Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
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The Egyptian Gallery is in the West Wing, to the left of the round Reading Room. Enter
the Egyptian Gallery. The Rosetta Stone is directly in front of you.
(See “British Museum—Egypt” map,
here
.)
Egypt was one of the world's first “civilizations”—a group of people with a government,
religion, art, free time, and a written language. The Egypt we think of—pyramids, mum-
mies, pharaohs, and guys who walk funny—lasted from 3000 to 1000
B.C.
with hardly any
change in the government, religion, or arts. Imagine two millennia of Nixon.
The Rosetta Stone
When this rock was unearthed in the Egyptian desert in 1799, it was a sensation in Europe.
This black slab, dating from 196
B.C.,
caused a quantum leap in the study of ancient history.
Finally, Egyptian writing could be decoded.
The hieroglyphic writing in the upper part of the stone was indecipherable for a thou-
sand years. Did a picture of a bird mean “bird”? Or was it a sound, forming part of a larger
word, like “burden”? As it turned out, hieroglyphics are a complex combination of the
