An Animated Introduction to the Rosetta Stone, and How It Unlocked Our Understanding of Egyptian Hieroglyphs

In 1799, Napoleon’s army encoun­tered a curi­ous arti­fact in Egypt, a black stone that fea­tured writ­ing in three dif­fer­ent lan­guages: Egypt­ian Hiero­glyphs, Demot­ic Egypt­ian, and Ancient Greek. Before long, Eng­lish troops cap­tured the stone and brought it to the British Muse­um in 1802—where it remains today. The ani­mat­ed video above, cre­at­ed by Egyp­tol­o­gist Franziska Naether, explains “how schol­ars decod­ed the ancient mes­sage of the Roset­ta Stone,” a painstak­ing process that took decades to com­plete. By the 1850s, philol­o­gists had unlocked the mean­ing of Egypt­ian hiero­glyphs and, with them, the secrets of ancient Egypt­ian civ­i­liza­tion.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

What the Roset­ta Stone Actu­al­ly Says

How to Read Ancient Egypt­ian Hiero­glyphs: A British Muse­um Cura­tor Explains

The British Muse­um Cre­ates 3D Mod­els of the Roset­ta Stone & 200+ Oth­er His­toric Arti­facts: Down­load or View in Vir­tu­al Real­i­ty