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| The Rosetta Stone. Picture used with the permission and courtesy of the British Museum. (C) Trustees of the British Museum. I have a link to the translation at the end of the piece. |
A brief summary of the story of the
Rosetta Stone.
Napoleon kicked off his
Egyptian/Syria campaign in June 1798, roughly speaking, with the naval invasion
of Malta. The idea for his personal National Lampoon’s Egyptian Vacation
came out of POLITICS AND ECONOMICS. (There’s a lot to that point, but honestly,
I don’t want to get into it because that’s not the purpose of this post. It is
pretty interesting -like most of history- and the French vs British/Ottoman
Empire dynamic had severe ramifications some argue are still haunting us today.
I wholeheartedly recommend starting your own education on the subject.)
Where were we…ah yes! A couple of
things about Napoleon. 1. He was not short. That’s a complete myth. He was
about 5’ 6.5” or 7” tall. Average height for his time. Blame British political
propaganda and differences in measurement systems for this nonsense. For
context, he would have stood eye-to-eye with Tom Cruise. 2. He liked science*.
Remember, he was born in the latter period of The Enlightenment or the Age of
Reason. (Now I have Thomas Dolby’s Valley of The Mind’s Eye in my head.
Love that song.) So, when he wanted to go Walking in Memphis he brought
scientists, historians, and engineers. Granted his army would have had engineers
anyway like most large, modern military forces, but these men were also
products of their Age. Thus entered Lt. Pierre-François Bouchard.
July 19ish, 1799 found Bouchard in
modern day Rashid, known then as Rosetta, set with the task of
refurbishing a small fort. During the work Bouchard noticed a thick, broken
stone embedded in one of the walls. It was covered with writing. That in and of
itself was not rare, nor even uncommon in Egypt. Recycling stone from older constructs
into new ones was a time-honored practice. What caught his eye, and what could
have been easily overlooked or ignored by others, was that part of the writing
was in Greek. Bouchard was educated. He knew how to read Greek. The rest of the
visible text consisted of Hieroglyphic and Demotic. Two of the several scripts
ancient Egyptians used for writing. Here’s the bit that grabbed him by the
short and curly fries: it said the message was written in sacred, native, and
Greek characters! That meant it was the same message written in Hieroglyphs (sacred
script), Demotic (native or average Jane/Joe script), and Greek because the
Greeks ruled Egypt when it was carved. Bouchard thought this stone (This Rosetta
Stone) important so he let his superiors know about it and what made it
special. Good job, Bouchard!
Flash forward a few years. Napoleon
lost the war and the Rosetta Stone sits in England eating kippers. Dozens, if
not hundreds, of copies of the inscription are made via ink rubbings. They are scattered
to the academic corners of Europe with a speed not seen again until the advent
of cat videos, leaked celebrity nudes, and political memes.
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| Thanks, whomever made this. Damn, Agent Smith. You are creepy. |
Lots of people worked on the puzzle of Hieroglyphs, though one person is generally given credit for opening the flood gates of time. Having said that, we’re talking about HISTORY. History is a story requiring constant poking with pointy sticks to make sure the plot stays solid. Furthermore, it must be accompanied by thorough delousing to keep the characters free from parasites. There is still some academic debate over how to weigh the contributions of those involved. For example, the sources I used (including but not limited to: Wikipedia, Bob Brier, Ph.D., the BBC, online encyclopedias, and book excerpts from the late 1800’s by E.A.Budge) had conflicting accounts of varying degrees of who did what and how and when and with what! Again, there is someone who gets the primary credit for cracking Hieroglyphs but there was an unaffiliated, unorganized group effort at work so to give 100% credit to only one person is simply not accurate. Therefore, I will present the two people I think deserve most of the credit. Spoiler Alert: I tend to agree with Dr. Brier.
Get your pointy sticks ready.
Thomas Young (and the Restless).
England. 1814
But what are Hieroglyphs, anyway? There was ongoing debate at the time over whether they were a type of alphabet or picture writing. Thomas was a doctor by training. He also enjoyed physics, languages, optics, and listening to Europop. That last one surprised me, too. Anyway, Thomas knew there was an idea floating about that the oval cartouches (from the French word for bullet) might hold the names of kings. So, given the Rosetta Stone was about Ptolemy V, then how could it be picture writing? The symbols within the cartouche were not unique. In fact, they were common glyphs found many times spread out on the Stone amongst the others. That implied they might be letters. That then implied that if it was treated like a substitute cipher (my words) starting with the letters in Ptolemy’s name as a basis, then perhaps the remaining symbols could be matched with their Greek and Demotic counterparts. Such was his thought. Turned out, Young was correct. He was able to figure out what several glyphs sounded like (based on their Greek counterparts) while expanding a bit about what was known about demotic. Sound is important! (For the record, Demotic comes from the Greek root words ‘demos’ from which we get democracy.) Tommy Boy is better known for his work on the fundamental understanding of light and color. Just saying.
Jean-François Champollion. France.
1822.
By all accounts, Champollion was an
extremely gifted thinker and linguist. He had a solid grasp of several
languages including an ancient language from Egypt called Coptic. For
background, Africa contains some of the oldest Christian populations. Perhaps
you’ve heard that a small church in Ethiopia holds the Holy Grail? Yeah. That’s
a real, centuries old claim by a real, centuries old church. That’s how far
back Christianity has roots in Africa. Coptic was and is a language used by
Christians in Egypt largely in religious services. It took Egyptian words and
wrote them out in Greek using their phonetic equivalents. (This is a simplified
explanation, obviously.) So, while Young cracked the walls around what some Hieroglyphs
and Demotic letters might sound like and mean, Champollion tore them down and
used the debris to build a comfy patio. I must give him props for the
difficulty of his work. He took what was known about Egyptian languages and
scripts then painstakingly cross referenced possible meanings/translations
while comparing possible pronunciations with words from Coptic which could then
be compared to Greek and some Arabic- which he was also proficient in. AND! He
was only 19 when he started this! 1822 rolled into town to find him gathering
his work into the first comprehensive guide to Hieroglyphics. Corrections were
made in the following years as more examples of multi-script steles were found;
however, it was his own work which made these corrections possible. Ergo,
Champollion is considered the Bruce Lee of early Egyptology.
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| Sounds about right. |
In conclusion: the Rosetta Stone was
a gift to Egyptian tourism surpassing even the oversight of the tomb raiders
who missed King Tutankhamun’s condo made of stona. It boosted awareness
of Egyptian culture worldwide giving birth to the Ankh Necklace industry in
order to feed the voracious jewelry needs of countless students, hipsters, New
Age guru’s, hippies, and Neil Gaiman fans. Without it, Dr. Zahi Hawass might never have had his
fiery exchanges with Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval. I shudder to think of all
the Robert Clotworthy (2) voiced ancient alien theories we would have lost had
Bouchard turned his gaze at the wrong moment.
In conclusion
again: Thanks to the hard work of many and the sharp eye of one the larder of
human knowledge received a shipment of discontinued product feared lost
forever.
Be seeing you,
Sam
*http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/napoleons-lifelong-interest-science-180964485
The text, carved in 196 B.C. is a gushing ‘thank you’ note to the local
Greek ruler Ptolemy V for giving a tax-break to the priests and a few other
good works. Or put another way: a special interest group snuggling up to the
government. See? There is nothing new under the sun. Tax-breaks in 196 B.C.In all seriousness, it is
very poetic.
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/ancient/rosetta-stone-translation.asp
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/ancient/rosetta-stone-translation.asp
(2) Read my interview with Robert here ----> http://strongarmlabs.blogspot.com/2017/02/robert-clotworthy-you-know-his-voice.html
