The Rosetta Stone in the British museum.

If you have visited the British Museum in London, you will have seen this stone. It is one of the most important discoveries in modern times, allowing us to unlock 3000 years of Egyptian history.

For 1500 years from the last Hieroglyphs made in 394AD to 1814, no one had been able to decipher them.

The hieroglyphs ran without change for 3000 years. Unlike all other written languages, it was not developed or changed due to its belief in being a Gift from God. Its use was not for general communication, but to instill magical powers from the gods into whatever it was written on, temples, tombs, jewellery and into books.

The Rosetta stone was discovered in 1799 by Captain Pierre Bouchard, an engineer re-building a fort at Rosetta in Egypt, following Napoleon’s invasion in 1798. The stone was moved to Cairo but when Egypt was taken by the British, it became part of the British prize.

The stone is the key to deciphering hieroglyphs due to being written in two languages, Egyptian Hieroglyphs and Ancient Greek. It is also written in three forms, Hieroglyphic, Demonic (the language of general Egyptians) and Greek.
Ancient Greek was studied by most educated people at that time and so was easy to read. It was not until 1814 when a British enthusiast, Thomas Young managed to work out several letters. Foreign names like Ptolemy, the ruler at the time, contained just letters.

Thomas Young and others thought each symbol represented a letter but it was not until 1822 when a French man, Jean-Francois Champollion worked out that the symbols could not only be a letter, but also the sound of a word, and also even a complete word. He was an Egyptologist and linguist able to read the Coptic language used in Egypt. Hieroglyphs do not use vowels and their sounds are not easy to work out. When put alongside the Coptic alphabet which uses a Greek style alphabet with vowels, better understanding of the hieroglyphs could be interpreted.

These three symbols translate to sound the word for cat. If you read the sounds out loud it sounds out Meow.
Hieroglyphs can be read left to right or right to left, but always start at the top. All animals and people in the symbols always point toward the side to read from. They point left if you read left to right.
Hieroglyphic signs are divided into four categories:

1. Alphabetic signs represent a single sound.
2. Syllabic signs giving a combination of two or three consonants.
3. Word-signs are pictures of objects and are followed by an upright stroke, to indicate that the word is complete.
4. Sometimes a picture of a roll of papyrus tied up and sealed was included to show that the meaning of the word could be expressed in writing although not pictorially.

The stone was, for many years, thought to be made of black basalt but it was actually covered in a wax and due to being on display for many years and touched by millions of people, it was also covered in finger grease. When cleaned in 2004 and put onto its new display behind glass and the right way up (it had always been stood on its top) it was found to be made of grey granite.
Everything we know about the Ancient Egyptians is due to this find.

So if you are visiting London this should be one thing you must see. It’s also FREE.

Images are either my own or free use from google