The Rosetta Stone is a black basalt stele with a decree inscribed in Hieroglyph, Demotic, and Greek. It is an ancient artifact that contains Hieroglyphics; it became an invaluable source for scholars studying ancient Egypt. It is known as one of the British Museum’s famous objects. 

See the fact file below for more information on the Rosetta Stone or alternatively, you can download our 50-page Rosetta Stone worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

Historical Background

• While repairing a fort close to the Nile Delta town of Rashid (Rosetta), French army engineers who were a part of Napoleon Bonaparte’s Egypt campaign came across the stone slab in 1799. The object was initially on display in a temple, possibly close to the ancient town of Sais, and was subsequently transported to Rosetta and used in the construction of Fort Julien.
• General Pierre-François Bouchard takes the credit for the discovery of the stone. When he realized how significant the discovery was, he sent it to Cairo to be studied by the savants.
• While linguists worked tirelessly to decipher the Rosetta Stone, Napoleon maintained his conquests in Egypt and Syria. It did not go as planned. Napoleon signed the Treaty of Alexandria in 1801 due to consecutive losses to the British. The Treaty required the French to hand over their most precious archaeological treasures, including the Rosetta Stone. 
• The Rosetta Stone was shipped to England and arrived in Portsmouth in February 1802. It was then taken to London and shown at the British Museum.

Description

• Granodiorite is the substance used to make the Rosetta Stone. The stone weighed 1,680 pounds and was nearly four feet tall, over 2.5 feet wide, and 11 inches thick.
• The stone is a fractured piece of a giant stone slab. Even though the stone is fractured, three distinct passages written in three different scripts are still intact and identified on its surface. None of the three sections was complete since portions of the top and bottom were missing. From the start, they all held the same message as correctly assumed.
• The three passages written in separate scripts are Hieroglyph, Demotic, and Ancient Greek.
• The first writing, Hieroglyph, was the sacred language of ancient Egypt. Hieroglyphics, also made up of symbols called hieroglyphs, had fallen out of favor by the 4th century CE. The stone features 14 lines of Hieroglyphics.
• The second script, Demotic, was the cursive writing style employed in ancient Egypt to create business and legal documents. It comprises symbols that symbolize concepts and sounds and is accessible to the general public. The stone features 32 lines of Demotic.
• The last script was in Ancient Greek. Greek is an Indo-European language, but it has evolved over 34 centuries. It is alphabetic, and its most archaic dialects are readable and translatable. The stone features 53 lines of Ancient Greek.

The Founding

• Napoleon Bonaparte settled in Egypt from 1798 to 1801, with the goal of dominating the East Mediterranean area and threatening the British.
• The Rosetta Stone was accidently found by his soldiers in July 1799. They discovered the Rosetta Stone while digging the foundations to build a fort near the town of Rashid (Rosetta) in the Nile Delta.
• The officer-in-charge at that time, Pierre-François Bouchard, realized the importance of the discovery. He passed on the Rosetta Stone to General Menou and Bonaparte.
• The Rosetta Stone became a part of French antiquities collections. After Napoleon’s defeat in 1801, the Rosetta Stone became the property of the British under the terms of Treaty of Alexandria. 
• The stone was shipped to England and arrived in Portsmouth, where the stone was later stored in the British Museum in London. 

The Stone Description

• The Rosetta Stone is described as a stone of black granodiorite, a kind of a stone that is similar to granite. It measures about 44 inches tall and 30 inches wide. It weighs approximately 760 kilograms. 
• There are three inscriptions written on the stone. The top lines were written in Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the second in the Egyptian demotic script, and the third in Ancient Greek.
• The Stone was actually a fragment of a larger stele. However, in later searches around the Rosetta site, no additional fragments were found. The top part, which is composed of Egyptian hieroglyphs, has the most damage. Because of its damaged conditions, none of the three texts are complete. 

Decipherment

• The French linguists and savants examined the stone and swiftly determined that one of the scripts was Greek. Meanwhile, Jean-Joseph Marcel and Remi Raige recognized Demotic as one of the remaining scripts. They couldn’t read Demotic, so they printed the material and sent it to Europe, where scholars are progressing in this field.
• Although numerous academics from all over Europe contributed, the two most significant contributions to the study came from England and France.
• The British polymath Thomas Young approached the mystery as a mathematical problem and is best renowned for his contributions to science. He meticulously documented the hieroglyphs after translating ancient Greek and tried to match each one to its translation. Additionally, he contrasted the glyphs with those on other statues. Young could decipher some of the symbols, recognize the phonetic sounds some glyphs represented, and piece together the pluralization of words.
• Although Young’s effort was vital, it soon became apparent that decoding the hieroglyphic code required someone who could give it their full attention since Young was preoccupied with several other pursuits. 
• Jean-François Champollion was a remarkable historian and linguist. Renowned as the father of academic Egyptology. He was proficient in six ancient Oriental languages by age of sixteen, including Coptic, the late form of ancient Egyptian phonetically written in Greek. 
• He continued where Young left off in 1821, finally compiling an entire database of Egyptian symbols with Greek meanings. He was the first Egyptologist to recognize that the symbols were not only alphabetic but also syllabic and, in some instances, determinative, meaning that they expressed the meaning of the word itself.
• Champollion demonstrated that the hieroglyphic text on the Rosetta Stone was a translation from Greek, not from Egyptian into Greek. More importantly, because he knew Coptic, he could translate the meaning of the phrases in ancient Egyptian.
• Due to their collaboration, Champollion and Young translated all Egyptian hieroglyphic manuscripts, particularly Champollion, who cracked the code. He deciphered the hieroglyphic language and founded the discipline of Egyptology, allowing us to learn about the lives of both pharaohs and ordinary Egyptians, whose letters, written on papyrus and preserved for a very long time in Egypt’s dry climate, are now available to us.

Context of the Stone

• It comprises a decree issued in 196 BCE by a council of Egyptian priests commemorating the anniversary of Ptolemy V Epiphanes’ coronation as King of Egypt. (The Ptolemaic dynasty was a Greek-speaking Macedonian monarchy that controlled Egypt from the fourth to the first centuries BCE.)
• It enlists some of the king’s significant actions and accomplishments, such as providing presents to the temple, offering various tax deductions, and restoring peace to Egypt following a revolt that began under his predecessor’s reign, Ptolemy IV Philopator.
• In exchange for these services to Egypt, the council of priests promised a series of acts to strengthen Ptolemy V Epiphanes’ royal cult, such as the erection of new statues, improved decorations for his shrines, and festivals commemorating his birthday and ascension to the throne. Finally, the order directs that the stone be written in hieroglyphics, demotic writing, and Greek and put in temples across Egypt.
• The inscription on the Rosetta Stone is a decree issued by a council of priests who gathered in Memphis. It told about a celebration of 13-year-old King Ptolemy V on the first anniversary of his coronation in 196 BC. 
• The decree existed during a turbulent period in Egyptian history. King Ptolemy V reigned from 204 to 181 BC. He had become the ruler at the age of five after the sudden death of both of his parents who were murdered. 

The Fame of the Rosetta Stone 

• Since June 1802, the Rosetta Stone has been exhibited almost continually. It was a part of a collection of Egyptian Antiquities, but was then transferred to a sculpture gallery in 1834 because the stone was too heavy for the floors in the Montagu House, which was the original building of the British Museum. 
• The Rosetta Stone originally had no protective covering. It was formerly displayed on its back almost horizontally, and it was surrounded by a metal cradle to prevent visitors from touching it. Due to the rise of British Museum visitors, the stone has been displayed in a specially built case in the center of the Egyptian Sculpture Gallery since 2004. 
• According to the museum’s records, the Rosetta Stone was the most visited single object in the museum. The Rosetta Stone postcard has also been one of the highest-selling merchandise items for several decades. 

The Stone’s Influence in Egyptian History 

• The Rosetta Stone is an important finding for Egyptian history. Because of the Rosetta Stone, historians and scholars have cracked the code to understanding the hieroglyphs by using the Greek inscription on this stone to decipher them. 
• Thomas Young (1773 – 1829), an English physicist, was the first person to interpret the hieroglyphs on the Rosetta Stone.  He wrote a letter about hieroglyphs by using references in the stone. Scholars agreed that the meanings he suggested for the signs were mostly correct, but he was unable to analyze how the signs delivered their meaning.
• The French scholar, Jean-François Champollion, later discovered a way to understand Ancient Egyptian writing when he pieced together the hieroglyphs. Using the Rosetta Stone as its main reference, as well as other texts, he announced his discovery in a paper in September 1822. 
• Champollion inscribed the hieroglyph and made a second crucial breakthrough, realizing that hieroglyphs work as alphabetic signs. From his guideline, he began reading hieroglyphic inscriptions fully. 

The Rosetta Stone and Today’s Cultures

• Due to the valuable information written on it, the Rosetta Stone is seen as one of the documents that has changed the world, as it holds the key to unlocking the Egyptian language. 
• In today’s cultures, the Rosetta Stone is perceived as a valuable tool that is able to crack the language barriers and bring people closer together. The name ‘Rosetta Stone’ was also well-known as a software name that was used for learning language using immersive techniques. 

Legacy

• Following Champollion’s use of the stone to generate a phonetic hieroglyphic alphabet, other researchers built on his work to translate the artifact fully. They also discovered and translated the Decree of Canopus, another stele written in hieroglyphs, demotic writing, and ancient Greek, ultimately confirming the French Egyptologist’s research.
• The translation provided by the Rosetta Stone served as the foundation for Egyptology, and the well-known stele has been named one of history’s most significant artifacts.
• The Rosetta Stone is one of the most significant artifacts in the British Museum because it contains the secret to comprehending Egyptian hieroglyphs—a system composed of tiny images employed in ancient Egypt for sacred writings.

Rosetta Stone Today

• The Rosetta Stone, which stands about 44 inches tall and 30 inches broad, is currently held in the British Museum in London, where it has resided since 1802, except for a brief relocation for safekeeping during World War I to an off-site, hidden location.

Rosetta Stone Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle which includes everything you need to know about the Rosetta Stone across 50 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use Rosetta Stone worksheets that are perfect for teaching students about the Rosetta Stone which is one of the most famous objects in the British Museum. It is a stone with a message carved into it that is written in three types of writing. This stone has become an important artifact, as it helped scholars understand hieroglyphs (an Egyptian writing system that used pictures to describe words).

Complete List Of Included Worksheets

• Rosetta Stone Facts
• Rosetta Stone Summary
• Which One is Correct?
• The Stone’s Journey
• Egyptian Places
• The Museum Vault
• Guess the Language!
• The Egyptian Trip
• The Stone Reading
• Draw the Past
• The Oldest Language

Frequently Asked Questions

What is unique about the Rosetta Stone?

The stone, a shattered piece of a giant stone slab, held the key to unlocking Egyptian hieroglyphs due to its three different inscriptions. It was an essential clue that enabled experts to decode the ancient language and expand their knowledge.

What is Rosetta Stone, and why is it important?

An object of immense significance, the Rosetta Stone stands proud in the British Museum. It is a significant key to unlocking Egyptian hieroglyphs—a script comprised of tiny pictures used for sacred texts during Ancient Egypt’s reign.

Why is it called Rosetta?

The Rosetta Stone received its name from the town where it was discovered.

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