Rosetta Stone
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Rosetta Stone. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
ro-zet'ta ston, a slab of black basalt. It was discovered in 1799 near Rosetta, Egypt, by a French engineer of Napoleon's army, who was engaged in excavating the foundation of a fortification. Three years later it was secured by the British Museum , and became the subject of study. It is about three and one-half feet long and two and one-half feet wide and a foot thick. It bears parallel inscriptions in three languages--hieroglyphic, demotic characters, and Greek. For centuries, scholars had been striving to read the hieroglyphics of Egypt, but they were unable to get a start. The Greek text of the Rosetta Stone was read easily. It proved to be a lengthy inscription in honor of one of the Alexandrian Ptolemies, under date of March 27, 196 B. C. A French scholar surmised that the hieroglyphic inscription was a duplicate of the Greek. This shrewd guess proved true, and the Greek inscription served as a dictionary for the other, much to the delight of those versed in the antiquities of Egypt. The substance of the inscription is a resolution of thanks passed by a synod of Egyptian priests in session at Memphis for a remission of arrears of taxes due by them. See Hieroglyphics
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
the name given to the Nile by a French engineer in 1798. a stone found near the Rosetta mouth of It is a tablet of basalt, with an ins tion of the year 196 B. C., during the reign of Ptolemy Epiphanes. The inscription and formed the key to the reading of the Greek. It was deciphered is in hieroglyphic, in demotic, and in hieroglyphic characters. It was captured by the English on the defeat of the French forces in Egypt, and is now kept in the British Museum. ered by Dr. Young, Indian wood, imported in logs, 9 to 14
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Both accounts call the stone "black basalt"; it is in fact grey-pink granodiorite, and the British Museum's cleaning in 1999 stripped away the layers of wax, ink and grime that had made it look black for a century and more. The substance of the entries still holds: found in 1799 by an officer of Napoleon's expedition (Pierre-François Bouchard), ceded to Britain under the 1801 capitulation in Egypt, and carrying a priestly decree of 196 B.C. in hieroglyphic, demotic and Greek. Aiton's 1910 note that a Frenchman made the "shrewd guess" and Collier's credit to "Dr. Young" reflect a rivalry still argued over: Thomas Young cracked the demotic and the royal cartouches, but Jean-François Champollion's 1822 letter announcing a workable system is now taken as the decipherment. What neither entry anticipated is that Egypt would ask for it back — repeated requests since 2003 have not moved it from the British Museum, where it remains the most visited object in the building.
Written for this edition, 2026.