The Rosetta Stone, a 1700-pound piece of rock (called a stele) discovered in the sands of Egypt, was the key to modern understanding of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. The Stone, discovered in 1799 by a soldier in the French army headed by Napoleon Bonaparte, contains essentially the same text in three different languages: Ancient Greek, Demotic, and hieroglyphs. A full translation of the Greek versions was completed in 1803, but it was 20 years before linguists worked out the details of the hieroglyphs.
Bonaparte became leader of the French army and people in the late 18th Century. Because of the French Revolution and other European governments' opposition to it, France was at war with most of the other European powers for two decades. Because Bonaparte was the central figure in this series of conflicts, they are often called the Napoleonic Wars.
The French presence in Egypt intensified as the 18th Century was ending. French troops claimed ownership of large parts of Egypt. While building forts in the area, French troops found the Stone, near the Nile-delta town of Rashid, also called Rosetta. The Stone, 45 inches high, 28.5 inches wide, and 11 inches thick, was one of many artifacts unearthed by French forces.
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A few Arab historians made an attempt in the 9th and 10th Centuries but without success. A few more European historians tried again in the 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries, still without success. The discovery of the Rosetta Stone renewed an interest in understanding hieroglyphs, and historians and linguists tried again. Scholars still understood Ancient Greek but struggled initially with the administrative technicalities of the language on the Stone. A British translation of the Ancient Greek text was available in early 1802. The following year, French linguists, working on a copy of the text made after the initial discovery, produced a copy in both French and
After the Reign of Terror, Napoleon Bonaparte rose to authority. When he was in power, Napoleon only kept some of the ideas that were used in the French Revolution. For example he was for equality, but disregarded liberty. Napoleon started many wars for France, in hopes of gaining land. France did win some land, but more times than not France lost the wars, putting them into extreme war debt.
Napoleon Bonaparte ruled in France from 1789 to 1815. Napoleon came to power in 1789 and immediately became a powerful figure in the French government. However, some thought Napoleon was such a great leader. The Napoleonic Empire started to grow France’s territories. Some might have believed that Napoleon was too eager with his rule, while losing and failing to succeed against the power of England, in an attempt to blockade their trade, and of Russia, where he led his army to a defeat and retreat back to France. Even in his success over Spain, the battle still costed Napoleon and his army in men and resources. Napoleon was mostly viewed as a powerful and militaristic leader in some aspects, but others saw him as a coward and terrible leader in other ways.
The Rosetta Stone was found in the town of Rosetta and sent to French scholars in Alexandria during the summer of 1799 (Giblin 23). This black, measuring 112 by 76 stone found while the soldiers in the town were destroying a citadel was unprecedented because it had three different languages on it, the only understood one being Greek (Silet 1). The three languages on the stone were, as stated, Greek, the common Egyptian demotic, and 14 lines of hieroglyphics (Giblin 27). Scholars familiar with the Greek language and writing system were able to translate that section, and the final sentence revealed a fact that set the groundwork for future translations of the other parts. The final line reads: “This decree shall be inscribed on a stela of hard stone in sacred and native and Greek characters” (Giblin 27). It came to be understood that the three sections all contained the same message, and scholars promptly set to work on the translations.
By that time, Napoleon had ruled France and surrounding countries for twenty years. Originally an officer in the French Army, he had risen to become Emperor among the political chaos following the French Revolution in which the old ruling French kings and nobility had been destroyed.
Nineteenth century British explorer Henry Rawlinson was among the first archeologists to draw attention to the importance of cuneiform writing. Arguably, his most valuable discovery was the monument at Bisitun in present-day Iran; Bitisun is a massive memorial to Darius, famed king of ancient Persia. Accor...
Champollion, in 1822 was reserved a position on deciphering the hieroglyphics on the Rosetta stone.
In 1947 in a cave near the Dead sea in the Jordan Desert, a fifteen year old boy chased after one of his goats that wandered off. This boy's name was Muhammad adh-Dhib. While going after his goat, the boy stumbled upon perhaps the greatest religious discovery of the modern era. Inside the cave, he found broken jars that contained scrolls written in a strange language, wrapped in linen cloth and leather. These scrolls would later become known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. This first discovery produced seven scrolls and started an archaeological search that produced thousands of scroll fragments in eleven caves.
In 1799, when Napoleon’s army was dismantling a wall in Rashid, Egypt, they discovered the Rosetta Stone. Little did they know that this 11-inch thick piece of rock would be one of the greatest discoveries in history! It contained Egyptian scripture, with Greek also on the stone. This was used to decode the once lost Egyptian writing system. Before the 1800’s, attempts at trying to uncover the secrets held by the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics found on walls inside numerous tombs were useless. The pictures were falsely believed to be symbolic, representing some sort of object or idea. Something soon changed all of this misconception. 1799 was the year of a great breakthrough in Egyptology. French troops, under Napoleon’s command, were destroying a wall when they found a black, basalt stone. The stone was inscribed with three different forms of writing: Egyptian hieroglyphics, a shorthand form of hieroglyphs, and Greek written in 196 BC. The Rosetta Stone then became instrumental in decrypting the long forgotten Egyptian writing system. The stone was first discovered near Rosetta, Egypt, by one of Napoleon's soldiers, named variously as Bouchard, during his expedition to Egypt in August of 1799. In no time, this discovery was mentioned to all the top scholars who were immensely interested since there was no way to decode the hieroglyphs. In 1802, Johan David Akerblad was the first to break ground in identifying the first demotic symbols. He identified a few of the proper names in the demotic text, after comparing them with the same names found in the Greek text. (Ogg 78) Next on the scene was Thomas Young, an English physicist, who took an interest to the deciphering the Rosetta Stone as well. After much researching, Young was able to prove that the proper names in the hieroglyphics section of the stone did in fact have phonetic value, and were not made up of symbols. He then introduced the idea of the proper names being written with ovals around them, known as cartouches. In reality, the hieroglyphs only contained six. Of the phonetic values that he assigned to hieroglyphs, five were correct (p, t, i, n, and f). (Budge 54) In 1814, he revealed the way in which the hieroglyphic signs were to be read by studying the direction in which the birds and other animals were all facing. He also was able to correctly identify some single-consonant...
W. Raymond Johnson, The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, (1996), pp. 65-82, Date viewed 19th may, http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3822115.pdf?&acceptTC=true&jpdConfirm=true
Napoleon had become the ruler of France and then made a huge empire. Napoleon was educated at a French Military School and then later gained power and started an uprising in 1795. He had crazy military tactics and led his men to many victories and many of them were huge for France. Napoleon Bonaparte had been leading his army for more than 15 years and he was becoming a very popular figure. Some people were calling him a “child of the French Revolution” and then later he was called the same of the
Napoleon’s military career is what eventually led to his prominence. Napoleon began his military career above most of the other men his age. He rapidly made his way through the ranks eventually gaining a great support system. As the directory leaned more and more heavily upon the military, a coup d’état developed. Because of his military expertise, he immediately became first consul of France. The empire of France was soon to grow once Napoleon was in reign. In the 1790s the French army was near one million men, an advantage in the Austrian wars as well as future ventures. Wars raged with other European countries in the early 1800s. Napoleon was able to beat the continental coalition, thus gaining territory for France. France annexed some of Italy but also controlled states such as Spain, Holland ...
Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic writing is one the oldest and most interesting forms of written language developed. There is evidence of its use from before 3200 BCE and Egyptian hieroglyphs remained in use for over 3,500 years. The Egyptian name for hieroglyphs translates to “language of the gods,” although the term hieroglyph actually came from Greek words meaning “sacred carving,” which the Greeks used to define the writing found on Egyptian monuments and temples (Ancient Egypt, Hieroglyphics, n.d.).
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In the French Revolution, there was a lot of competition. Everyone always wanted to be on top, have the most resources, and be the most successful. This was seen in Napoleon since he was a short, poor man who had not even been a French native. All of his life he had been competing
Hieroglyphics were a traditional form of writing used by the Egyptian people. These carvings are one of the earliest examples contributing to current knowledge of ancient Egyptian mathematics. Inscriptions of early hieroglyphic numerals can be found on temples, stone monuments and vases. Such carvings typically include groups of inscriptions. Although hieroglyphs indicate the use of mathematics in early Egyptian civilization, they shed little light on any ...