About this story
An independent StoryTeller study. Built 2026-10-01.
Every claim in it cites a dated source, and relationships the author interpreted are drawn dashed. Where the sources disagree, you see both.
Guided stories
- Why three scripts matteredA decree repeated in three scripts was ordinary administration in 196 BC. After some 1,400 years it was the one text where a known language sat next to two unknown ones.
- Found, copied, carried offWithin three years of a soldier's chance find, the stone was inked, printed and copied for Europe's scholars, and then taken to London.
- How a script was forgottenHieroglyphs were in use for nearly 3,000 years (per the British Museum), then Egyptian came to be written in Greek-letter Coptic, the old script was forgotten, and for centuries it was misread as picture symbols. Sound, not symbol, was the missing idea.
- Young or Champollion?Two scholars worked on the same stone in two countries and each could claim part of the answer. The question of credit began almost as soon as the answer did.
- Whose stone is it?The agreement that put the stone in London is the centre of today's dispute. Each side reads the same 1801 treaty differently.
Sources (19)
- The Rosetta Stone, collection record EA24Accessed 2026-10-01
- The Rosetta Stone: everything you need to knowAccessed 2026-10-01
- How Egyptian hieroglyphs were decoded, a timeline to deciphermentAccessed 2026-10-01
- Rosetta StoneAccessed 2026-10-01
- Rosetta StoneAccessed 2026-10-01
- Letter to M. Dacier (1822), English translation by Rhys BryantAccessed 2026-10-01
- Petition to return Rosetta Stone to Egypt seeks a million signaturesAccessed 2026-10-01
- Egyptians petition for the British Museum to return Rosetta StoneAccessed 2026-10-01
- Ptolemaic: History Uncovered in Conserving the Rosetta Stone (British Museum text, reproduced in a SUNY Nassau course)Accessed 2026-10-01
- Rosetta Stone (Online Etymology Dictionary)Accessed 2026-10-01
- Rosetta stone (Merriam-Webster dictionary entry)Accessed 2026-10-01
- What is the Rosetta Stone and why does Egypt want it back?Accessed 2026-10-01
- British Museum moves Rosetta Stone to new exhibition for first time in 18 yearsAccessed 2026-10-01
- The Rosetta Stone: Unlocking the Ancient Egyptian Language (Foy Scalf, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago)Accessed 2026-10-01
- HieroglyphAccessed 2026-10-01
- Indiana Jones and the Rosetta StoneAccessed 2026-10-01
- Thomas Young and the decipherment of hieroglyphicsAccessed 2026-10-01
- Deciphering the decipherers: Young versus ChampollionAccessed 2026-10-01
- 'Act of plunder': Egyptians want the Rosetta Stone backAccessed 2026-10-01
