Which Egyptian town gave the Rosetta Stone its English name?

The Egyptian town of Rosetta gave the Rosetta Stone its English name.

French soldiers found the stone in July 1799 near the town of Rashid, known in European languages as Rosetta, during Napoleon’s campaign in Egypt. The inscribed stone later became one of the British possessions taken after the French defeat and is now held by the British Museum.

The decree on the stone appears in three scripts: hieroglyphs, Demotic, and Ancient Greek. Because scholars could read Ancient Greek, the parallel texts provided a crucial key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs. Jean-François Champollion announced a major breakthrough in 1822.

The stone is not a dictionary or a general translation guide; it records a priestly decree issued in 196 BCE for Ptolemy V. Its importance came from the same text appearing in multiple scripts, enabling comparison.