Today (15/07/2024) marks 225 years since the Rosetta Stone was found in Egypt by Napoleonic forces.
From 1798 to 1801, Napoleon’s military was active in Egypt. The aim was to dominate the east Mediterranean and thus put pressure on British forces in India. On 15 July 1799, Napoleonic soldiers were in Rashid (Rosetta), now a port city of the Nile Delta. They were digging foundations when they accidentally found the Rosetta Stone. The officer in charge, Pierre-François Bouchard (1771–1822), noted the importance of the discovery and kept it safe. In 1801, the Stone became the property of the British via the Treaty of Alexandria. It arrived in England in February 1802. Today, the Stone is housed at the British Museum in London.
The Stone, which was once part of a larger slab, is covered in a decree, or an official message, about Ptolemy V Epiphanes Eucharistos, king of Ptolemaic Egypt from 204 BC until 180 BC. Notably, the message is written three times in three different languages: in hieroglyphs, Demotic, and Ancient Greek. Until its discovery, no one could read Egyptian hieroglyphics. But scholars could read Ancient Greek. The Rosetta Stone was therefore an important discovery, because it aided scholars in deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics.