Скачать или смотреть Decoding the Rosetta Stone: A Race Against Time

The Rosetta Stone, discovered in 1799 by French soldiers near the town of Rosetta (Rashid) in Egypt, played a crucial role in deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. The stone is a granodiorite stele inscribed with a decree issued in 196 BCE during the reign of King Ptolemy V. What makes it significant is that the decree is written in three scripts: Greek, Demotic, and Egyptian hieroglyphs.

The breakthrough in deciphering the hieroglyphs came thanks to the realization that the Greek text, which was fully understood, provided a direct translation of the hieroglyphic text. Early efforts to decode the stone were made by scholars like Silvestre de Sacy and Johan David Åkerblad, but it was the French linguist Jean-François Champollion who made the most significant progress.

In 1822, Champollion identified that some of the hieroglyphs on the stone were used phonetically to spell out foreign names, like "Ptolemy" and "Cleopatra." He compared these phonetic symbols to the Greek names on the stone, which allowed him to begin understanding the hieroglyphic script. Champollion's work revealed that hieroglyphs were not just symbolic but also represented sounds, similar to letters in an alphabet.

Through meticulous comparison and analysis, Champollion eventually unlocked the key to reading ancient Egyptian texts, opening up thousands of years of Egyptian history to the modern world. His work marked the beginning of Egyptology as a scientific discipline, as it allowed scholars to finally read and understand ancient Egyptian writings.