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The Stone The is an ancient Egyptian stone that is inscribed with a decree that was issued on behalf of an king. The Rosetta Stone was the key to understanding Egyptian hieroglyphics. Since the decree was written in three different languages -- ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, script, and ancient Greek -- scholars were able to compare them and translate the hieroglyphics based on their knowledge of ancient Greek.

Thomas Young, an English physicist, was the first to show that some of the The Rosetta Stone in hieroglyphics on the Rosetta Stone wrote out the sounds of an Egyptian the King. The French scholar Jean-François Champollion then realized that hieroglyphics recorded the sound of the and set up the foundations of our knowledge of ancient Egyptian language. Hieroglyphics Hieroglyphics were sacred characters reserved for religious or governmental mandates. The language was used to inscribe tombs, temples and other monuments. Because hieroglyphics were such an intricate and sacred language, the Egyptians © Trustees of the British Museum developed hierativ, which was an abbreviated version of hieroglyphics. Hieratic was used to record some governmental decrees and business transactions, but it wasn't used for sacred purposes. By the Ptolemaic period, when the Rosetta Stone was inscribed, Egyptians had turned to Demotic -- an even more simpli ed version of hieroglyphics. Translate The Message Use this code to decipher the phrases below, just like scholars used Ancient Greek to translate the hieroglyphics.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO QP RSTUVW X YZ

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