Jean-Francois Champollion

This guy that just happened to break the code wasn't just some guy off the streets. He had already learned 11 different languages before breaking the code on the Rosetta Stone. He had started working on the rosetta stone in 1808, he was still a teenager. In 1822, he finally finished it and found out what it said. It took him 14 years to break it, you might think that that is a long time, but it wasn't people back then would spend there whole careers to crack the code.

Deciphering the Rosetta Stone

This was not the easiest thing that was ever done. It took around 20 years and lots of people trying to come up with ways to crack the code. Some people thought that the 3 different parts meant the same thing, some thought that they meant different things. Also some people that the ovals(cartouches) were trying to symbolize the symbols in them, and others thought they were for pointing out important people(pharoahs). When Jean-Francois Champollion finally finished the it was in 1822, he had connected all of the dots and everything. Even after he got it still some people didn't believe that he got it. Some historians spent there whole career trying to decipher this.

Languages on the Rosetta Stone

On the Rosetta Stone there were 3 different languages, why would they put 3 languages on one stone. Why not just put them on 3 different stones. The languages were greek, demotic, and hieroglyphics(pic above). Why did they pick those 3 languages, why not French, English and then Hieiroglypics. Lets talk about Hieroglyphics this language had its own symbols, sounds, and meanings to different things. Each symbol had its own reason for what it meant if it was an animal the reason it was used was because that is the sound that animal makes. Jean-Francois Champollion found out that some of the signs were phonetic and not symbotic to the language.

Finding of the Rosetta Stone

You may wonder how we found the stone. Did it just fall down from the sky and hit someone in the head? Actually it didn't come down and just hit someone. Napoleon's(Not Napoleon Dynamite)Army found it when they invaded Egypt. They wanted to find out more about Egypt and what they did. They were digging out forts in Northern Egypt when they hit the stone. It was the biggest discovery of the expedition thru Egypt. Now this is the French Army that found the stone, so how did the stone get the British Museum. French didn't just give the stone to them they knew that the stone was very important. It got to the British Museum because there was a war between the French and The British. The british won, so they ended up winning and getting the stone.

The Rosetta Stone

The rosetta stone isn't just some stone that they found in Rosetta(a city near the Nile delta). This stone unlocked us into the Egyptians life and what they did. You mite be wondering how a stone could do that. Well, this stone was different because we didn't know how to read the Egyptian language. Now you may be wondering how we finally figured out how to translate this, this stone had 3 different languages on it Hieroglyphics(top), Greek(middle), and Demotic(bottom). The way they deciphered it was they looked at the greek portion of the stone and noticed that some of the words matched up, so then they found out that the ovals(cartouches)around some of the symbols meant that there was a important name inside of the cartouche. Then a man by the name of Jean-Francois Champollion finally cracked the code in September 14 ,1822. Before this date only 13 characters on the whole stone had been solved. Some of the words included Cleopatra, Ramses II, and Ptolemy.

What was the most interesting thing that you learned about?

Do you think that if Jean-Francois Champollion hadn't translated it back then would someone have gotten it by now?

What is an area of strength for this blog?

What is an area of improvement for this blog?