The Rosetta Stone

By Rosemary C. And Allison A. (Only)

Text Box:  Jean François Champollion
Text Box: Jean François Champollion, a French scholar, was the one who unlocked the mystery of the Egyptian hieroglyphics on the Rosetta Stone. He had started his work on the Rosetta Stone in 1808 when he was 18. Finally, after 14 years of hard work, Jean was able to decipher the hieroglyphics on the stone. The results of his great achievements were announced in 1822. He then wrote an important letter to the French Royal Academy of Inscriptions, telling the basic concepts of the hieroglyphics. Champollion based his deciphering approach on these three brilliant and fundamental assumptions:
The later Egyptian Coptic script represented the final stage of the ancient language of the pharaohs. 
Hieroglyphs were used both as ideograms (pictures that represent a concept or thing) and as phonograms (pictures that represent sounds). 
Hieroglyphs enclosed in a cartouche (an oval-shaped loop encircling a group of hieroglyphs) were phonetic transcriptions of the pharaohs' names.
Then, after 1500 years of deciphering, the hieroglyphics could be read!!