Riddle of the Rosetta Stone

An enthralling description of the 1799 discovery of this famous artifact and the extensive work involved in, finally, deciphering it. It begins with the story of the accidental discovery of the stone in the ruins of an old fort near the town of Rosetta during Napoleon’s occupation of Egypt. Then the author recounts the various attempts by French, Swedish and English scholars to decipher the message and shows why each ended in failure. At long last, a young French scholar surmised that some hieroglyphics stood for objects and others for sounds, and succeeded in deciphering almost all of them. Illustrations made from engravings by an artist on the expedition give an on-the-scene air to the book, while closeup photographs of the stone from the British Museum make clear the difference between the three languages - Greek, hieroglphyic and demotic - carved on the stone.