The Rosetta Stone, a Key to the Past

Two hundred years ago, French historian and linguist Jean-Francois Champollion deciphered the hieroglyphics inscribed on a slab of black stone discovered by one of Napoleon’s soldiers in Egypt in 1799. Unlike many scholars before him, Champollion finally cracked the code to the enigmatic writing system of the ancient Egyptians.

Historian Gary Rendsburg unfolds the exciting story of the discovery and decipherment of the Rosetta Stone and its inscriptions in ancient Greek, Egyptian demotic, and Egyptian hieroglyphics. He traces its discovery by the French, its installment in London’s British Museum, and the efforts to learn its secrets. His account of one of the most important archaeological discoveries of all time fittingly concludes with a basic tutorial on Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Rendsburg is the Blanche and Irving Laurie Professor of Jewish History in the department of Jewish studies at Rutgers University.

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