The stone that gave Egypt back its voice

For centuries no one could read Egyptian hieroglyphs. An entire civilization had fallen mute.

In 1799, Napoleon's soldiers found in Egypt a slab bearing the same decree written in three systems: hieroglyphs, Egyptian Demotic and ancient Greek. Because Greek could still be read, it was a key.

In 1822, Jean-François Champollion used that Rosetta Stone to decipher the hieroglyphs. Three thousand years of history spoke again.