Rosettapdf

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Rosetta Stone archeology and space

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Rosetta Stone http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/aes/t/the_rosetta_stone.aspx

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia: The Rosetta Stone Material: Granodiorite Size: 114.4 × 72.3 × 27.93 cm = (45 x 28.5 x 11 in) Writing. Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, demotic script, and Greek script Created: 196 Before Christ Discovered: 1799 Present location: British Museum

The Rosetta Stone is a granodiorite stele *(1) inscribed with a decree issued at Memphis in 196 BC on behalf of King Ptolemy V. The decree appears in three scripts: the upper text is Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the middle portion Demotic script, and the lowest Ancient Greek.

Because it presents essentially the same text in all three scripts, it provided the key to the modern understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphs.

It was rediscovered in 1799 by a soldier, Pierre-François Bouchard, of the Napoleonic expedition to Egypt. As the first Ancient Egyptian bilingual text recovered in modern times, the Rosetta Stone aroused widespread public interest with its potential to decipher this hitherto untranslated ancient language. *(1) granodiorite: GEOLOGY Granodiorite is a plutonic igneous rock, formed by an intrusion of silica-rich magma, which cools in batholiths or stocks below the Earth's surface. It is usually only exposed at the surface after uplift and erosion have occurred.

THE DISCOVERY, British troops defeated the French in Egypt in 1801, and the original stone came into British possession under the Capitulation of Alexandria. Transported to London, it has been on public display at the British Museum since 1802. It is the most-visited object in the British Museum.

The transliteration of the Egyptian scripts was announced by Jean-François Champollion in Paris in 1822.

Ever since its rediscovery, the stone has been the focus of nationalist rivalries, including its transfer from French to British possession during the Napoleonic Wars and since 2003, demands for the stone's return to Egypt.

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French soldiers discovered the unique Stone in 1799, as they prepared to demolish a wall near the village of Rashid (Rosetta) in Egypt's Nile delta.

The carved inscriptions on the Stone included hieroglyphics – the written language of ancient Egypt – and Greek, which was readily understood.

After the French surrender in 1801, the 762-kilogram stone was handed over to the British.

By comparing the inscriptions on the stone, historians were able to begin deciphering the mysterious carved figures. Most of the pioneering work was carried out by the English physician and physicist Thomas Young, and the French scholar Jean François Champollion.

As a result of their breakthroughs, scholars were at last able to piece together the history of a long-lost culture.

http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/a_history_of_the_world.aspx The Rosetta Stone is one of the most famous objects in the British Museum but the actual contents of its inscription is less well-known. The inscription is a decree that affirms the royal cult of the 13-year-old Ptolemy V on the first anniversary of his coronation in 196 BC. The same inscription is written in three different scripts ? Greek, hieroglyphs and demotic Egyptian. It was this Greek inscription that allowed modern scholars to begin to decipher hieroglyphs for the first time.

Why is the Rosetta Stone written in three different scripts?

THE HISTORY: In 332 BC, Egypt was conquered by Alexander the Great.

After Alexander's death, his former general Ptolemy I ruled Egypt. His Greek descendants known as the Ptolemies ruled Egypt for the next 300 years. The Ptolemaic period witnessed a fusion of Greek and Egyptian cultures. Greek was the official language of the court, while hieroglyphs were limited to use by the priests. Demotic Egyptian was the native script used for everyday purposes.

An icon of understanding Although the Rosetta Stone is a rather heavy stone, it is also a strangely insubstantial and mobile thing.

It was once an inscribed temple stele, one of many, in the shining halls of ancient Sais. It was then a piece of builders’ rubble, then a block in the walls of a medieval fort at Rosetta/el-Rashid, then an exotic antiquity disputed by French and English factions, then war booty in an official treaty, then the key to 4,000 years of an otherwise lost written culture, and gradually an icon of not only this decipherment, but of any decipherment, giving its name to computer programs, language schools, even to satellites.

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It has moved from the long demolished temple of Sais through European history into outer space. If it hadn’t been created at a time when Egypt was governed by a Macedonian dynasty, been uncovered by warring nations, been given to Europe and worked on by rival scholars, it would have remained only another duplicate temple inscription.

Instead, its messy war-torn history has somehow made it into an icon of our attempts to understand not only Ancient Egypt, but also other languages and other cultures.

So it is a surprisingly optimistic thing, reminding us that nationalistic conflicts can sometimes end up producing empathy and understanding. Although it has been battered by its long history and is not exactly beautiful, the fact that it still fascinates so many people - including the over six million visitors who see it at the British Museum each year - seems to me utterly wonderful.

Human history is not such a hopeless affair if this heavy piece of granite from Aswan, endlessly fought over, can become a symbol of our desire to understand each other.

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The European Space Agency's unprecedented mission of cometary exploration is named after the famous 'Rosetta Stone’, the slab of volcanic basalt which was the key to unravelling the civilisation of ancient Egypt.

Just as the Rosetta Stone provided the key to an ancient civilisation, so ESA's Rosetta spacecraft will unlock the mysteries of the oldest building blocks of our Solar System – the comets.

As the worthy successor of Champollion and Young, Rosetta will allow scientists to look back 4,600 million years to an epoch when no planets existed and only a vast swarm of asteroids and comets surrounded the Sun.

!

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Steve Miller Band - Serenade Did you see the lights As they fell all around you ?

Did you hear the music ?

A serenade from the stars Wake up, wake up Wake up and look around you We're lost in space And the time is our own

Did you feel the wind As it blew all around you ?

Did you feel the love That was in the air ?

Wake up, wake up Wake up and look around you We're lost in space And the time is our own

The sun comes up And it shines all around you: You're lost in space And the earth is your own‌

https://vimeo.com/68618991

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