The rosetta stone егэ - Помощь в подготовке к экзаменам и поступлению

Задание №10233.
Грамматика и лексика. ЕГЭ по английскому

Вставьте слово, которое грамматически будет соответствовать содержанию текста.

The Rosetta Stone

We learn about our past thanks to the findings of archaeologists. The Rosetta stone is one of them. It ___ (FIND) in 1799.

Решение:

The Rosetta Stone

We learn about our past thanks to the findings of archaeologists. The Rosetta stone is one of them. It WAS FOUND in 1799.

Розеттский камень

Мы узнаем о нашем прошлом благодаря находкам археологов. Розеттский камень — один из них. Он был найден в 1799 году.

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Источник: ФИПИ. Открытый банк тестовых заданий

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Источник

Прочитайте текст и заполните пропуски A–F частями предложений, обозначенными цифрами 1–7. Одна из частей в списке 1–7 — лишняя. Занесите цифры, обозначающие соответствующие части предложений, в таблицу.

‘Second Stonehenge’ discovered near original

Archaeologists have discovered evidence of what they believe was a second Stonehenge located a little more than a mile away from the world-famous prehistoric monument.

The new find on the west bank of the river Avon has been called «Bluestonehenge», after the colour of the 25 Welsh stones of A___________________.

Excavations at the site have suggested there was once a stone circle 10 metres in diameter and surrounded by a henge  — a ditch with an external bank, according to the project director, Professor Mike Parker Pearson, of the University of Sheffield.

The stones at the site were removed thousands of years ago but the sizes of the holes in B _________________ indicate that this was a circle of bluestones, brought from the Preseli mountains of Wales, 150 miles away.

The standing stones marked the end of the avenue C __________________, a 1¾-mile long processional route constructed at the end of the Stone Age. The outer henge around the stones was built about 2400BC but arrowheads found in the stone circle indicate the stones were put up as much as 500 years earlier.

Parker Pearson said his team was waiting for results of radiocarbon dating

D __________________ whether stones currently in the inner circle of Stonehenge were originally located at the other riverside construction.

Pearson said: «The big, big question is when these stones were erected and when they were removed  — and when we get the dating evidence we can answer both those questions.»

He added: «We speculated in the past E ____________________ at the end of the avenue near the river. But we were completely unprepared to discover that there was an entire stone circle. Another team member, Professor Julian Thomas, said the discovery indicated F_________________ was central to the religious lives of the people who built Stonehenge. «Old theories about Stonehenge that do not explain the evident significance of the river will have to be rethought,» he said. Dr Josh Pollard, project co-director from the University of Bristol, described the discovery as «incredible».

1.  which could reveal

2.  which they stood

3.  which it was once made up

4.  that this stretch of the river Avon

5.  that there might have been something

6.  that it should be considered as integral part

7.  that leads from the river Avon to Stonehenge

Пропуск	A	B	C	D	E	F
Часть предложения

Источник

IELTS COURSES —> IELTS PRACTICE —> ACADEMIC READING

Passage 1
Passage 2
Passage 3

Rosetta Stone

In 1799, a famous discovery was made in the small town of Rashid (known as Rosette by the French), 65 km from the city of Alexandria in northern Egypt. Napoleon Bonaparte’s army were digging the foundations of a fort when they unearthed a large basalt slab, over 1.1 metres tall, 75 cm wide and 28 cm thick, weighing about 760 kg.

The ‘Pierre de Rosette’ (Rosetta Stone) dates back to 196 BC when the Macedonians ruled Egypt. The stone is of great historical value because it is carved with the same text written in two Ancient Egyptian scripts (hieroglyphics and Demotic) and in Greek. At the time of the discovery, Egyptian hieroglyphic writing could not be understood, and by comparing the symbols with the Greek text it was eventually deciphered. This allowed scholars to understand the meaning of Egyptian hieroglyphs dating back almost 4,000 years.

Napoleon was defeated by the British navy in the battle of the Nile in 1798 and he left Egypt two years later. The Rosetta Stone, together with other antiquities, was handed over to the British under the terms of the Treaty of Alexandria in 1801. It went on display in the British Museum and to this day remains one of the most popular exhibits. In 1802, Thomas Young, an English academic, translated some of the words in the Demotic section of the stone. Despite this early success, he made little headway with the hieroglyphic symbols, which proved baffling. The problem remained largely unsolved for a further 20 years until the French scholar, JeanFrancoisChampollian, unlocked the code. He realized that the symbols used a combination of alphabet letters and phonetic sounds to convey the same meaning as the classical Greek writing. In 1828 he travelled to Egypt where he was able to read hieroglyphs off temple walls, obelisks and other ancient artefacts to establish, for the first time, the order of kings, when they ruled and how they lived. Champollian is acknowledged as the father of modern Egyptology.

The Rosetta Stone has revealed its secrets. The hieroglyphs were written on thestone by Egyptian priests to proclaim the greatness of their Pharaohs, in this case, 13yearold King Ptolemy V, the fifth ruler of the Ptolemaic dynasty, and son of Ptolemy IV. The stone was made on the first anniversary of the boy king’s coronation in 197 BC and takes the form of a decree. It affirms the rightful place of Ptolemy V as the King of Egypt and instructs the priests to worship him and erect temples. The Demotic language was used in daily life in Egypt, and the classical Greek by the ruling Ptolemies, so it made sense to have these languages on the stone as well as the hieroglyphs so that the decree could be understood by everyone. The stone is not unique in that similar stones would have been placed at other Egyptian temples.

In recent times, Egypt’s head of antiquities, Dr Zahi Hawass, has lobbied for the return of the Rosetta Stone to Egypt, along with other prized antiquities like the ‘Elgin Marbles’ and the bust of Queen Nefertiti. The repatriation of artefacts of cultural heritage is a controversial and emotive issue. The problem is in deciding between what was taken on a fair basis and what was stolen. However, in 2002, 30 of the world’s leading museums issued the joint declaration that ‘objects acquired in earlier times must be viewed in the light of different sensitivities and values reflective of that earlier era’. Whilst this statement may suit the many museums that wish to conserve historically important artefacts, some of the objects are held sacred by the peoples and nations from which they originate. In the case of the Rosetta Stone, the British Museum donated a lifesize replica of the stone to the town of Rashid (Rosetta) in 2005 and a giant copy in France marks the birthplace of JeanFrancois Champollian. Though not authentic items, these copies provide an opportunity for study and learning. The British Museum will loan treasured artefacts to other museums around the world, though in doing so it runs the risk of not getting them back.

Today the term ‘Rosetta Stone’ has been adopted by a languagelearning company and is more likely to be recognized in this context than as an important cultural artefact. The term is also used as a metaphor for anything that is vital to unlocking a difficult problem, for example, DNA has become the ‘Rosetta Stone of life and death, health and disease’, according to the Human Genome Project. Nevertheless, it is the science of Egyptology that carries on the legacy of the Rosetta Stone.

Do the following statements agree with the information given in the reading passage?

TRUE if the statement agrees with the information

FALSE if the statement contradicts the information

NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this.

1. The Rosetta Stone was unearthed in the city of Alexandria.

Explain:

2. There are three translations of the same passage on the Rosetta Stone.

Explain:

3. Egyptian scholars wrote the passages almost 4,000 years ago.

Explain:

4. Thomas Young translated the entire Demotic text.

Explain:

5. The hieroglyphs were more difficult to translate than the Demotic text.

Explain:

6. Demotic language used phonetic sounds.

Explain:

7. JeanFrancoisChampollian is the founder of the science of Egyptology.

Explain:

8. The Rosetta Stone was the only stone of its type.

Explain:

Complete each sentence with the correct ending.

1. The head of Egypt′s antiquities believes …………….

that all items of cultural heritage should be repatriated.

that was used by the French army.

that borrowed items will be kept and not returned.

that reflects the values of an earlier period.

that borrowed items will not be conserved and protected.

that provokes debate and generates strong feelings.

that is associated more with language training than with antiquities.

that the country’s treasured antiquities belong in Egypt.

that the taking of antiquities cannot be judged by today’s standards.

that some of the objects are held sacred.

Explain:

2. The return of antiquities to their country of origin is a topic …………….

that borrowed items will be kept and not returned.

that the country’s treasured antiquities belong in Egypt.

that some of the objects are held sacred.

that reflects the values of an earlier period.

that provokes debate and generates strong feelings.

that is associated more with language training than with antiquities.

that was used by the French army.

that borrowed items will not be conserved and protected.

that the taking of antiquities cannot be judged by today’s standards.

that all items of cultural heritage should be repatriated.

Explain:

3. In 2002, 30 museums stated …………….

that borrowed items will be kept and not returned.

that the country’s treasured antiquities belong in Egypt.

that some of the objects are held sacred.

that was used by the French army.

that borrowed items will not be conserved and protected.

that reflects the values of an earlier period.

that provokes debate and generates strong feelings.

that is associated more with language training than with antiquities.

that all items of cultural heritage should be repatriated.

that the taking of antiquities cannot be judged by today’s standards.

Explain:

4. Where prized artefacts are concerned, there is a danger …………….

that reflects the values of an earlier period.

that provokes debate and generates strong feelings.

that borrowed items will not be conserved and protected.

that is associated more with language training than with antiquities.

that the country’s treasured antiquities belong in Egypt.

that some of the objects are held sacred.

that borrowed items will be kept and not returned.

that all items of cultural heritage should be repatriated.

that was used by the French army.

that the taking of antiquities cannot be judged by today’s standards.

Explain:

5. Rosetta Stone is a name

that is associated more with language training than with antiquities.

that borrowed items will not be conserved and protected.

that some of the objects are held sacred.

that the taking of antiquities cannot be judged by today’s standards.

that all items of cultural heritage should be repatriated.

that borrowed items will be kept and not returned.

that provokes debate and generates strong feelings.

that the country’s treasured antiquities belong in Egypt.

that was used by the French army.

that reflects the values of an earlier period.

Explain:

Источник

The Rosetta Stone is an ancient stone that is covered with carved writing in two different languages and using three scripts or types of writing. The writing is in Egyptian and Greek, and three script types are hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek. The size of the Rosetta Stone is 3′ 9″ x 2′ 4″ x 0′ 11″.

Each of the scripts are the same scripts that were used in Egypt. The hieroglyphic script was often used for important writings or for religious documents. The demotic script was the most common script used at the time. Finally, the Greek script and language was reserved for use by the rulers of Egypt.

It was written using the various scripts and languages so that the priest, government officials, and the rulers of Egypt could read what it said. The stone was made in 196 B.C., but was not found until 1799 by some French soldiers who were rebuilding a fort in Egypt. It was found in a small village in the Delta called Rashid but translates to Rosetta, the origin of its name.

The text on the Rosetta Stone was written by a group of priests in Egypt who wanted to honor the Egyptian pharaoh, a leader or ruler of Egypt. It includes a list of the good things the ruler did for the priests and the people of Egypt.

It too several hundred years for the text on the stone to be translated. There were many people who worked on translating the text, but the person who is most credited with deciphering the text was a French scholar named Jean-Francois Champollion in 1822. The stone is only a fragment of the original and some of the hieroglyphics were cut off in mid-sentence, which made it even more difficult to translate.

He spent many years trying to interpret the text by using other examples of known text of ancient Egyptian writing. He could read both Greek and Coptic languages and was able to decode the seven demotic signs which were written in Coptic. He could figure out what each of the signs stood for. He then made educated guesses to decipher the entire text of the Rosetta Stone.

The date on the stone was translated to be March 27, 196 B.C. Champollion translated two of the names of the pharaohs too, Ramesses and Thutmose. Because of the deciphering of the Rosetta Stone, it also helped experts translate other ancient Egyptian writings that were previously unknown.

Other people spent their entire lives trying to decipher the texts. The Rosetta Stone belongs to the British and is currently in the British Museum and it is one of the most visited exhibits and one of its most important in the museum.

In 2003, the Egyptians wanted countries throughout the world to return some of the Egyptian antiquities (relics or remains from the past) that had been removed from the country over the years. Many of these artifacts were held in French and British museums. In 2005, the British Museum gave Egypt an exact replica (copy) of the stone and it is currently displayed in the Rashid National Museum, close to the location where the stone was originally found.

To link to this The Rosetta Stone page, copy the following code to your site:

Источник

The Rosetta Stone language library, Русский язык 1.

Фрагмент из книги:
Это планета, на которой живёт много животных. В Индии живут тигры, а в Соединённых Штатах Америки медведи. В Нигерии живут львы, а в Египте верблюды. В Германии и Италии живут коровы и овцы. Между континентами находится вода, полная рыб. В небе много — много птиц. Что это за планета? Она называется Земля.
1. Где живут тигры?
2. Какие животные живут в Соединённых Штатах Америки?
3. Где живут львы?
4. В какой стране живут верблюды?

Глаголы с отрицанием.
01 Женщина бежит.
Женщина не бежит.
У этого мужчины есть волосы.
У этого мужчины нет волос.

02 Девочка пьёт.
Девочка не пьёт.
Этот мужчина в каске.
Этот мужчина без каски.

03 На этой женщине белая шляпа.
На этой женщине чёрная шляпа.
На мальчике белая шляпа.
На мальчике чёрная шляпа.

04 На этой женщине нет чёрной шляпы. На ней белая шляпа.
На этой женщине нет белой шляпы. На ней чёрная шляпа.
На мальчике нет чёрной шляпы. На нём белая шляпа.
На мальчике нет белой шляпы. На нём чёрная шляпа.

Оглавление.
ТЕКСТ.
ПЕРВАЯ ЧАСТЬ.
1-01 Введение первых существительных и союзов.
1-02 Настоящее время глаголов несовершенного вида.
1-03 Прилагательные.
1-04 Числительные.
1-05 Ед. и мн. число сущ. Настоящее время глаголов несов. вида.
1-06 Числительные. Время.
1-07 Вопросы и ответы. Личные местоимения.
1-08 Еда. Глаголы:.есть. пить”. Дополнение.
1-09 Одежда. Глагол с отрицанием. Дополнение — член предл.
1-10 Вопросительные слова:.кто. что. где. какой». Прилагательные.
1-11 Проверка 1 части.
ВТОРАЯ ЧАСТЬ.
2-01 Настоящее время глаголов несовершенного вида.
2-02 Люди и животные. Указательные местоимения:.этот, это”.
2-03 Прилагательные: „большой, маленький”. Существительные.
2-04 Геом. фигуры и цвета. Сравнительная форма прилагат. Союзы.
2-05 Прилагательные: „правый, левый”.
2-06 Глаголы с отрицанием.
2-07 Однородные подлежащие.
2-08 Предлоги и союзы.
2-09 Части тела. Существительные и местоимения.
2-10 Времена глагола.
2-11 Проверка 2 части.
ТРЕТЬЯ ЧАСТЬ.
3-01 Описание людей. Прилагательные.
3-02 Количество предметов. Степени сравнения наречия.
3-03 Одежда.
3-04 Слова: „внутренний, внешний». Предлоги.
3-05 Цвета. Числительные.
3-06 Настоящие и ненастоящие животные.
3-07 Состояние человека. Наречия. Прилагательные. Глаголы.
3-08 Профессии. Состояние человека. Краткие прилагательные.
3-09 Части тела. Картины.
3-10 Время (часы). Время дня.
3-11 Проверка 3 части.
ЧЕТВЁРТАЯ ЧАСТЬ.
4-01 Вопросы и ответы. Изъявительное наклонение глагола.
4-02 Слова: „открыт, закрыт: вместе, врозь; выпрямлены, согнуты”.
4-03 Количественные числительные 1-100.
4-04 Глагол „говорить”.
4-05 Глаголы: „подходят, отходят: спит, проснулся: входит, выходит».
4-06 Глаголы и деепричастия.
4-07 Семья.
4-08 Местоимения: „все. кто-то. что-то. никто, кто-нибудь”.
4-09 Виды транспорта.
4-10 Предлоги. Использование предлогов „с» и „без”- при дополнениях.
4-11 Проверка 4 части.
ПЯТАЯ ЧАСТЬ.
5-01 Сложение. Вычитание. Умножение. Деление.
5-02 Существительные. Притяжательные местоимения.
5-03 Времена глагола.
5-04 Количественные числительные.
5-05 Прямое и косвенное дополнение.
5-06 Слова: „жарко, холодно».
5-07 Вещи. Растения. Животные.
5-08 Мебель. Одежда. Инструменты.
5-09 Наречия: „несколько, много, больше, меньше».
5-10 Глаголы, описывающие поведение и состояние человека.
5-11 Состояние человека.
5-12 Проверка 5 части.
ШЕСТАЯ ЧАСТЬ.
6-01 Глаголы: „быть, держать”. Настоящее и прошедшее время.
6-02 Времена глагола.
6-03 Описания людей. Прилагательные.
6-04 Обозначение количества предметов.
6-05 Союзы: „ни. ни; и. и”. Слово „ба”.
6-06 Настоящее и прошедшее время глагола. Неопределённые местоим.
6-07 Имена.
6-08 Времена глагола.
6-09 Обозначение количества предметов.
6-10 Слова: „один, толпа, друг”. Возвратные глаголы.
6-11 Профессии. Состояние человека. Глаголы, связанные с профессией.
6-12 Проверка 6 части.
СЕДЬМАЯ ЧАСТЬ.
7-01 Глаголы.
7-02 Глаголы. Вопросительные местоимения. Слово „обычно”.
7-03 Слова: „быстро, медленно”.
7-04 Времена года.
7-05 Слова: „все. никто, несколько: большая часть; оба: другой”.
7-06 Слова: „оба, среди, нет”. Прилагательные.
7-07 Геом. форма и местонах. предметов. Слова: „все. большинство”.
7-08 Слова: „слева, справа: полный, пустой”.
7-09 Слова: „выше, ниже”.
7-10 Глаголы.
7-11 Времена глаголов.
7-12 Проверка 7 части.
ВОСЬМАЯ ЧАСТЬ.
8-01 Количественные и порядковые числительные.
8-02 Глаголы с отрицанием. Настоящее время глагола.
8-03 Слова: „похоже, почти, один, другие, большинство, все”. Местоим.
8-04 Космос. География. Страны.
8-05 Слова: „улица, тротуар”.
8-06 Одежда и животные. Относит, прилагательные. Притяж. местоим.
8-07 Сравнительная степень наречий.
8-08 Слова: „близко, далеко”. Сравнительная степень наречий.
8-09 Месторасположение объектов. Предлоги.
8-10 Направление: „Как мне пройти к.?”.
8-11 Глаголы.
8-12 Проверка 8 части.
АЛФАВИТ.
УКАЗАТЕЛЬ СЛОВ.
УПРАЖНЕНИЯ.

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Дата публикации: 03.07.2021 08:14 UTC

Теги:

учебник по русскому языку :: русский язык

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Источник

200 years ago, Jean-Francois Champollion raced into his brother’s office and shouted ‘Je tiens l’affaire!’ – ‘I’ve got it’. After years of research, he had pieced together one of the great historical puzzles of the time; he had deciphered the hieroglyphic script of ancient Egypt.

Various objects were crucial in helping Champollion arrive at this famous moment: from the Casati Papyrus to the Philae Obelisk at Kingston Lacy. But of all the artefacts that contributed to the groundbreaking decipherment, one is more renowned than all of the rest: the Rosetta Stone.

Today on display at the British Museum, this object was central in kickstarting antiquarians such as Champollion and Thomas Young down the path of unlocking ancient Egypt’s enigmatic language within just c.20 years of the Stone’s rediscovery. Today, the Rosetta Stone ranks amongst the most famous artefacts in the world. But what exactly is it?

The Stone itself is a commemorative stone (stela), upon which is written a priestly decree issued on 27 March 196 BC. The early 2nd century BC was a time when non-native pharaohs ruled Egypt; the last native Egyptian ruler had been forced into exile almost 150 years before, in c.343 BC.

196 BC was the time of the Ptolemaic Dynasty, one of the most remarkable of Alexander the Great’s Successor kingdoms. Ruling from the prestigious city of Alexandria, ancient Greek was the dominant language of Ptolemaic administration. Away from the official administration however, ancient Egyptian was still a language that people spoke widely across the kingdom: in homes and temples all along the River Nile. Early 2nd century Ptolemaic Egypt was a multicultural, multilingual society.

The Rosetta Stone in the British Museum

Image Credit: Tristan Hughes

It’s this bilingual nature of Ptolemaic Egypt that explains one of the central features of the Rosetta Stone. Carved onto this great, broken slab of granodiorite was text, written in three different languages. The first language was Egyptian hieroglyphs, the second was demotic (a handwritten version of the Egyptian script that Egyptians had long used alongside hieroglyphs; demotic was the ‘script of the people’) and the third language on the Stone was ancient Greek.

The priestly decree itself was issued by a group of priests that, in essence, provided King Ptolemy V divine honours. As thanks for his good deeds as King (protecting the country, rebuilding temples, lowering taxes etc), the Stone’s decree ordered that Ptolemy’s statue be honoured inside the temple and placed alongside those of the gods. Furthermore, Ptolemy’s statue was also to appear during sacred processions, once more alongside statues of other gods. To all extents and purposes, the decree placed King Ptolemy V on the same level as the gods.

This in itself was no novel practice for the Ptolemies; Hellenistic ‘ruler cult’ is something we see repeated again and again in various Successor Kingdoms across the Eastern Mediterranean during this latter half of the 1st millennium BC, where people paid tribute to their ruler’s benefaction by bestowing them with divine honours.

In July 1799, the iconic Rosetta Stone, a stela or inscribed slab, was dug up in the foundations of a fort in the town of Rashid a port city east of Alexandria. This discovery provided the key to decoding hieroglyphs, and allowing us to read the ancient Egyptian script.
In this episode, Tristan interviews Dr Ilona Regulski, curator at the British Museum’s ‘Hieroglyphs Unlocking Ancient Egypt’ exhibition. 2022 marks 200 years since this famous and significant linguistic breakthrough — so what have we learnt in this century?

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Discovery

The Stone itself is named after its discovery location: Rosetta. Situated east of Alexandria near the coast of the Mediterranean today, Rosetta (Rasheed) didn’t exist in pharaonic times. But sometime in Egypt’s long and incredible history, the Stone was moved here and used in the foundations of a building. Given the strength of this granodiorite slab, someone decided that it would be a very useful building block.

It would be in 1799 that the importance of this stone was realised, when French soldiers – assigned to Napoleon’s ongoing Egyptian campaign – were restoring their fort at Rosetta and discovered this tri-lingual stela. Very quickly, both the soldiers themselves and the many scholars that Napoleon had brought with him to Egypt realised that this artefact could be the key to deciphering hieroglyphics – an ancient script that medieval Arab scholars had already been attempting to decipher for centuries.

It was rapidly realised that the Rosetta Stone was highlighting the same decree in three different languages. As ancient Greek was already known, the huge potential this Stone had for helping scholars finally decode this enigmatic ancient Egyptian script (both hieroglyphic and demotic) was quickly acknowledged.

British takeover

French soldiers had rediscovered this Ptolemaic priestly decree, but it would not remain in their hands for long. In 1801, the defeated remnants of Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt signed the Capitulation of Alexandria with the British and the Ottomans. Part of the surrender – Article 16 – demanded that the French transfer 22 Egyptian antiquities to the British. Amongst these were two giant sarcophagi – one of which was at the time believed to be the sarcophagus of Alexander the Great. But the most famous object that the French handed over to the British was the Rosetta Stone.

Experts inspecting the Rosetta Stone during the Second International Congress of Orientalists, 1874

Image Credit: British Museum, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Although they took possession of the physical object, the British still permitted the French scholars to make copies of the Stone. This would allow many figures on both sides of the Channel Sea (including Champollion) to have access to copies of the inscription in the years ahead, as the race to decipher hieroglyphics heated up.

In 1802 the Rosetta Stone, alongside the other artefacts seized by the British, arrived in Portsmouth. Not long after they were placed in the British Museum, which at the time was still very small. The arrival of these new objects encouraged the Museum to expand – to create new galleries that would ultimately house these artefacts.

The Rosetta Stone has since left the British Museum on only two occasions. The first was during World War Two – for safety; the second occasion was in 1972, when the Stone was displayed at the Louvre.

Significance

The Rosetta Stone was the keystone for the great acceleration of decoding hieroglyphics in the early 19th century. It was thanks to this Stone that figures such as Thomas Young and Champollion worked tirelessly as they raced to be the first to crack the ancient script. Other artefacts would help these scholars fill in the final pieces of the decoding puzzle, but it was the Rosetta Stone’s discovery, and its surviving trilingual text, that kickstarted them to devote years in their mission to make Egyptology’s ultimate breakthrough.

Egyptologist Dr Chris Naunton digs deep into the fascinating rediscovery of ancient Egypt.

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Thomas Young made some striking early progress. Focusing on the demotic text, he was able to identify some key words such as King/ruler (basileus) and temple. Most famously of all, he correctly identified the demotic word for Ptolemy and its hieroglyphic cartouche. Attributing phonetic values to the symbols in the cartouche, he was able to make some progress. Mistakenly however, he didn’t quite translate the correct phonetic sound for each of the symbols.

Ultimately, it was Champollion who made the ultimate breakthrough on the Ptolemy cartouche on the Rosetta Stone. That is why it is Champollion today, who we associate with making the ultimate breakthrough. Young made significant progress and is heralded in some circles as the man who translated Demotic. But Champollion was the man who ‘won’ the race.

William Bankes and the Philae Obelisk

One other figure to mention here is William Bankes. An adventurer and daredevil, in the 1810s Bankes voyaged down the River Nile on two separate occasions. Bankes was an avid drawer; he and several of his companions made countless drawings of the ancient Egyptian sites he saw as he ventured up the Nile as far as the Second Cataract and Wadi Hafa.

Philae Obelisk

Image Credit: Tristan Hughes

Bankes sent countless drawings back to Young, who used them to help him in the great deciphering race. But Bankes also brought back to Britain an obelisk, which he had found fallen over at Philae. This obelisk, today visible at Kingston Lacy, had a bilingual inscription. An ancient Greek inscription on the base of the obelisk, with hieroglyphs running up the shaft. It was from this obelisk that Bankes correctly identified the cartouche for the name Cleopatra.

Champollion, using this discovery, the Ptolemy cartouche from the Rosetta Stone and other papyri was able to make the breakthrough. Although we remember Champollion and the Rosetta Stone in the story of how hieroglyphs were deciphered, let us not forget the invaluable information that William Bankes and the Philae Obelisk also provided in this story.

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The Rosetta Stone is a rock stele, found in 1799, inscribed with a decree issued at Egypt in 196 BC. The upper text is Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the middle portion is Demotic script, and the lowest is Ancient Greek. Because it presents essentially the same text in all three scripts, the stone provided the key to the modern understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphs.

The stone was the first Ancient Egyptian bilingual text recovered in modern times. It was probably moved during the early Christian or medieval period, and was eventually used as building material in the construction of Fort Julien in the Nile Delta.

The stone is the most-visited object in the British Museum, where it has been displayed since 1802. Two other fragmentary copies of the same decree were discovered later, and several similar Egyptian bilingual or trilingual inscriptions are now known. The Rosetta Stone is, therefore, no longer unique, but it was the essential key to modern understanding of Ancient Egyptian literature and civilization.

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