Finding out more about the Rosetta Stone

The Rosetta Stone is important in the history of type as well as in understanding the Ancient Egyptian History, giving us a peak into the period of 196 BC in Egypt. The inscription on the stone is a decree by a council of priests, affirming the royal cult of Ptolemy V on the first anniversary of his coronation. The inscription was written in three different forms: Hieroglyphic, Demotic and Ancient Greek. This was key as the different forms of inscriptions allowed modern people to track back using Ancient Greek to decipher the Hieroglyphic and Demotic inscriptions.

Image showing how the Rosetta Stone would have been while it was still intact.

Rosetta Stone was actually attached to an even greater part of the slab and only portions of the text was captured on the remaining of the artifact for all three forms of inscriptions. Besides of the incompleteness of the text, there was an even bigger challenge where Hieroglyphic could represent a sound, abstract concept or even literally what has been drawn all depending on the context which increased the difficulty to decipher. However, the presence of presence of cartouches which indicates that the text enclosed is a royal’s name, helped made the deciphering slightly easier. As the name was constant throughout the three inscriptions, parts of the Ancient Greek text could then be easily matched with the the Hieroglyphic and easily decipher meanings of certain Hieroglyphic.

Image showing an example of Cartouches

What was interesting to me about this artifact is how key it is to the history of understanding typography. Without this piece of artifact, it may have been even harder for us to understand Hieroglyphic and how it was read. Perhaps missing out on a key stage in the process of typography and understanding how ancient Egyptians influenced the progress of Ancient Greek alphabets and to the modern alphabets.

It also gives us a glimpse into the Egyptian life back then where the three inscription served different purposes despite conveying the same content. Hieroglyphic was likely for priests, Demotic as the “language of people” and Ancient Greek as the language of administration. From this example, it also shows how typography could be a reflection of status and lifestyle within that time. As typography progresses, there is also a change to become more cohesive and compatible into a single form rather than multiple forms.

References:
Everything you ever wanted to know about the Rosetta Stone

https://www.sacred-texts.com/egy/trs/trs07.htm
https://www.historyofvisualcommunication.com/03-the-alphabet

(Image Reference)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone
https://www.britannica.com/story/what-does-the-rosetta-stone-say