In 1799, French soldiers of
Napoleon Bonaparte's army, which had invaded
Egypt, were digging fortifications in the delta town of
Rosetta when they discovered a slab of black basalt. On it was an
inscription of a decree passed by a council of Egyptian preists in 196 BC, expressed in two languages,
Greek and
Egyptian. These were written in three scripts: Greek, Egyptian hieroglyphic, and demotic (a late form of the Egyptian language). The
hieroglyphic script (which had until then not been understood) was fully deciphered (following work done by
Thomas Young), by
Jean Francois Champollion, a brilliant
French scholar who published his discoveries in 1822.
Champollion's wide knowledge of ancient languages included both Coptic, a late form of Egyptian, and Greek, and from these he was able to identify the hieroglyphic characters of the name "PTOLMYS," or Ptolemy, which was written in a circle. He then compared these hieroglyphic characters with another inscription, which had some of the same signs, mainly P, L, and O. He read this as "KLIOPADRA" (Cleopatra), and this now gave him 12 characters. From this small number, he gradually built up a sign list from other royal names and titles, recognized by their surrounding inscriptions. Although there was still much to be worked out, his pioneering work in unlocking the hieroglyphic script was an extraordinary feat.