Rosetta Stone Analysis

The Rosetta Stone is a stone with writing on it in two different languages which are Egyptian and Greek. It uses three scripts which are hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek. The Rosetta stone was carved in 196 B.C. and was found in 1799 by French soldiers while they were rebuilding a fort in Egypt. It was given the name 'Rosette Stone' because it was found in a small village called Rosetta. Carved into the stone is a list of good things that the pharaoh has done for the priests and the people of Egypt. After hundreds of years of different people tried deciphering hieroglyphs until in 1822 when Jean-François Champollion deciphered hieroglyphics. Champollion was able to decipher hieroglyphics because he was able to read Greek and Coptic. He was able to make educated guesses about what the other hieroglyphs stood for after he what the seven demotic signs in Coptic were. In the story 'From The Riddle of the Rosetta Stone' by Cross Giblin, he uses quotes and steps on how the stone was found and the process of deciphering the hieroglyphs on the stone.

"British surprised the French fleet at anchor near Alexandria and completely destroyed it. Now Napoleon, his army, and the scholars were trapped in the land the French had conquered." If the British hadn't attacked the French and hadn't been trapped, the Stone wouldn't have been found. In 1799 the stone
But, it was finally translated when Jean-François Champollion came along. One of the language experts were able to translate the Greek passage into French. They also were able to find out that Greek was one of the languages on the stone because of Alexander the Great when he took control over Egypt in 332 B.C.. After the Greek part of the stone was translated, they started working on the Egyptian writing which was the hieroglyphic part. Giblin uses steps to explain how the scholars were able to translate the stone from one passage to