Ancient Greek appears alongside Egyptian hieroglyphs and Demotic on the Rosetta Stone.
The Rosetta Stone is a granodiorite decree issued in 196 BC during the reign of Ptolemy V Epiphanes. The same text was written in three scripts: hieroglyphic, used for formal religious texts; Demotic, a more everyday Egyptian script; and Ancient Greek, the administrative language of the Ptolemaic rulers.
The Greek version gave scholars a known language with which to compare the Egyptian scripts. Thomas Young made important early progress, and Jean-François Champollion announced a major breakthrough in deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs in 1822.
The stone was discovered near Rashid, known in Europe as Rosetta, in 1799 during Napoleon’s campaign in Egypt. It is now held by the British Museum, while a replica and related displays help explain its role in the history of Egyptology.