1. Hieroglyphs & the Rosetta Stone
How we learned to read ancient Egyptian writing

2. What are hieroglyphs?
Hieroglyphs are ancient Egyptian writing

3. What is the Rosetta Stone?

4. What is the Rosetta Stone?
The Rosetta Stone is a stone with three different languages on it, including ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs!
Each of the three languages say the same thing.
If a person could read ONE of the languages, he or she could translate the other two!

5. Rosetta Stone – the facts!
It was originally written in 196 BCE.
Napoleon’s troops discovered it in 1799.
Written in 3 languages so priests, government officials, and rulers could all read what it said.
3 Different Languages:
Egyptian Hieroglyphics
Egyptian Demotic
Greek

6. Why was learning to read hieroglyphs so important?
It helped us discover the names of the Egyptian pharaohs and what they did
It also told us how Egyptians made mummies and what they believed about the afterlife.
Finally, it let us know all about the lives of ordinary Egyptians and how the Nile River helped them.
Basically, everything we know about ancient Egypt came from reading hieroglyphs!

7. So, who figured out how to read this ancient language?
Jean-Francois Champollion in 1822!