Rosetta Stone was discovered in June 1799, near the town in the Nile Delta known in antiquity as Rosetta, and nowadays as al Rashid. Discoveries made by French sappers from Napoleon’s army who were preparing the foundations for the construction of the fort. Rosetta Stone is a black basalt plate 45 in high at its highest point, 28.5 in wide, and 11 in thick. It weighs approximately 1,700 lbs. On its surface there is the text in three languages: in Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, in the Egyptian demotic script, and in Ancient Greek. The stone is only part of a larger plate therefore none of the three texts is absolutely complete. Plate probably came from one of the Egyptian temple. The inscription on the plate was engraved in 196 BC in occasion the first anniversary of coronation of the Egyptian king, Ptolemy V Epiphanes. Stone has great value because, thanks to the text on it in three languages, it has become a key for J.F. Champollion to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics. The result of years of hieroglyphic system research was the establishment that the principle of phonetic hieroglyphic writing was used not only for the names of rulers, but for the whole system of signs.
