Rosetta Stone

Three bands of writing cover this fragment of a granodiorite stela. Hieroglyphs occupy the damaged upper part, demotic fills the middle and Greek appears below. Hieroglyphs and demotic write the Egyptian language in different ways. The three texts carry versions of a decree issued by priests in 196 BC for Ptolemy V. The decree affirmed religious honours for the king and recorded his benefits to temples. Its later significance came from the chance to compare the Egyptian text with Greek. Thomas Young identified signs for sounds in a royal name. Jean-François Champollion developed that insight into a broader understanding of how hieroglyphs recorded Egyptian. French soldiers discovered the stone in 1799 while working on a fort near Rashid, also called Rosetta. It transferred to Britain under the terms of the 1801 Capitulation of Alexandria. George III presented it to the British Museum. The original is displayed in Room 4. A copy associated with the King’s Library should be distinguished from this ancient stone.