Egyptian hieroglyphs and writing systems.
Test your knowledge with these top questions!
English speakers use the idiom "Rosetta stone" to describe a clue that performs what function?
Because the artifact finally unlocked the mystery of Egyptian hieroglyphs, the term is now widely applied to any essential clue that solves a difficult puzzle.
The Rosetta Stone was discovered during whose military campaign in Egypt?
Napoleon brought scholars as well as soldiers to Egypt, helping stimulate European study of its antiquities.
What is missing from the Rosetta Stone's original monument?
The broken top leaves far fewer lines of hieroglyphs than of the other two scripts.
Linguists compare newly discovered bilingual texts to the Rosetta Stone to highlight what feature?
Bilingual inscriptions provide a direct bridge between languages. Like the original artifact, they offer the critical comparative data needed to decipher unknown scripts.
In what year did British forces acquire the Rosetta Stone from the French in Egypt?
The transfer followed the French surrender in Egypt, and the stone reached Britain the following year.
How did the original Rosetta Stone allow scholars to decipher ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs?
The stele features a single decree written in hieroglyphs, Demotic, and ancient Greek. Scholars used the known Greek text to translate the mysterious Egyptian ones.
The famous artifact known as the Rosetta Stone takes its name from what specific source?
Discovered by French soldiers in 1799, the granodiorite slab was unearthed near the town of Rashid, a port city in the Nile Delta that the French called Rosetta.
The Rosetta Stone's decree dates to which Egyptian ruling dynasty?
The Ptolemies descended from a general of Alexander the Great and ruled Egypt from Alexandria.
In Greek, what does the word "hieroglyph" mean?
Egyptians had their own name for the script, "medu netjer", which means "words of the god".
Where is the Rosetta Stone displayed today?
To protect it from wartime bombing in 1917, the museum moved the stone to a postal railway station 50 feet underground.