The Rosetta Stone

The Rosetta Stone is a granodiorite stele inscribed with a decree issued at Memphis in 196 BC on behalf of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes. The decree appears in three scripts: Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, Demotic script, and Ancient Greek. Because the same text was written in three different scripts, and scholars could read Ancient Greek, the Rosetta Stone provided the crucial key to understanding Egyptian hieroglyphs, which had been undeciphered for centuries. Its discovery by French soldiers during Napoleon's campaign in Egypt was monumental for Egyptology.