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I’m in the British Museum, after hours when
all the visitors have gone,

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and here is the Rosetta Stone.

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It was the key to understanding Egyptian hieroglyphics,
and it is one of the most precious and valuable

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treasures of the British Museum.

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Okay, this isn't the actual Rosetta Stone,
that's locked away in an incredibly well-secured

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cabinet on the other side of the Great Court,
this is the replica that they let people touch.

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And so many people touch it that they have
to hand-make a new replica every couple of

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years. Anyway.

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Until the Rosetta Stone was discovered, and
promptly “acquired”, by Napoleon's campaign

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in Egypt, no-one in the modern age had a clue
about how Egyptian writing worked. The most

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popular idea was that they were purely ideographic,
with each drawing representing a concept.

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Modern linguists know that's unlikely, but
that's more obvious in hindsight: without

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any context or existing translations there
was no way to decipher any hieroglyphics,

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anywhere.

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But then: the Rosetta Stone. Originally part
of a temple that was likely demolished when

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a Roman emperor ordered all non-Christian
temples to be closed, then probably used as

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building material. It was buried for centuries,
until French soldiers found it and one of

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them realised what its significance might
be. The same text, in three languages:

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hieroglyphics, Demotic, and most importantly
Ancient Greek,

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which had never been forgotten.

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But translation wasn't easy: it took scholars
twenty years to work it out, because the stone

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is filled with jargon. The concepts here aren’t
simple. And Egyptian hieroglyphics are complex:

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the same symbol can be used phonetically,
to represent a sound, AND to represent an

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abstract concept, AND to represent literally
what's been drawn, all depending on context.

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And yes, that is a bit like texting with emoji
when you think about it.

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The big clue that helped translation was here:
the cartouches, these circles with lines.

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They are honorific markers attached to the
names of royals. So scholars knew: there are

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names in the other languages here that we
can read. Those names should also be in the

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hieroglyphics, Well hang on, there was already
a theory that cartouches meant names. So if

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we match up those letters with... I mean,
I'm simplifying, massively, it was incredibly

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difficult, and frustratingly, the translations
aren't exact, there are differences between

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each of the three texts here. But once one
piece was cracked, there was a way in, and

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over decades of hard work, we started to be
able to translate hieroglyphics.

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The question very few people ask, though:
what’s actually on the Rosetta Stone? What's

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written here? What mysteries of ancient Egyptian
life did it reveal... it's about a royal cult

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being granted certain favours including tax
exemption. It is, essentially, Ancient Egyptian

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tax paperwork.

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The British Museum are piloting four new series
on YouTube, and the one you all like the most

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will get made.

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So go look over on their channel! And thank
you very much to them for letting me into

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this incredible place after hours.

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