Recovering a Lost Civilization
196 BC
-196 -196
31.00E31.00N
MISC

ROSETTA, EGYPT
	For almost 1600 years, the entire history of ancient Egypt was unknown because no one could read a picture language called hieroglyphics. If it weren't for a "hard copy" called the Rosetta Stone, the language would still be lost, and we would know almost nothing of the first major civilization and world power on Earth.
	Written in 196 BC, the stone is a record of the priestly honors and economic privileges given to Ptolemy V for the services he performed for Egypt.
	In 1799 soldiers in Napoleon's army were breaking down a wall in an old fort in Rosetta, Egypt. Suddenly, they came across a black slab of stone divided into three horizontal bands. Each band was covered with carved writing. The bottom band was in ancient Greek, the middle band in Demotic, an Egyptian "peoples" language, and the top band contained hieroglyphics, the language which literally covers the sacred temples and statues of ancient Egypt.
	Fortunately, ancient Greek is still well understood by scholars. When translators examined the last two lines in the Greek section, they found that the stone carried the same message in the three languages. By comparing the known Greek section with the characters in the hieroglyphic section, it became possible to decipher the hieroglyphic symbols.
	In September 1822, Jean-Francois Champollion uncovered the techniques which led to our current understanding of hieroglyphics. The Rosetta Stone is now located at the British Museum in London, England.