Rosetta Stone

 

In our contemporary time, Rosetta Stone represents more than one entity. But its original use is for a broken stelae (a stone carving) found near the town of Rashid - Rosetta - in the Nile delta in Egypt by Napoleon Bonaparte’s army in the late 18th century.

The Rosetta Stone has 3 language inscriptions - Ancient Egyptian demotic, hieroglyphs and Greek, passing across the same message about the coronation of Ptolemy V Epiphanes in late 2nd century BC.

The importance of the Rosetta Stone’s discovery is the hedge it lent to historians and archaeologists in deciphering old Egyptian texts - hieroglyphs, which were graphical forms and were not before understood or translated.

The complete stone.

The stelae was the first of its kind, after, more carvings - some centuries older - have been discovered and inscribed in the same format of 3 languages like the Decree of Canopus.

As an App.

Presently, as an idiomatic expression, Rosetta Stone has been used to describe a first breakthrough or a software or first foundation to understand other things. For example; “the spectrum of hydrogen atoms has proven to be the Rosetta Stone of modern physics…,” also, it is the name of an app.

The Rosetta Stone has been resting in a museum in London…waiting for viewers like me. 🤪

Notes;

1. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Rosetta-Stone

2. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone

3. Google photos.