The Rosetta Stone

In Egypt, around 6,000 BC, the first writing system was invented in the form of pictographs, little pictures drawn that represented words. The ancient Egyptians were very intelligent people. They invented many things that influenced their lives greatly in terms of advancement. The ancient Egyptians’ main written language, hieroglyphics, was important to preserve the records of their lives for centuries to come. In the ancient times, before paper was even thought of, Egyptians would carve the pictographs into stones or tablets. Historians, for a long time, were unable to decipher hieroglyphics because the art form had been slowly replaced by other written languages. That all changed when the Rosetta Stone was found in 1799. This artifact contained very important information that helped us learn much more about life in Ancient Egypt. The Rosetta Stone was a large stone that had the same passage written on it in three different languages used by the ancient Egyptians. The Stone was found in 1799 by French soldiers who were rebuilding a fort in Egypt. The Rosetta Stone’s name came from the town in which it was found: a small town in the Delta, called Rosetta (Rashid). Historians dated the Stone back to 196 BC. On the stone were the three main scripts used in Egypt at that time, all translated to the same passage. The first script, used for important or religious documents, was in hieroglyphics. The second was demotic, the common script of Egypt. Lastly, Greek was carved on the stone. This language was used by the rulers. Almost everyone in Egypt would’ve been able to read what the Rosetta Stone said. The passage was written by Egyptian priests to honor the pharaoh. It was a list of all the good things the pharaoh did for the people in that time period. When specialists received the stone, it took them a very long time to find out what the hieroglyphics meant. Finally, in 1822, Jean-François Champollion deciphered the hieroglyphics with the help of the other