July 19, 1799

On this day in history in 1799 the Rosetta Stone was discovered.

Napoleon's army capturing the city of Alexandria

Finding the Stone

The stone was found by a French solider during Napoleon Bonaparte's Egyptian campaign. It was found near the town of Rosetta, how it earned its name, which is about 35 miles east of Alexandria. When Napoleon invaded Egypt a year prior to the stone's discovery he brought with a group of scholars with instructions to seize any important cultural artifacts they found for France. Napoleon himself had an enlightened view of education, art, and culture. When Pierre Bouchard found the stone he knew it was of importance and brought it to Napoleon.

The Rosetta Stone

The Importance of the Stone

The stone was actually a slab of black basalt that contained passages written in three different languages: Greek, Egyptian hieroglyphics, and Egyptian demotic. The stone itself told that it was inscribed by priests in the second century B.C. and explained that all three passages were the same text. This allowed the text to serve as a translation of sorts for hieroglyphics, which until that time could not be read since it had "died" nearly 2000 years prior. It was eventually deciphered by French Egyptologist Jean Francois Champollion. Once he deciphered hieroglyphics the language and culture of ancient Egypt was unlocked like never before. When the British defeated Napoleon in 1801 they took the stone and it now resides in the British Museum in London.