetta Stone was transported to England in 1802 (where it is still displayed in the British Museum). Numerous scholars attempted to decipher the texts on the inscription, but it was not until 1822 that Jean-Francois Champollion in Paris announced that the three scripts recorded the same decree, and hieroglyphics could again be translated. This discovery opened up the modern field of Egyptology.
The Rosetta Stone does not have direct scriptural significance for it does not record anything that is related in the Bible, but the indirect benefit of the Rosetta Stone was the ability to translate Egyptian hieroglyphics which allowed the translation of many Egyptian artifacts, some of which did have reference to events and persons and places recorded in the Hebrew history of the Old Testament.
The inscription on the Rosetta Stone is in three different scripts. There are 14 remaining lines of hieroglyphic text, 32 lines of demotic text, and 54 lines of Greek text (although only 27 lines survive in full). These languages represented the priestly linqua, the common language of the people, and the official language of the governing administration respectively. After the 4th century A.D. hieroglyphics were no longer used, and the knowledge of how to write or read the script disappeared. Demotic was likewise undecipherable. Greek was the only known language on the inscription when it was discovered.
The French forces were overcome by the British Navy in 1801, and the Rosetta Stone was transported to England in 1802 (where it is still displayed in the British Museum). Numerous scholars attempted to decipher the texts on the inscription, but it was not until 1822 that Jean-Francois Champollion in Paris announced that the three scripts recorded the same decree, and hieroglyphics could again be translated. This discovery opened up the modern field of Egyptology.
The Rosetta Stone does not have direct scriptural significance for it does not record anything that is related in the Bible, but the indirect benefit of the Rosetta Stone was the ability to translate Egyptian hieroglyphics which allowed the translation of many Egyptian artifacts, some of which did have reference to events and persons and places recorded in the Hebrew history of the Old Testament.
