200 years ago, humanity was able to solve the puzzle of the ancient Egyptian language, which led to a fascinating knowledge about Egypt’s history.
After all these efforts, we now have Egyptology science which is dedicated to studying Egyptian history.
That’s why, Egypt is now celebrating 200 years passed from the discovery and the decoding of the Rosetta Stone, which was the main hint of reading the Hieroglyphs (Ancient Egyptian language).
This language was a mystery for centuries, the Hieroglyphs’ language was only a pictorial writing found on ancient monuments that we don’t understand.
But finally we were able to crack this code on September 27, 1822, by Jean-Francois Champollion, who was passionate about Ancient Egyptians’ mysterious history.
Champollion was introduced to the heart of this mystery, the Rosetta Stone. This piece of stone was a 720 kilogram slab of grandiosity, a rock similar to granite. In a very exciting moment, Champollion was able to understand this mystery, then he fainted due to the overdose excitement.
The Rosetta Stone has a great historical story that is very exciting and complicated, as much as the decoding of the hieroglyphs’ language.
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The Rosetta Stone came as a savior for humanity as it helped us read the Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs and discover the Egyptian history, since this day was the origin of Egyptology
This valuable piece of stone was discovered in 1799 in the Nile delta of Rosetta town during the occupying of the French forces. Then in 1822, Champollion, a French scholar, was able to solve the stone’s mystery and read the ancient signs of the hieroglyphs. This was a huge event for the whole world and attracted many researchers to study the Egyptology until now.
This stone was originally created in 196 B.C when one of the ancient Egyptian priests wrote a congratulatory speech in the celebration ceremony of King Ptolemy V for assuming the throne of Egypt. He was also thanking him for discarding all the taxes from the Egyptian temples due to low flood.
Through reading this speech, we were able to know what each sign means in the letters we know, and we got the alphabet of the hieroglyphs’ language.
This event was an advantage from the French occupation of Egypt as Napoleon was obsessed with Egypt, and he brought to Egypt not only an army but also with many scholars of Egyptian history.
The Rosetta Stone was including 3 different languages, one of them was the hieroglyphs, the second language was unknown, and the third one was ancient Greek language.
The ancient Greek language was the key to understand the other 2 languages, as the 3 of them carried exactly the same text. This language was well-known by19th-century classical scholars and from here they were able to understand the hieroglyphs, then it led to read all the hieroglyphs writing in all temples and tombs.
You can find the original stone of Rosetta now in London, as the British came to Egypt one day and took it forever.
This year, Egypt celebrates the bicentenary of the existence of the Egyptology science. This celebration includes some new events and a social media campaigns.
The celebration started at the 1st of September and continued till the 27th. The Egyptian celebrates this event at the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square through 2 special exhibitions, the first was displaying historical antiquities for the Egyptology beginning, plus the story behind all the scholars who contributed to this science and the workers behind the museum construction.
The second celebration will be through a photographic exhibition that shows a hug interesting collection from the archaeological sites that were discovered in the 19th-century. There will also be some documentaries about the antiquities transfer from the old museum at Boulaq and Giza to their current place at Tahrir Square.
This celebration will host a social media campaign on different platforms and sites to explain the ancient Egyptian language, hieroglyphs, and also to display the artifacts that helps to know more about the ancient Egyptian civilization.
Egypt is getting more old and more inveterate, the more years to pass, the more beautiful it gets. The greatness of this country is just getting bigger every day. You better never miss visiting this place at least once in your life to witness this amazing historical stories yourself. The Rosetta Stone is the beginning of discovering the charming history of Egypt, make sure to be part of this celebration.
