The Rosetta Stone
In July 1799, while renovating the old Rosetta (el-Rashid) fort, Napoleon's soldiers stumbled upon a black basalt stele. Demanded as spoils of war by the British, the stele was transported to the British Museum (where it still stands today). Among the scholars was Jean-François Champollion, a child prodigy who at only 9 years old knew Oriental languages and Coptic, the last evolution of the language spoken in ancient Egypt before its Arabization.
By studying cartouches (oval-shaped figures representing names of rulers) Champollion understood that hieroglyphs have not only ideographic value, as everyone believed, but also phonetic value, and that some of them are not to be read but are used to determine the interpretation to be given to what is written.
On September 14, 1822, Champollion was certain that he had penetrated to the heart of the hieroglyphic system: he ran to his brother shouting "I've got it!" and then fainted from emotion.
