The Rosetta Stone

This granodiorite stela (196 BC) bears a decree honoring Ptolemy V Epiphanes in hieroglyphs, Demotic, and Greek. Because the same text appears in all three scripts, scholars could match the known Greek with the two unknown Egyptian scripts. Before this discovery, no one could read ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs for nearly 1,500 years. Originally set up in a temple—likely at Sais near Rosetta—the stela became the essential key to deciphering Egyptian writing.