Serra Al-Batea series.. Learn about the discoverer of the Rosetta Stone and the details of the most important archaeological discovery

Ahmed Mansoor

Tuesday, 04 April 2023 01:30 PM

Serra Al-Batea series One of the famous Ramadan 2023 drama series presented by United Media Services, directed by the great Khaled Yusuf, featuring artist Khaled Al-Sawi, artist Ahmad Al-Sadaani, artist Ahmad Fahmi and artist Hanan Mudawa, and the events of the series are updated daily in its events, making it one of the most important artefacts in ancient Egyptian history. We see light on the discovery of the Rosetta Stone in Chapter 12, for which we review everything. Details of that great discovery.

How was the Rosetta Stone discovered?

The story of the discovery of the stone goes back to 1798 AD when the French expedition led by Napoleon Bonaparte was advancing through the town of Rosetta. On July 19, 1799 AD, a French officer, Pierre Francois Bouchard, discovered the stone bearing inscriptions of hieroglyphic, demotic and Greek texts.

The discovery was announced in a newspaper published by the campaign to its fighters, and it was called the Rosetta Stone, which was found in the city of Rosetta, located at the mouth of a branch of the Nile in the Mediterranean Sea.

What is a rosetta stone?

The Rosetta Stone is a granodiorite monument that was unveiled in Memphis, Egypt in 196 BC on behalf of King Ptolemy V. The decree appears in three texts: the upper text in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the middle in Demotic script, and the lower in ancient Greek. Because it gives essentially the same text in all three texts “with some minor differences between them,” the stone is important to the modern understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphs.

What are the specifications of the Rosetta Stone?

The height of the stone is 113 centimeters, its width is 75 centimeters, and its thickness is 27.5.

When and by whom was the Rosetta Stone decoded?

The first translation of the Stone Texts into English was made by Stephen Weston in April 1802, and the first study of the Demotic text was made by the French Orientalist “Sylvestre de Sacy” and his fellow Swedish diplomat “Akerblad”. The demotic text contains some names that appear in the Greek text, such as Ptolemy, Arsinoe, Alexander, and the city of Alexandria.

It was not until 1822 that the French scientist Jean-Francois Chambolion, who was in charge of the Department of Egyptian Antiquities at the Louvre Museum, announced that he had reached a solution to the problem of stone inscriptions. Along with the oval shapes found in the hieroglyphic text, they are called cartouches and contain the names of kings and queens, and he was able to compare these names in the Greek text with the names of Ptolemy and Cleopatra. It led to the understanding of hieroglyphic language.

What is engraved on the rosetta stone?

As for the inscriptions on the stone, it is a letter of thanks and gratitude sent by a group of priests in the city of Memphis to King Ptolemy V for exempting the temples from paying certain fees, which was written in 196 BC.

Why are hieroglyphs used?

Hieroglyphs were used because the priests still used them at the time, and the common people used the democratic language, so the stone was written in three languages ​​for the king and the common people to read.

What did propaganda do to Rosetta Stone?

After the British forces defeated the French in Egypt in 1801, the stone was illegally, forcefully and illegally seized by the British colonialists and placed as a gift in the British Museum, and the original stone became the possession of the British. After the surrender of the French campaign and transferred to London, it has been on public display in the British Museum since 1802 and is the most visited monument in the British Museum.

Are there efforts to recover the Rosetta Stone?

Dr. Zahi Hawass, an Egyptian archaeologist and former minister of antiquities, announced the release of a document on the return of the Rosetta Stone from the British Museum and Planetarium at the Louvre Museum.

Hawass called on the international community to let the world know that these artefacts belong to Egypt, and the signatories of the document support the demand for the return of the two artefacts to their original homeland, Egypt.

British academics have called for the return of the Rosetta Stone to Egypt, which has been in the UK for more than 200 years, and experts have signed a petition urging the return of the 2,200-year-old painting. In 1822-1824, according to the newspaper British Daily Mail.

For her part, Joyce Tildesley, professor of Egyptology at the University of Manchester, said now was the right time to return it, adding: “Talks can start now to return the stone to its country on the bicentenary of decipherment. It will not be harmed.”