The Rosetta Stone A stela of granodiorite found in 1799 | Honest historian
The Rosetta Stone
A stela of granodiorite found in 1799 in Egypt near the small town of Rosetta (now Rashid), near Alexandria, with three identical texts inscribed on it, including two in Egyptian - inscribed Egyptian hieroglyphs and Egyptian Demotic script, which is a shortened cursive writing of late Egypt, and one in ancient Greek. Since 1802, the Rosetta Stone has been preserved in the British Museum.
The text on the Rosetta Stone is an inscription of thanks which the Egyptian priests addressed to Ptolemy V Epiphanes, a monarch of the Ptolemaic dynasty in 196 BC. The text begins, "To a new king who has received the kingdom from his father"... The stone was discovered on July 15, 1799 by Pierre Bouchard, a lieutenant of the French forces in Egypt. In 1801 the French were defeated in Alexandria by the British and were forced to hand the stone over to them together.
The Rosetta Stone is 114.4 cm high, 72.3 cm wide and 27.9 cm thick. The Rosetta Stone weighs approximately 760 kilograms. The front surface is polished with carved inscriptions on it. The reverse is roughly machined.
