In 196 B.C.E. , 13 - year - oldPtolemy Vwas coronate King ofEgypt . One class later , the priestly council of Memphis — an ancient Egyptian river urban center — commemorated the social function ( and affirm his royal furor ) by go forth aroutine decree .
Their words were carve onto agranodiorite rock’n’roll slabin three different scripts . Toward the bottom , the message appears in ancient Greek . Halfway up , we see it expressed inDemotic , a popular script system the Egyptians had used for over a thousand class , from the 7th century B.C.E. until the 5th 100 C.E.
Then , up at the very top , the council ’s decree was written out again in an intricate , unceasingly fascinating collection of symbol : AncientEgyptian hieroglyphics .
Gallic engineers rediscover a tumid clump of this slab in 1799 C.E. ( alas , the rest has been lost to the ages ) . Since it turned up in Rashid , Egypt , formerly called " Rosetta , " the artefact became known as the " Rosetta Stone . "
Perennially , it’sthe most popular exhibitat the British Museum in London , England . And for salutary reason : The Rosetta Stone helped assimilator decipher Egypt ’s longsighted - mysterious hieroglyphic organization .
Ancient Wonders
Janet Johnsonis a professor of Egyptology at the University of Chicago and the director of the Chicago Demotic Dictionary Project . " The hieroglyphic piece of writing system was prepare in the former dynasty of Egyptian history , before 3000 B.C.E. , " she tells us in an electronic mail . It stick around for quite a while ; the last known hieroglyphic inscriptions were made at theTemple of Isis at Philaein about 394 CE .
Sometimes , the handwriting was chiseled into stone ( as in the Rosetta Stone ’s fount ) . It could also bepaintedonto tabernacle walls or on ancientmetals and ceramics .
Any writing system that lasts for thousands of years is bound to inspire derivative . And this one was no elision .
Hieroglyphs look tremendous on monuments , but they were badly - suited for everyday consumption . EnterHieratic , a simplified cursive script free-base on Egyptian hieroglyphic . First introduced in the Old Kingdom ( which go from 2700 to 2200 B.C.E. ) , it went through a fewdifferent iterationsover the millenary .
accord to Johnson , Hieratic was committed to papyrus andostraca ; the latter were fundamentally notepads made of clayware fragment and limestone fragments . Hieratic was n’t the only option to hieroglyphic . Says Johnson , it was after " supplemented by … [ Demotic ] in the heart of the first millenary , B.C.E. "
Meanwhile , she notes that " hieroglyphic continued to be used for their decorative , as well as communicative note value , on limestone memorial " such as temples and tombs .
Talking It Out: Symbols and Sounds
About 25 symbolic representation in the Egyptian hieroglyphic " alphabet " denote specific sounds . " But very few words were write strictly alphabetically , " cautions Johnson .
Context is king ; some star sign were used toexpress ideasrather than auditory sensation . On one tomb that was made sometime between about 2181 and 1640 B.C.E. , a jackal is pictured sitting atop a shrine — just to the right of three other symbol .
This Canis aureus sign work as a " determinative . " Its purpose was to tell the lector that the preceding symbols collectively mean " Anubis , " the name of an Egyptian god . Plus , a few of the hieroglyphical sign are " biliteral " or " triliteral . " As Johnson tell us , these suggest " two or three sound in a specific rules of order . " ( E.g. , " R+N " versus " N+R. " )
Altogether , hundreds of Egyptian hieroglyphic symbolic representation are known .
The Advent of Rome
With the possible exception ofKing Tutankhamun , none of ancient Egypt ’s swayer or carbon monoxide - rulers are as well - bed today asCleopatra VIII . A famous confederation with Mark Anthony of Rome put her on the losing side of a Roman Civil War — and in consequence , Cleopatratook her own lifein 30 B.C.E.
Once the dust settled , her mother country became aprovinceof the Roman Empire .
" The hieroglyphic written material organization and its derivatives … were supplant by Greek as an administrative nomenclature during the Roman occupation , " says Johnson .
Then , as Christianity deal hold across Egypt , the hieroglyphic systemfell into neglect . So did the sacerdotal and Demotic scripts it inspired .
" The spoken language keep on in the Egyptian Christian Christian church ( where it is called Coptic ) , " Johnson explain . " Coptic is still used as a liturgical language in the Christian church , but it is written in the Grecian alphabet , supplemented by some signs from Demotic for sounds in the Egyptian language which were not find in the Greek language . "
But what became of the neglected hieroglyphics ? Well , for centuries , their decipherment was a forgotten art .
Historians who longed to make common sense of them ultimately caught a big break when the Rosetta Stone popped up . Decoding the 44 by 30 - inch ( 112 by 76 - centimetre ) slab was an project that took learner Thomas Young and Jean - François Champolliontwo decadesto complete . And Egyptology would never be the same .
