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The Rosetta
Stone gave the world a clue to the forgotten languages of Egyptian, Ancient
Greek and Demotic. It was found in a small city near Alexandria by Napoleon's
French officers in 1799.
The stone
is made out of black basalt. It is 11" thick, 3'9" high and 2'5" wide.
The scholar
Jean Francios Champollion decoded it using Greek as a guide.
Hieroglyphs
are a system of writing in which picture symbols represents letters or
sounds.
Hieroglyphs
are usually used for religious inscriptions on temples and stone monuments,
but the were also used to record the words and deeds of royalty.
Hieroglyphs
were written by educated men called Scribes. These people spent their entire
childhood learning how to read and write the hierogplyphs.
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