The Rosetta Stone is rediscovered. During the Egyptian campaign, a group of Napoleonic soldiers discovered a black basalt stele bearing ancient inscriptions near the town of Rosetta. According to the Greek text, the stele was engraved in the second century BC. The “Rosetta Stone” was studied for twenty years, until French Egyptologist Jean-François Champollion made a sensational discovery: the two Egyptian inscriptions—hieroglyphic and demotic—on the stone corresponded to the same spoken language. The artifact helped solve the enigma of hieroglyphics, a form of writing that had been extinct for over two thousand years. Knowing demotic, Champollion was able to decipher the characters, offering scholars an extraordinary key to understanding the language and culture of ancient Egypt.
