Abstract

The Rosetta Stone, discovered in 1799 to the north of the village of Rosetta in the western Nile Delta during Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt, is famous for the crucial part it played in the decipherment of the hieroglyphic script by Jean-François Champollion in 1822. It consists of a large fragment of a grey granodiorite stela inscribed with a trilingual decree issued at Memphis by a synod of Egyptian priests, on 27 March 196 BCE, for the celebration of…