The Rosetta Stone

On the 15th of July 1799, amidst the dust and ruins near the town of el-Rashid (Rosetta) in the Nile Delta, a group of French soldiers under Napoleon’s command made a discovery that would forever alter our understanding of Ancient Egypt.

The stone itself was not originally set up at Rosetta, but at a temple complex, likely at Sais or another nearby centre in the Nile Delta. However, in later centuries, it was reused as building material, a common fate for many ancient relics in post-pharaonic Egypt. By the time French soldiers discovered it in 1799, it had been built into the wall of Fort Saint Julien, near the town of el-Rashid (Rosetta), on the western branch of the Nile. The fort had been reinforced during the Ottoman period, and the Rosetta Stone had likely lain there, forgotten and half-buried, for many centuries.

According to first-hand accounts, particularly those by Pierre-François Xavier Bouchard, the French engineer who spotted it during Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign, the stone was being used as part of the masonry of a wall inside the fort, likely in a structure built or reinforced during the Ottoman or Mamluk period. It had been reused as a construction block, its inscriptions partially visible when exposed during fortification works.

At the time of discovery, Fort Julien (also called Fort St. Julien) had long since fallen into disrepair, and French troops were restoring and strengthening it when the Rosetta Stone came to light.

Decree of Memphis, 196 B.C.

“This decree shall be inscribed on a stela of hard stone in sacred writing, native writing, and Greek writing, and shall be set up in each of the first, second, and third temples beside the image of the ever-living king.”

The stone, hewn from grey and pink granodiorite, bears a priestly decree issued in honour of Ptolemy V Epiphanes. The text is inscribed in three distinct scripts:

Hieroglyphic (14 lines): Used for religious and ceremonial inscriptions
Demotic (32 lines): The common script of daily Egyptian use
Ancient Greek (54 lines): The administrative language of the Ptolemaic government

Though damaged (its upper portion broken and missing) it preserved the Greek and Demotic texts nearly in full, offering scholars a comparative key. The hieroglyphic section, carved at the top, was more fragmentary, but sufficient traces remained to provide crucial insight.

Measuring just over a metre in height and weighing approximately 760 kilograms, the Rosetta Stone was quickly recognised as an object of profound scholarly value. It was transported to Cairo, and later, following the French surrender, came into British hands and was shipped to London in 1802. It remains housed today in the British Museum, where it is regarded not only as an object of historical significance, but as the key that unlocked the language and civilisation of Ancient Egypt.

“And a cult shall be established for King Ptolemy… with festivals, processions, and sacrifices… and a statue of the king shall be placed in every temple in Egypt.”

Though it would take another twenty-three years before Jean-François Champollion succeeded in deciphering the hieroglyphic script; an achievement he triumphantly announced in 1822, the discovery of the Rosetta Stone on that summer’s day in 1799 marks the beginning of modern Egyptology, and the rediscovery of a long-silent world.

How Was the Rosetta Stone used to Decipher Hieroglyphs?

When scholars realised the Greek text could be read, they hypothesised it might help translate the other two scripts. The first to make real progress was the English polymath Thomas Young. In the early 1810s, he identified that the cartouches (oval shapes known as shen-rings enclosing hieroglyphs) contained royal names, such as “Ptolemy“. He also noticed that some hieroglyphs had phonetic values, representing sounds rather than ideas or objects.

However, it was the French linguist Jean-François Champollion who made the decisive breakthrough. In 1822, after comparing the Rosetta Stone with other multilingual inscriptions (such as the Philae Obelisk), he realised that hieroglyphs combined phonetic and ideographic elements. He correctly identified the phonetic values for several hieroglyphs and announced his success in the now-famous Lettre à Monsieur Dacier, effectively founding the field of modern Egyptology.

Champollion’s method revealed that the hieroglyphic script was not purely symbolic, as had long been believed, but used phonetic signs, especially for foreign and royal names, and that the script operated with a complex mix of sound signs, determinatives, and ideograms. His ability to read Coptic, the last stage of the ancient Egyptian language, also gave him a unique advantage in understanding the structure of the older forms of Egyptian.

While Champollion is rightly credited as the principal decipherer of hieroglyphs, several others laid important groundwork.

Thomas Young of England was the first to demonstrate that some hieroglyphs were alphabetic, though he mistakenly thought this was limited to foreign names. Silvestre de Sacy and Johan David Åkerblad made early attempts at the Demotic script and identified Greek parallels, helping to shape the early comparative approach.

Ibrahim al-Dusuqi (sometimes rendered Dossouki or Al-Dessouki), an Egyptian scholar from the town of Rosetta, is occasionally mentioned in Egyptian accounts as having assisted or offered insights regarding the discovery or early understanding of the stone. While his exact contribution is not well documented in Western sources, modern Egyptian scholars often highlight his presence and involvement as an early example of native Egyptian engagement with their own heritage, long before Egyptology became formalised under European hands.

The Age of Ptolemy V, c. 196 B.C.

When the decree inscribed on the Rosetta Stone was issued in 196 B.C., Egypt was a land of ancient splendour governed by a foreign dynasty. The ruling king was Ptolemy V Epiphanes, a monarch of the Ptolemaic dynasty, which had ruled Egypt since the conquest of Alexander the Great in the late 4th century B.C. Although the Ptolemies were of Macedonian Greek origin, they had adopted many elements of Egyptian kingship to legitimise their rule in the eyes of the native population.

Ptolemy V ascended the throne as a child, around the age of five, following the sudden death of his father, Ptolemy IV Philopator, a ruler notorious for his cruelty, decadence, and administrative neglect. The kingdom he inherited was in a state of turmoil. Internally, the power of the central government had weakened, and Egypt was plagued by revolts, particularly in the south, where native Egyptian uprisings challenged Ptolemaic authority. Externally, the Ptolemies were under pressure from the rising power of the Seleucid Empire in the east and had recently suffered a humiliating defeat in the Fifth Syrian War, losing significant territory.

It was in this unstable and fractious context that the decree of Memphis (the text preserved on the Rosetta Stone) was issued. It was promulgated by a synod of Egyptian priests to formally acknowledge the young king’s coronation and to express gratitude for his support of temples and religious traditions. The decree paints a picture of a benevolent, divinely sanctioned ruler, bestowing honours and alleviating temple taxes. In truth, it was as much a piece of political theatre as it was a legal statement; an effort to stabilise a fragile regime and secure the loyalty of the powerful priesthood.

The stone itself was not originally set up at Rosetta, but at a temple complex, likely at Sais or another nearby centre in the Nile Delta. However, in later centuries, it was reused as building material, a common fate for many ancient relics. By the time French soldiers discovered it in 1799, it had been built into the wall of Fort Saint Julien, near the town of el-Rashid (Rosetta), on the western branch of the Nile. The fort had been reinforced during the Ottoman period, and the Rosetta Stone had likely lain there, forgotten and half-buried, for many centuries.

Unlock everything you ever wanted to know about the Rosetta Stone over on the British Museum blog.