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GRADUATION '94: KECOUGHTAN HIGH SCHOOL
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The Rosetta Stone: How was it found and deciphered? A book takes a fascinating and expansive look.
By Cory Oldweiler
Tribune News Service |
Ancient Egypt has persisted in the popular imagination for centuries. It's easy to see why, starting with the almost unfathomable scale of its pyramids.
(Scribner/TNS)
Overwriting everything, often literally, are hieroglyphs, communication via tiny works of art that for centuries no one could read. Then in 1799, Napoleonic troops in Egypt found a stone slab covered with text in three scripts — Greek, demotic and hieroglyphic. This Rosetta Stone would be the key to all those messages adorning innumerable Egyptian artifacts.
But as Edward Dolnick's meticulous book, "The Writing of the Gods," lays out, decoding the 14 lines of hieroglyphs was not easy. At the heart of this sprawling account full of astonishing takeaways are two "rival geniuses." Thomas Young, an English polymath, became interested in the stone simply because it was there, an unsolved problem. Frenchman Jean-François Champollion always had eyes only for Egypt, including the ancient language of Coptic that proved crucial to the solution.
Dolnick treats their work like a thriller, with both men making game-changing breakthroughs, benefiting from shrewd guesses and being hampered by preconceptions or bad luck.
The code-breaking chapters captivate. The supporting material — on the development of writing, the history and culture of ancient Egypt, Napoleon's campaigns in the region, the academic milieu of the early 19th century and more — can be equally entertaining. Dolnick is a diligent researcher, drawing from an extensive bibliography and enlisting scores of historical figures. He can be didactic and overdoes the metaphors explaining the challenges facing Young and Champollion, but he seems awed by his subject, reflecting on humanity's approach to knowledge, how we judge discovery, and why we venerate or denigrate what we do not understand.
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It's remarkable that the Rosetta Stone was even found. Created as a propaganda poster for Ptolemy V in a temple in 196 BC, the stone was reused as building material for a fort, then languished for centuries in a rubble heap, preserved by Egypt's arid heat. If not for Napoleon's expansionist ego and intellectual curiosity — he brought 160 scientists, artists and scholars with him — it might never have been plucked out. Considering the transience of today's society and the damage we are inflicting on one another and the planet, it's fair to wonder what will be left thousands of years from now to help those who may remain try to learn what we have done.
"THE WRITING OF THE GODS"
Edward Dolnick
Scribner. 336 pp. $28.
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