Explorations in Bible lands during the 19th century - H. V. Hilprecht

DURING 19iii CENTURY: EGYPT 629
expedition, which, according to an arrangement made
between the French and English commanders, had passed
into British possession and are now deposited in the British
Museum in London, was a large slab of black granite
covered with inscriptions. It was discovered by a French
artillery officer in August, 1799, at Fort St. Julien near
Rosetta, a few miles to the east of Alexandria, while excavating
for fortifications. At once it attracted the attention of
the scholars attached to the expedition. No less than three
different inscriptions were inscribed on this " Rosetta
Stone:" one in the long known but undeciphered hieroglyphic
or picture writing, the other in a shorter or cursive
script, which was also unintelligible, and a third in Greek.
From the last mentioned it was noticed that we had to do
with a decree in honor of Ptolemy V. Epiphanes (205-181
b. a). In order that this decree might be intelligible to all
inhabitants of the country, Egyptians as well as Greeks, it
had to be in sacred letters, in " common " script and in the
Greek alphabet. Thus it was evident that the different
inscriptions all dealt with the same subject, and that the
contents of the Greek text was the same as the other two.
Here, then, was furnished the key to the decipherment of
the Egyptian writing.
As early as
the year 1802, the attempt was made by the
eminent French Orientalist, Silvestre de Sacy, and the Swedish
scholar, Akerblad, to decipher the cursive text of the
Rosetta stone, and they were in so far successful as to fix
the values of some of the characters. The real honor of
having solved the mystery of the
hieroglyphics and having
found the key to the understanding of the Egyptian writing
and language belongs to the Frenchman Francois
Champollion, who in a treatise published in 1822 1 fixed a
1
Lettre a M. Devrier relative a F alphabet des hieroglyphes phon'etiques
employe par les Egyptiens pour inscrire sur les monuments les titres, les 710ms
et les surnoms des souverains grecs et romains.