Final answer:
The Rosetta Stone was critical in deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs, leading to a deeper understanding of ancient Egypt's history, culture, and language. Found in 1799, it contained inscriptions in hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek, which enabled scholars to translate the hieroglyphs by comparison. This breakthrough transformed Egyptology and our comprehension of ancient Egyptian civilization.
Step-by-step explanation:
How the Rosetta Stone Changed History
The Rosetta Stone is a granodiorite stele that was discovered in 1799. It became the definitive key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs, which had been a mystery to the world after falling out of use by the fourth century CE. This decipherment propelled the field of Egyptology forward, allowing historians and linguists to interpret ancient Egyptian texts and gain unprecedented insight into the civilization's history, culture, and politics.
Prior to the Rosetta Stone's discovery at Fort St Julien in el-Rashid, known as Rosetta, Egyptologists could only speculate about the meanings of hieroglyphic writing. The stone features a royal decree written in three scripts: hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek, giving scholars the ability to translate the hieroglyphs by comparing them with the Greek text, a language they already understood.
It was Thomas Young, an English physicist, who first discerned that some of the hieroglyphs spelled the sounds of royal names like that of Ptolemy. Following his lead, French scholar Jean-François Champollion deduced that the hieroglyphic script not only had symbolic representations but also phonetic aspects, which allowed him to lay the groundwork for understanding the ancient Egyptian language and culture. Since then, the Rosetta Stone has been crucial in studying ancient Egypt's history, and continues to be a cornerstone artifact displayed in the British Museum.