Which civilization created the Rosetta Stone inscription in 196 BCE?

Ptolemaic Egypt created the Rosetta Stone inscription in 196 BCE.

The Rosetta Stone is a granodiorite decree issued during the reign of Ptolemy V Epiphanes. Its text appears in three scripts: Egyptian hieroglyphs, Demotic Egyptian, and Ancient Greek. Because scholars could read Ancient Greek, the repeated content provided the crucial comparison needed to begin deciphering the Egyptian scripts.

The stone was discovered in 1799 by soldiers in Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt near the town of Rashid, known in European languages as Rosetta. French scholars made early copies, but the breakthrough is most strongly associated with Jean-François Champollion, who announced major progress in deciphering hieroglyphs in 1822.

The inscription is not exactly three separate translations in modern formatting; it is a royal decree presented in different writing systems for different audiences. The stone was later transferred to British possession after the French surrender in Egypt and has been displayed at the British Museum since 1802. Its importance comes from the key it provided to a writing system that had been unread for centuries.