How many scripts appear on the Rosetta Stone?

Three scripts appear on the Rosetta Stone: Egyptian hieroglyphs, Egyptian Demotic, and Greek.

The stone records a decree issued in 196 BC during the reign of Ptolemy V Epiphanes. Its three sections express essentially the same decree for different audiences. The upper register uses formal Egyptian hieroglyphs, the middle uses the administrative Demotic script, and the lower section is written in Ancient Greek.

This parallel text made the stone crucial to deciphering Egyptian writing. Scholars could compare the known Greek text with the Egyptian versions, helping them identify repeated names and sound values. Jean-François Champollion publicly announced a major breakthrough in reading the hieroglyphic script in 1822, building on earlier work by Thomas Young and other scholars.

A common mix-up is to count languages rather than scripts. The stone contains two forms of Egyptian writing and one Greek writing system; the hieroglyphic and Demotic sections represent different scripts and stages or registers of Egyptian writing. It is also a fragment of a larger stele, not a complete slab.