Name: Rosetta Stone
History:
The Rosetta stone is indigenous to Egypt and has tiny hieroglyphics inscribed on it. It was found in Rosetta, Egypt in 1799 by soldiers and a French officer, Pierre-François Bouchard (1771–1822) realized the importance of the discovery and took it to England with him.
It was however repossessed when the British defeated the French in 1801 where it remains till date and Egypt hasn’t been granted the luxury of taking it back.
This stone is said to be 2200 years old and is made from basalt stone. It was used to learn hieroglyphics.
Use:
It has great significance in the discipline of Archaeology as the writings on it were said to be an official message called a decree about King Ptolemy V. It states that: The priests of a temple in Memphis supported the king and this decree was written three times. At this time people couldn’t read hieroglyphics so it became a tool for scholars to decipher it. The Rosetta Stone was found broken so it’s not a complete stone. Thomas Young was the first to show that some of the first hieroglyphics on the Rosetta Stone wrote the royal name: Ptolemy IV
The Rosetta Stone is still referred to in Archaeological records today as its discovery was important to the language of hieroglyphics and the whole essence of archaeology is to reconstruct the human past and preserve it.
To read more on the Rosetta stone, check out https://blog.britishmuseum.org/everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-the-rose
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