I’m in the British Museum, after hours when all the visitors have gone,
and here is the Rosetta Stone.
It was the key to understanding Egyptian hieroglyphics, and it is one of the most precious and valuable
treasures of the British Museum.
Okay, this isn't the actual Rosetta Stone, that's locked away in an incredibly well-secured
cabinet on the other side of the Great Court, this is the replica that they let people touch.
And so many people touch it that they have to hand-make a new replica every couple of
years. Anyway.
Until the Rosetta Stone was discovered, and promptly “acquired”, by Napoleon's campaign
in Egypt, no-one in the modern age had a clue about how Egyptian writing worked. The most
popular idea was that they were purely ideographic, with each drawing representing a concept.
Modern linguists know that's unlikely, but that's more obvious in hindsight: without
any context or existing translations there was no way to decipher any hieroglyphics,
anywhere.
But then: the Rosetta Stone. Originally part of a temple that was likely demolished when
a Roman emperor ordered all non-Christian temples to be closed, then probably used as
building material. It was buried for centuries, until French soldiers found it and one of
them realised what its significance might be. The same text, in three languages:
hieroglyphics, Demotic, and most importantly Ancient Greek,
which had never been forgotten.
But translation wasn't easy: it took scholars twenty years to work it out, because the stone
is filled with jargon. The concepts here aren’t simple. And Egyptian hieroglyphics are complex:
the same symbol can be used phonetically, to represent a sound, AND to represent an
abstract concept, AND to represent literally what's been drawn, all depending on context.
And yes, that is a bit like texting with emoji when you think about it.
The big clue that helped translation was here: the cartouches, these circles with lines.
They are honorific markers attached to the names of royals. So scholars knew: there are
names in the other languages here that we can read. Those names should also be in the
hieroglyphics, Well hang on, there was already a theory that cartouches meant names. So if
we match up those letters with... I mean, I'm simplifying, massively, it was incredibly
difficult, and frustratingly, the translations aren't exact, there are differences between
each of the three texts here. But once one piece was cracked, there was a way in, and
over decades of hard work, we started to be able to translate hieroglyphics.
The question very few people ask, though: what’s actually on the Rosetta Stone? What's
written here? What mysteries of ancient Egyptian life did it reveal... it's about a royal cult
being granted certain favours including tax exemption. It is, essentially, Ancient Egyptian
tax paperwork.
The British Museum are piloting four new series on YouTube, and the one you all like the most
will get made.
So go look over on their channel! And thank you very much to them for letting me into
this incredible place after hours.
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