What Is The Rosetta Stone And Why Is It Important

And by good chance one of the french troops under the command of the officer bouchard found a stone of black basalt known as rosetta stone bearing an inscription in hieroglyphic demotic and greek writing.

An irregularly shaped stone of black granite 3 feet 9 inches 114 cm long and 2 feet 4 5 inches 72 cm wide and broken in antiquity it was found near the town of rosetta rashīd about 35 miles 56 km northeast of alexandria. The stone was later deemed important and preserved and after the defeat of the french by the british it was handed over to british authorities along with other antiquities. It was once part of a larger slab that would have stood about 6 5 feet high. While the back of the stone is a rough surface much like any other stone the front of the stone is smooth and covered in an ancient egyptian text that is written in three different scripts.

French army engineers who were part of napoleon bonaparte s. The rosetta stone was found in 1799 when members of napoleon s army were digging in the town of rosetta on the mediterranean coast of egypt in order to build additions to a fort. Rosetta stone discovery in july 1799 a d. The term rosetta stone is now used to refer to the essential clue to a new field of knowledge.

The rosetta stone is no longer unique but it was the essential key to the modern understanding of ancient egyptian literature and civilisation. Rosetta stone ancient egyptian stone bearing inscriptions in several languages and scripts. Their decipherment led to the understanding of hieroglyphic writing. The stone is important because it provided the key for translating egyptian hieroglyphics.

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The rosetta stone is an inscribed slab held at the british museum in london. In the 19th century the rosetta stone helped scholars at long last crack the code of hieroglyphics the ancient egyptian writing system.