Egyptian Museum in Tahrir to open free-of-charge on Sept. 27
The
Egyptian Museum in Tahrir will open free-of-charge to the public on September
27, in celebration of the 200th anniversary of deciphering the Rosetta stone
and the emergence of Egyptology. All Egyptians, Arabs, nationals of African
countries and foreign residents will be welcomed.
The
famous Rosetta stone consists of a black granite slab inscribed with three
ancient texts, two ancient Egyptian texts and one Greek.
This
formula eventually helped researchers decipher ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs,
whose meaning had eluded historians for centuries. But why did ancient scribes
include three different types of writing or texts on this iconic stone in the
first place?
The
reason for the existence of three texts stems from the legacy of one of the
generals of Alexander the Great, as the Greek text on the stone is related to
the Ptolemaic Dynasty in Egypt founded by Ptolemy I Soter. Soter was a
Macedonian Greek-speaking general from the family of Alexander.
Alexander
conquered Egypt in 332 BC and Ptolemy I Soter took over the country 9 years
later after Alexander's death, while Cleopatra, who died in 30 BC, was the last
active female ruler of the Ptolemaic Dynasty.
The
Rosetta stone was revealed by the French expedition in 1799 during the
construction of a fort in the town of Rosetta. The stone was not complete. It
was a broken part of a larger slab, but although it was missing a large part of
the hieroglyphs from the long lost upper section, the stone has the same
messages carved into it in ancient Greek writing; Egyptian hieroglyphs, and
Egyptian demotic script, which was a connecting script used by the ancient
Egyptians between the 7th century BC, and the 5th century AD, according to
Britannica.
"The
Egyptian Demotic script was the contemporary language used in everyday speech
as well as administrative documents," Foy Scalf, head of research archives
and research associate at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute, told
Live Science.
On
the other hand, the “hieroglyphic grammar mimics the Middle Egyptian language,”
which is the stage of the Egyptian language associated with the Middle Kingdom
period in Egypt. It spanned from about 2044 BC until 1650 BC.
By
the Ptolemaic period, Middle Egyptian was often used for very formal
inscriptions, as Egyptian scribes considered it a classic version of their
language whose tradition bestowed authority on the text.
Ancient
Greek grew to become widely used in ancient Egypt among the literate class
during the Ptolemaic Dynasty. Modern scholars were still trying to understand
it at the time of the discovery of the Rosetta stone. As such, the stone helped
researchers decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs and Demotic script, two different
scripts of the same language.
The
use of hieroglyphs began to disappear after the Romans took over Egypt in 30 BC
with the appearance of the last known Egyptian hieroglyphic writing in the
fourth century AD, as indicated by Britannica.
Source: Egypt Today
