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ETYMOLOGY DICTIONARY
- Rosetta Stone (n.)
- discovered 1798 at Rosetta, Egypt; now in British Museum. Dating to 2c. B.C.E., its trilingual inscription helped Jean-François Champollion decipher Egyptian demotic and hieroglyphics in 1822, which opened the way to study of all early Egyptian records. Hence, figurative use of the term to mean "something which provides the key to previously unattainable understanding" (1902).
WIKIPEDIA
The
Rosetta Stone is an ancient
Egyptian granodiorite
stele inscribed with
a decree
issued at Memphis
in 196 BC on behalf of King Ptolemy V.
The decree appears in three scripts: the upper text is Ancient
Egyptian hieroglyphs,
the middle portion Demotic
script, and the lowest Ancient
Greek. Because it presents essentially the same text in all three
scripts (with some minor differences between them), it provided the
key to the modern understanding of Egyptian
hieroglyphs.
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