There is a huge stone tablet near Egypt (somewhere in western Asia)

Rosetta Stone (also translated as Rosetta Stone), with a height of 1. 14m and a width of 0.73m, is a marble stone tablet made in BC 196. Initially, it was a stone tablet engraved with letters from King Ptolemy V of Egypt. The same content was engraved on the stone tablet in Greek, ancient Egyptian and popular words at that time. Because this stone tablet is engraved in three different languages, modern archaeologists have the opportunity to interpret the meaning and structure of Egyptian hieroglyphics that have been lost for more than 1000 years after comparing the contents of each language version, which has become an important milestone in studying the history of ancient Egypt today. The Rosetta Stone was first built by French captain Pierre Fran in 1799. Ois Xavier Bouchard was discovered in the Egyptian port city of Rosetta, but was handed over to Britain during the Anglo-French War. It has been kept in the British Museum for public display since 1802.

Rosetta stone tablet was made by a group of priests who lived in Ptolemy dynasty in Egypt in BC. As the first anniversary of Ptolemy V's coronation, the then king was only 13 years old. Its content mainly describes the legitimacy of Ptolemy V's succession to the throne from his father Ptolemy IV and his many good deeds, such as tax reduction and contribution to the throne. In Egypt before Ptolemy Dynasty and Pharaoh era, this kind of imperial edict was originally granted by Pharaoh, which was equivalent to imperial edict. However, in Ptolemy's time, the only priest who knew how Egyptian hieroglyphs were written became the author of letters, which was a very different feature.

The Rosetta Stone is engraved with three language versions of the same imperial edict from top to bottom, namely Egyptian hieroglyphics (also known as sacred relics, representing words dedicated to the gods), Egyptian cursive scripts (also known as Egyptian popular characters, used by Egyptian civilians at that time) and ancient Greek characters (representing the language of rulers). This is because Egypt at that time had surrendered to the Alexander Empire of Greece and came from. Shortly after the end of the 4th century AD, the reading and writing methods of Egyptian hieroglyphs, which were no longer used due to the decline of Nile civilization, were completely lost. Although many archaeologists and historians did their best, they could not understand the structure and usage of these mysterious characters. It was not until 1400 that the Rosetta Stone was excavated, and its unique trilingual contrast text unexpectedly became the key to decoding, because the ancient Greek in the three languages can be read by modern humans. Through the comparative analysis of the contents of the other two languages on the stone tablet, we can understand the writing and grammatical structure of these lost languages.

Among many scholars who tried to interpret the Rosetta Stone, Thomas Young, an English physicist in the early19th century, was the first to prove that Ptolemy's name was mentioned many times in the inscription. As for the French scholar Jean-Fran champollion? Ois Champollion) was the first to learn that Egyptian hieroglyphics, which have always been regarded as ideographs, originally had phonetic function, which became the key clue to interpret all Egyptian hieroglyphics. It is for this reason that the Rosetta Stone is called the key foundation for understanding the language and culture of ancient Egypt.

Today, the Rosetta Stone on display in the Egyptian Pavilion of the British Museum is a plane stone tablet, about 1 14.4 cm high, 72.3 cm wide and 27.9 cm thick. It is slightly rectangular, but actually many corners are missing. It is black basalt and weighs about 762 kilograms. The black surface of the marble is engraved with words painted with white paint, and the two sides of the stone tablet are engraved with words added by later generations, of which the left side reads "180 1 year was captured by the British army in Egypt". On the right is "presented by King George III". Although this stone tablet was cleaned and restored to its original appearance in 1998 by the antique maintenance experts of the British Museum, the lettering on it has been preserved because it is also one of the witnesses of modern human civilization. In addition, there is a small corner on the left side of the bottom of the stone tablet that has been deliberately reserved but not cleaned. The main purpose is to let people know the difference before and after cleaning.

1July 799 15, when Napoleon occupied Egypt (1798- 180 1), French captain Pierre-Fohansova Zavier Bouchard was on the outskirts of a port town named Rosetta in the Nile Delta. Commanding the fortress of St. Julian (fortress) He realized the importance of this stone and reported it to the commander Abdallah Jacques de Menou, who decided that this stone should be sent to the scientists of the research institute gypte for research and analysis, and arrived in Cairo in August of the same year. Because the stone tablet was unearthed outside Rosetta, it was named Rosetta Stone according to the location of discovery.

180 1 year, Napoleon's army was defeated and surrendered by the British army, which also ended the three-year occupation period of the French army in Egypt. The change of Egypt's occupation right also caused a dispute over the ownership of these antiquities collected by the French army in Egypt. At that time, French scientists hoped to keep these antiquities and take them away from Alexandria when Cairo broke the city in June, but the British side believed that these antiquities were confiscated and should belong to the property of King George III of England. At that time, the famous French naturalist Achini Joffrey Saint-Tiller (? Tienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire wrote to Sir William richard hamilton, the British ambassador, threatening to burn it if the British took it. After the British occupied Alexandria, they signed the Treaty of Alexandria with France (180 1 September), which officially ended the French occupation of Egypt. According to this treaty, the antiquities discovered during the French occupation of Egypt should also be handed over to the British side. However, when the French army retreated, it did not hand over the Rosetta Stone as agreed, but hid in a small boat, ready to sneak back to Europe, but was captured by the British army halfway. Afterwards, the two sides agreed that the French side could keep the research results and rubbings before the stone tablet, but the British side obtained the actual ownership of the stone tablet.

The Rosetta Stone arrived in England on 1802 and was donated to the British Museum as a collection in the name of the King of England. Since then, the Rosetta Stone has been displayed in the Egyptian Pavilion of the museum, and it is one of the most proud treasures of the museum. In the next 200 years, the Rosetta Stone left the British Museum only once-1917. When the First World War came to an end and the war spread, the museum secretly hid a number of important light-weight and easy-to-move antiquities, including the Rosetta Stone, in the depth of 50 meters underground in Holborn. It was not until peace was restored after the war that the antiquities were moved back to the museum to continue the exhibition.

However, people all over the world are not happy to see the Rosetta Stone preserved in the British Museum. For example, Dr. Zahi Hawass, the chief secretary of the Supreme Antiquities Committee in Cairo (one of the institutions under the Egyptian Ministry of Culture) and a famous Egyptian archaeologist, has publicly called on Britain to return the Rosetta Stone to Egypt where it really belongs, because this stone tablet.

Because of its popularity and importance, the term Rosetta Stone or Rosetta Stone has been extended to mean or imply other things besides the stone tablet itself. Among them, because the inscription on the stone tablet is used for language translation, there is a very popular multilingual learning software, which is also named after the Rosetta Stone. In addition, because it is the starting point of solving puzzles like Egyptian hieroglyphics, the Rosetta Stone is also used as a metaphor for the key clue or tool to solve a puzzle or difficult thing. For example, the European Space Agency (ESA) named its space probe Rosetta, because through this plan, the secrets of the solar system will be solved, which is a key breakthrough in astronomical research.

Things named after Rosetta include:

Rosetta Stone: Cross-language learning software, published by fairfield Language Technology Company.

Rosetta space probe: the idol project of the European Space Agency.

In the second cartoon "Digital Baby", the armor of deer beast evolved from Nefertimon, and there is also a unique trick called "Rosetta Stone".

The computer program binary code translation software introduced by Apple Computer allows users who use the x86 architecture of Apple Computer to go back and use most of the program binary codes of PowerPC architecture.

Rosestone, one of the three treasures in the town hall of British Museum, is a world-class cultural relic.

Rosetta stone tablet is a basalt stone tablet engraved with ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, Arabic cursive scripts and ancient Greek, which is the key to deciphering the ancient Egyptian language.

1799, a French captain pierre-francedilois Xavier Bouchard found this stone tablet behind an old wall in the Egyptian port city of Rosetta, which was identified by scholars as a piece in BC 196. Ptolemy dynasty immigrated from Greece and ruled Egypt in the last period of Pharaoh's era. The last Pharaoh was Cleopatra, who was often put on movies. After Cleopatra ended his life with a poisonous snake, the Pharaoh era in Egypt came to an end and was merged into the Roman Empire of Augustus the Great.

The name of Pharaoh Ptolemy V was the first to be confirmed. Because there is a circle of ornaments around the Pharaoh's name in hieroglyphics, it is easy to identify. After translation, the Greek name of the Pharaoh was Ptolemy, and scholars further identified his hieroglyphics according to this name; Later, the name was found on the obelisk in Philae, and Cleopatra's name was found next to it.

There are 14 19 hieroglyphs on the Rosetta Stone, and there are 486 Greek characters. Therefore, scholars have also found that the original hieroglyphs are not all ideograms, but also have the function of phonetic notation, some symbols are pronounced, and some symbols are not pronounced. With the research of scholars, the mystery of Egyptian hieroglyphics has been gradually revealed. It was also after the death of priests and clerks in the temple that 1 0,000 years later, people finally recognized Egyptian hieroglyphics through the Rosetta Stone.

18 and 19 at the turn of the century, Britain and France fought for the sovereignty of Egypt for several years. 180 1 when France was defeated and surrendered, scholars were preparing to secretly transport the Rosetta stone back to France, but they were discovered by British diplomats on a ship bound for France. So the Rosetta Stone is not in Egypt or France now, but has been on display in the British Museum since 1802.

Original Rosetta stone tablet

Orthodox heir to the Egyptian throne, devout believer of God, reconstructor of the Egyptian kingdom and defender of human civilization, invincible master of upper and lower Egypt, son of Rashin, son of eternal love of Puta God, King Toromi, in the fourth month of Xandikos season in the ninth year of his reign, in order to encourage and praise those who decided to serve God forever, according to Egyptian article 65438+. Puta, the immortal and beloved son of king Ptolemy, the son of old king Ptolemy and queen Asin Noy, and Epiphanes EUCHARISTONS, the god, are very kind to all temples and people living in them. He donated his own things-these things replaced the taxes of the temple, he brought prosperity to Egypt, and donated to build the temple and all his other generous gifts. He reduced all kinds of exorbitant taxes so that his subjects could live a richer life during his reign. He forgave the debts of the poor in the kingdom. He pardoned those guilty. He claimed that the gods should continue to enjoy the worship of the temple, just as they did in his father's time. He also announced that considering the special status of priests, they could still pay only the tax stipulated from his father's time until his succession. And he also reduced the number of people who go to Alexandria to listen to the Oracle every year. He pointed out that the impression of the navy will no longer be employed. He also paid two-thirds of the taxes that the temple had to pay to buy linen clothes. For anything neglected in the past, he now hopes that they will enjoy the right treatment again, that is, he will carefully thank God for a part of his trade income, and this part of the cost will be fairly dedicated to all gods. He ordered the return of all property belonging to the samurai class and those who suffered losses in the unrest. He sent cavalry, infantry and fleet to resist enemies who wanted to invade Egypt by land and sea. Although it costs a lot of money, it can bring a sense of security to the temple and all people living in Egypt. His army has wiped out the rebels gathered in Brickpolis. In the eighth year of his rule, he surrounded the rebels because he had made sufficient preparations in advance. When the Nile flooded, he used the flood and his army to destroy the rebel bases, just like those traitors who conquered the country by Thoth and Horus. He brought traitors who brought instability to Egypt to Memphis, hell to pay. At the same time, he held a harvest festival. In the eighth year of his reign, he paid a large sum of money belonging to the temple. And exempt all things belonging to the sacred land of the temple from taxes. Because he was more thoughtful than his predecessors, he presented many gifts to the beasts living in Egypt, such as Apis and Menevis, and held a grand memorial ceremony for the dead beasts in a special temple according to Egyptian law. He also spent a lot of money to decorate the temple of Apis. He built temples, shrines and altars, and repaired all the buildings that needed repairing. He has the spirit of dedicating himself to God, which actually belongs to religion. After his visit, during his reign, he continued to rebuild the most magnificent temples. Accordingly, in return, God gave him health, victory, power and all the best things, and blessed him and his descendants to enjoy the throne forever. According to fate, the priests of all the temples in this country decided to give me Wang Yongsheng, the beloved son of Puta, King Ptolemy, and Epiphanes O 'Cristos to increase the glory of existence. Like his ancestors, they would erect a statue for him next to the gods in every temple, calling him "Ptolemy, the guardian of Egypt". All priests wear sacred clothes and bow to his statue three times a day, just as they worship other gods. He will take his statue with him in the parade of major festivals. The production of his idols must be exquisite and distinctive. Further imperial edicts &; Nbps& ampnbps will hold this festival in the next few days of each month to praise the eternal son of Puta God, King Ptolemy, and the god EUCHARISTONS of Nice, Epifa, so that all Egyptian subjects can remember and participate in this festival. This imperial edict should be enshrined in the local language and Greek on a hard stone, standing next to the statue of the eternal king on each floor of the temple.