First deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs

Found on 15 July 1799, the Rosetta Stone would turn out to be the key by which modern scholars could finally unlock the meaning of the language of Ancient Egypt. The stele is inscribed with a trilingual royal decree, written in Greek, demotic (the cursive everyday script) and hieroglyphs, by the priests of Memphis on 27 March 196 BCE during the reign of Ptolemy V. Scholars had been trying to decode pictorial hieroglyphics since the Middle Ages, with a leap made in the 17th century when it was identified that the Coptic language (still used by the Egyptian Orthodox Church today) was derived from demotic, which itself is derived from hieroglyphs. What is widely regarded as the major breakthrough was made by the French philologist Jean-François Champollion in 1822. He correctly hypothesized that hieroglyphs were a combination of words, single characters and syllables/phonemes (units of sound) enabling him to decipher the names of "Ptolemy" and "Cleopatra" and later other rulers in a number of inscriptions, including that on the Rosetta Stone. He formally presented his findings to the Accademie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres on 27 September 1822.

Made of granodiorite and measuring 1.14 x 0.72 x 0.27 m (3 ft 8 in x 2 ft 4 in x 10.6 in), the groundbreaking artefact was found in the medieval fortress of Qaitbey in Rashid, Egypt, by a Lieutenant Pierre Bouchard of the French Napoleonic army.

The text on the tablet records that Ptolemy V had alleviated taxes for the army, priesthood and general population as well as granting amnesty to some prisoners at a time when he had just ascended the throne after both his parents were murdered as the result of a conspiracy.

The decoding of the hieroglyphs was only made possible thanks to the efforts of countless scholars from Egypt, the Middle East and latterly Europe over several centuries. Although Champollion arguably made the decisive turning point in 1822, he was building on a body of work that had been contributed to by dozens of figures including Ibn Wahshiyya, Abu al-Qasim, Athanasius Kircher, William Warburton, Carsten Niebuhr, Jørgen Zoëga, Antoine-Isaac Silvestre de Sacy, Johan David Åkerblad and, often portrayed as a bitter rival of Champollion, the British polymath Thomas Young.

Similarly, while the Rosetta Stone is widely regarded as the pivotal text that enabled the breakthrough, other Greek-Egyptian-translated documents that helped Champollion make the final leap include the "Bankes Obelisk" from Philae and the Casati Papyrus.

After the Rosetta Stone was captured by British forces as a spoil of war from the Napoleonic troops, it was taken to the British Museum in London, UK, where it has been housed since 1802. There is now a petition for it – along with other items – to be repatriated to Egypt.