The Rosetta Stone - 6 Minute English

Hello. This is 6 Minute English from

BBC Learning English. I'm Rob.

And I'm Sam.

In this programme, we'll be unlocking

the secrets of the ancient Egyptians,

pyramid builders and the inventors

of hieroglyphs - a writing system

which uses pictures and symbols

to represent words.

The meaning of Egyptian hieroglyphs

remained a mystery until 1799

when Napoleon's soldiers unearthed

a dark, damaged rock in the Egyptian

coastal town of Rosetta.

On the broken granite stone three

scripts were faintly carved: Greek at

the bottom, Demotic in the middle and

Hieroglyphs at the top. Today, the

Rosetta Stone is perhaps the most

famous museum object in the world.

But what's actually written on it is quite

dull! In fact, the Rosetta Stone contains

a tax break! It describes an agreement

exempting priests from paying taxes

to the King.

Ah, the famous Egyptian pharaohs!

Exactly - but which one, Sam?

Let's test your ancient Egyptian

knowledge with this quiz question:

the writing on the Rosetta Stone

is a tax agreement between the

priests and which Egyptian pharaoh?

Is it:

a) Cleopatra?, b) Ptolemy?,

or c) Ramesses?

I'll guess a) Cleopatra.

OK, Sam, I'll reveal the answer to

that mystery later on. Before the

discovery of the Stone, no scholar

had been able to understand the

strange symbols carved on

the great pyramids.

Egyptologist, Richard Parker, was

in charge of the Rosetta Stone

exhibition at the British Museum

for twenty years. Here he is,

telling BBC Radio 4 programme,

In Our Time, about circumstances

before the discovery of the Stone:

People were exploring all sorts of

means of trying to decipher, including

trying to link the script with Chinese to

see if that offered a parallel. It was

known from the classical authors

that the Egyptian script contained

great, mysterious pearls of wisdom

from the Egyptian philosophers and

people had hugely high expectations

and all attempts to decipher, to get a

grip on the script, I think,

had really failed.

Before the discovery of the

Rosetta Stone, no-one had

managed to decipher

hieroglyphs - to work out the

meaning of writing which

is difficult to read.

Experts hoped that the Egyptian

script contained great pearls of

wisdom - wise words,

sayings or advice.

As we know, the actual meaning

of the text turned out to be

quite dull. But it was the fact

that the messages were written

in three scripts, including Greek -

a language scholars already knew -

that provided the key to finally

crack the code.

In 1801 the race was on between

Egyptologists in Britain and France

to be the first to translate the entire

system of hieroglyphs.

In the end, it was a young Frenchman

named Jean-François Champollion who

became the first person to understand

hieroglyphs since the ancient Egyptians

themselves, nearly two

thousand years earlier.

Here's Penelope Wilson, Professor

of Egyptian Archaeology at Durham

University, explaining more about

this remarkable young Frenchman

to BBC Radio 4's, In Our Time:

He was certainly a prodigy, I think

as far as language is concerned,

but also had a fascination for

Egypt I think, and the story is he

was taught Coptic by a Coptic priest,

and at that lecture was one of the

first to argue that Coptic was

related to ancient Egyptian. So, he

was also encouraged in this by his

older brother so I think there was

soon to be no holding him back,

once he got the bug he was

encouraged and he

made great strides.

When Penelope Wilson calls

Champollion a prodigy, she

means someone young with

a great natural talent for

something, in this case,

studying languages.

Added to his natural ability was

a fascination with Egypt and

the encouragement of his

brother, so Champollion soon

got the bug - suddenly developed

a strong enthusiasm for something.

In English, we often add a noun to

describe exactly what someone is

enthusiastic about - so, for example,

the skiing bug, for someone

who loves to ski.

Champollion was so enthusiastic, there

was no holding him back - an idiom to

say that you are doing something

so eagerly, you cannot

be stopped.

The story goes that he worked so

hard deciphering hieroglyphs, when

he finally finished, he ran through

the streets of Paris shouting,

'I've done it!', before

collapsing unconscious.

Rob, earlier you asked me which

pharaoh ordered the

Stone to be written.

Yes. And what did you say?

I thought it was Cleopatra.

Was I right?

Well, Cleopatra was from the same

dynasty but a little later than the

correct answer, which was

b) Ptolemy, the pharaoh who

ruled from around 300 BCE.

OK. Let's recap the vocabulary

we've learned, starting with

hieroglyphs - symbols used

represents words in ancient Egypt.

The challenge was to decipher them -

to uncover the meaning of writing

which is difficult to read or understand.

Maybe they contained pearls of

wisdom - wise words, sayings or advice.

The hieroglyphic code was finally cracked

by Jean-François Champollion -

a prodigy or young person

with a great natural talent.

When Champollion got the bug,

or suddenly became very

enthusiastic about

understanding hieroglyphs, there

was no holding him back - nothing could stop

him from succeeding.

And nothing can stop us

from saying goodbye, because

our six minutes are up!

Goodbye!