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THE ROSETTA STONE

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Bianca
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« on: August 14, 2007, 07:05:30 pm »

                         




Modern-era discovery

 
The Rosetta Stone solved a particularly difficult linguistic problemAfter Napoleon's 1798 conquest of Egypt, the French founded Institut de l'Égypte in Cairo, bringing many scientists and archaeologists to the region.

French Army engineer Captain Pierre-François Bouchard discovered the stone sometime in mid-July 1799 (the sources are unfortunately not more specific), while guiding construction work at Fort Julien near the Egyptian port city of Rosetta (now Rashid). The Napoleonic army was so awestruck by this unheralded spectacle that, according to a witness, "it halted of itself and, by one spontaneous impulse, grounded its arms." (As quoted by Robert Claiborne, The Birth of Writing [1974], p. 24.) He understood that it was important and showed it to General Jacques de Menou. They sent it to the Institut de l'Égypte, where it arrived in August. The French language newspaper Courrier de l'Egypte announced the find in September.

After Napoleon returned to France in 1799, 167 scholars remained behind with French troops which held off British and Ottoman attacks. On March 1801, the British landed on Aboukir Bay and scholars carried the Stone from Cairo to Alexandria alongside the troops of de Menou. French troops in Cairo capitulated on June 22, and in Alexandria on August 30.

After the surrender, a dispute arose over the fate of French archaeological and scientific discoveries in Egypt. De Menou refused to hand them over, claiming that they belonged to the Institute. British General John Hely-Hutchinson, 2nd Earl of Donoughmore, refused to relieve the city until de Menou gave in. Newly arrived scholars Edward Daniel Clarke and William Richard Hamilton agreed to check the collections in Alexandria and found many artifacts that the French had not revealed.

When Hutchinson claimed all materials as a property of the British Crown, a French scholar Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, said to Clarke and Hamilton that they would rather burn all their discoveries, ominously referring to the burned Library of Alexandria. Hutchinson finally agreed that items such as the biology specimens would be the scholars' private property. De Menou regarded the stone as his private property and hid it.

How exactly the Stone came to British hands is disputed. Colonel Tomkyns Hilgrove Turner, who escorted the stone to Britain, claimed later that he had personally seized it from de Menou and carried it away on a gun carriage. Clarke stated in his memoirs that a French scholar and an officer had quietly given up the stone to him and his companions in a Cairo back street. French scholars departed later with only imprints and plaster casts of the stone.

 
Experts inspecting the Rosetta Stone during the International Congress of Orientalists of 1874Turner brought the stone to Britain aboard the captured French frigate L'Egyptienne in February 1802. On March 11, it was presented to the Society of Antiquaries of London. Later it was taken to the British Museum, where it remains. White painted inscriptions on the artifact state "Captured in Egypt by the British Army in 1801" on the left side and "Presented by King George III" on the right.
« Last Edit: August 14, 2007, 07:25:28 pm by Bianca2001 » Report Spam   Logged

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