Jean-François Champollion officially informs the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres in France that he has deciphered the Rosetta Stone.
The Rosetta Stone is a stele of granodiorite inscribed with three versions of a decree issued in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt, on behalf of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes. The top and middle texts are in Ancient Egyptian using hieroglyphic and Demotic scripts, respectively, while the bottom is in Ancient Greek.
The decree has only minor differences across the three versions, making the Rosetta Stone key to deciphering the Egyptian scripts.
Watch: Why was the Rosetta Stone so important? - Franziska Naether
From the TED-Ed channel.
Sources and further reading: Wikipedia — Rosetta Stone, Jean-François Champollion (CC BY-SA). Images: Wikimedia Commons.
