What is the Stone?

• The Rosetta stone is a royal decree issued by the Pharaoh Ptolemy V Epiphanes. It is written in three languages: Greek, demotic, and hieroglyph.
  
  

Discovery

• The Rosetta stone was discovered by French soldiers in 1799 and was translated completely by French linguist Jean-François Champollion in 1822.
  
  

Champollion's Discoveries

• Champollion's letter to the French Royal Academy of Inscriptions revealed three main findings. He concluded that Egyptian Coptic script marked the final stage in the development of ancient Egyptian language, hieroglyphics represented both ideas and phonetic sounds, and hieroglyphics arranged in an oval shape indicated the names of pharaohs.
  
  

Egyptian Power Structure

• Since Egyptian hieroglyphs were generally the language of the priests, and decrees like the Rosetta stone were generally issued by the king, it provided historians insight into the relationship between the two during the Ptolemaic era.
  
  

Current Status

• The Rosetta stone is made of granodiorite and is 112.3 centimeters long, 75.7 centimeters wide, and 28.4 centimeters long. It is being held at The British Museum in London.