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(More customer reviews)I knew little about the Rosetta Stone other than what I had learned in school many years ago. Every schoolchild learns that the Rosetta Stone, found in 1799 along the Nile delta, had the same text in three different languages -- Egyptian hieroglyphics, Egyptian demotic (the language of the people), and Greek -- that allowed scholars to, for the first time, decipher Egyptian hierglyphics, thus making it possible to read all the already-found (and subsequently-found) hieroglyphic texts that up to that time had simply not been decipherable. This made possible, really, the study of ancient Egypt as never before, and indeed the whole field of Egyptology. John Ray, professor of Egyptology at Cambridge, writes a fascinating history of the Stone, its discovery, early attempts at deciphering it, the partial success of Thomas Young and the final decipherment by Jean-Francois Champollion. He also gives a history of Greek occupation of Egypt leading up to the creation of the Rosetta Stone in 196 BC early in the reign of Ptolemy V. And he addresses the question of who really owns these treasures of antiquity such as the Stone, the Elgin Marbles and so on. He also gives his own translation of the actual Rosetta Stone text.
Part of what makes this book so compulsively readable is Ray's dry sense of humor. He sneaks in wry comments in the most unexpected places and I found myself chuckling frequently. The book, intended for the general reader, is never guilty of talking down and for that one can be thankful.
Recommended.
Scott Morrison
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