WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.080 Welcome back to The Deep Dive, where we take 00:00:02.080 --> 00:00:04.799 complex sources, articles, research papers, field 00:00:04.799 --> 00:00:07.259 notes, extract the gold, and hand you the key. 00:00:07.459 --> 00:00:10.880 And today, the key is the topic. It really is. 00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:13.820 Okay, so let's get into it. We are doing a deep 00:00:13.820 --> 00:00:16.539 dive on an object that isn't just an artifact, 00:00:16.820 --> 00:00:19.780 it's, well, it's the ultimate key to a forgone 00:00:19.780 --> 00:00:21.920 world. We're talking about the Rosetta Stone. 00:00:22.100 --> 00:00:24.300 It's hard to overstate its importance. I mean, 00:00:24.320 --> 00:00:26.839 before this one piece of stone was found, you 00:00:26.839 --> 00:00:30.420 had over 1 ,400... Years of Egyptian history 00:00:30.420 --> 00:00:34.200 just locked away. A total black box. Completely. 00:00:34.380 --> 00:00:36.659 All of that amazing culture, the literature, 00:00:36.960 --> 00:00:39.659 the dynasties, the pharaohs, the Ptolemaic period. 00:00:39.740 --> 00:00:42.179 It was all behind a script that nobody on earth 00:00:42.179 --> 00:00:44.600 could read. It was like a library had been sealed 00:00:44.600 --> 00:00:47.049 shut for a millennium and a half. And our mission 00:00:47.049 --> 00:00:49.670 today is to trace that incredible journey. We're 00:00:49.670 --> 00:00:52.030 going to start with its original purpose, which 00:00:52.030 --> 00:00:53.950 was actually pretty mundane, a political decree 00:00:53.950 --> 00:00:57.590 in 1996 BC. Yeah, just politics. Then we'll follow 00:00:57.590 --> 00:00:59.549 its rediscovery, which was, you know, incredibly 00:00:59.549 --> 00:01:02.590 dramatic, found by Napoleon's army in 1799. The 00:01:02.590 --> 00:01:05.150 total accident of war. Exactly. And then we'll 00:01:05.150 --> 00:01:06.870 get into the intellectual battle to decipher 00:01:06.870 --> 00:01:09.430 it. And finally, its complicated modern legacy, 00:01:09.689 --> 00:01:12.090 the repatriation debates and how it's become 00:01:12.090 --> 00:01:14.870 this global metaphor. And this is so crucial 00:01:14.870 --> 00:01:17.159 for you, the learner. Because the story of the 00:01:17.159 --> 00:01:19.879 Rosetta Stone is really the story of knowledge 00:01:19.879 --> 00:01:23.939 recovery. It shows how one sort of fragmented 00:01:23.939 --> 00:01:26.799 piece of evidence can just completely change 00:01:26.799 --> 00:01:28.920 our entire understanding of the ancient world. 00:01:29.079 --> 00:01:31.879 It basically resurrected a civilization from 00:01:31.879 --> 00:01:35.079 silence. It's this perfect storm of, you know, 00:01:35.140 --> 00:01:38.120 archaeology, human intellect and a healthy dose 00:01:38.120 --> 00:01:40.599 of rivalry. A lot of rivalry, yeah. Okay. So 00:01:40.599 --> 00:01:43.079 let's start with the object itself. When you 00:01:43.079 --> 00:01:44.780 picture the Rosetta Stone, you think of this 00:01:44.780 --> 00:01:48.200 huge black imposing slab in the British Museum. 00:01:48.579 --> 00:01:50.280 But the reality is a little different, isn't 00:01:50.280 --> 00:01:53.140 it? It is. That image of a solid black stone 00:01:53.140 --> 00:01:55.840 is actually a longstanding misconception. Really? 00:01:55.920 --> 00:01:59.260 Yeah. For most of its time in London, the curators, 00:01:59.400 --> 00:02:02.159 they would rub white chalk into the inscriptions 00:02:02.159 --> 00:02:04.200 to make them easier for visitors to read. Okay, 00:02:04.239 --> 00:02:06.439 that makes sense. And they also coated the whole 00:02:06.439 --> 00:02:09.199 thing in a layer of carnauba wax to protect it. 00:02:09.500 --> 00:02:12.319 So that combination gave it that dark, uniform, 00:02:12.599 --> 00:02:14.960 waxy look, which led everyone to think it was 00:02:14.960 --> 00:02:16.800 black basalt. But that's not what it's made of 00:02:16.800 --> 00:02:20.560 at all. Not at all. In 1999, they did this huge 00:02:20.560 --> 00:02:22.560 cleaning project. They stripped all those layers 00:02:22.560 --> 00:02:25.400 away, and underneath, they found its true nature. 00:02:25.680 --> 00:02:30.030 It's a steel of dark gray granodiorite. Granodiorite. 00:02:30.050 --> 00:02:32.530 What is that exactly? It's a much harder, more 00:02:32.530 --> 00:02:35.469 crystalline rock. The cleaning revealed this 00:02:35.469 --> 00:02:38.610 sort of sparkle in its texture. And most importantly, 00:02:38.750 --> 00:02:42.189 it showed this really distinct pink vein running 00:02:42.189 --> 00:02:44.689 across the top left corner. And that pink vein 00:02:44.689 --> 00:02:47.889 is a clue. It's the geological fingerprint. That 00:02:47.889 --> 00:02:50.069 specific coloration is characteristic of rock 00:02:50.069 --> 00:02:52.650 from the quarries at Gebeltingar, which is near 00:02:52.650 --> 00:02:55.250 Aswan in southern Egypt. So we know exactly where 00:02:55.250 --> 00:02:57.009 the stone came from. And it certainly wasn't 00:02:57.009 --> 00:02:58.569 small. I mean, the numbers are staggering. It's 00:02:58.569 --> 00:03:01.449 112 .3 centimeters high. Almost four feet tall. 00:03:01.569 --> 00:03:04.629 And it weighs around 760 kilograms. That's what, 00:03:04.669 --> 00:03:07.310 nearly 1 ,700 pounds? Yeah, this was meant to 00:03:07.310 --> 00:03:10.169 be a permanent, very public monument. You don't 00:03:10.169 --> 00:03:12.169 carve something that heavy for a temporary notice. 00:03:12.250 --> 00:03:14.770 And that's just a fragment. Right. And that's 00:03:14.770 --> 00:03:17.889 the thing. What we have is only a piece of the 00:03:17.889 --> 00:03:20.590 original. We know from comparing it to other 00:03:20.590 --> 00:03:23.389 similar stelae from that period, like the Decree 00:03:23.389 --> 00:03:25.770 of Canopus, that the original was probably much 00:03:25.770 --> 00:03:28.310 taller. How much taller? Estimates put it closer 00:03:28.310 --> 00:03:31.009 to 149 centimeters, so almost five feet high. 00:03:31.370 --> 00:03:34.610 It would have had a rounded top of lunette, which 00:03:34.610 --> 00:03:36.250 almost certainly would have had a carved scene 00:03:36.250 --> 00:03:39.289 on it. A scene of what? Probably King Ptolemy 00:03:39.289 --> 00:03:42.569 V. being presented to the Egyptian gods with 00:03:42.569 --> 00:03:45.009 a winged disc symbol above them. The piece we 00:03:45.009 --> 00:03:47.110 have is just the bottom two -thirds of that original 00:03:47.110 --> 00:03:49.930 monument. And the damage is just, it's so unfortunate, 00:03:50.110 --> 00:03:52.250 especially where the most important text was. 00:03:52.389 --> 00:03:54.590 It's the great irony of the whole thing. The 00:03:54.590 --> 00:03:57.610 top section, which had the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, 00:03:57.629 --> 00:04:00.990 the sacred language of the gods, is the most 00:04:00.990 --> 00:04:04.009 heavily damaged part. How much is left? We only 00:04:04.009 --> 00:04:06.650 had the last 14 lines. Every single one of them 00:04:06.650 --> 00:04:08.729 is broken on the right side and some on the left 00:04:08.729 --> 00:04:11.219 as well. It's a mess. So the most mysterious 00:04:11.219 --> 00:04:14.479 script is the most incomplete. Exactly. The middle 00:04:14.479 --> 00:04:16.899 text, the demotic script, is actually the best 00:04:16.899 --> 00:04:19.819 preserved. We have 32 lines of that. And then 00:04:19.819 --> 00:04:22.199 the bottom text, the ancient Greek, which was 00:04:22.199 --> 00:04:24.600 the one they could already read, is mostly intact 00:04:24.600 --> 00:04:26.740 until it breaks off at the corner. So we have 00:04:26.740 --> 00:04:29.040 this incredible object with three different scripts 00:04:29.040 --> 00:04:32.319 on it. A trifecta. Yeah. At the very top, you 00:04:32.319 --> 00:04:34.839 have the formal hieroglyphs written in this sort 00:04:34.839 --> 00:04:36.959 of archaic style to give it religious weight. 00:04:37.220 --> 00:04:40.149 In the middle, you have demotic. That was the 00:04:40.149 --> 00:04:43.170 everyday cursive script used for administrative 00:04:43.170 --> 00:04:45.670 documents. It was the language people actually 00:04:45.670 --> 00:04:48.029 used. The language of documents, I think I read. 00:04:48.149 --> 00:04:49.790 That's a perfect way to put it. Yeah. And then 00:04:49.790 --> 00:04:52.129 at the bottom, of course, Ancient Greek. That 00:04:52.129 --> 00:04:54.230 was the language of the government of the ruling 00:04:54.230 --> 00:04:57.029 Ptolemaic dynasty. And the absolute genius of 00:04:57.029 --> 00:04:59.569 it, or maybe just the spectacular luck, was that 00:04:59.569 --> 00:05:02.670 the text itself says that all three inscriptions 00:05:02.670 --> 00:05:05.790 are versions of the same decree. That was the 00:05:05.790 --> 00:05:07.850 light bulb moment. That's what Lieutenant Bouchard 00:05:07.850 --> 00:05:09.810 and the French savants realized almost immediately. 00:05:10.069 --> 00:05:12.490 It wasn't just three random texts. It was a key. 00:05:12.689 --> 00:05:15.850 It made the stone this indispensable comparative 00:05:15.850 --> 00:05:18.970 text. It was the only way to figure out the unknown 00:05:18.970 --> 00:05:22.250 scripts using the known one as a guide. OK, so 00:05:22.250 --> 00:05:24.529 let's get into the context of that decree. Why 00:05:24.529 --> 00:05:26.329 was this thing even made in the first place? 00:05:26.800 --> 00:05:30.639 back in 1996 bc it was issued for king ptolemy 00:05:30.639 --> 00:05:33.019 the epiphanies and it sounds like his kingdom 00:05:33.019 --> 00:05:36.019 was not in a great place not at all instability 00:05:36.019 --> 00:05:38.670 is the defining word for that era Ptolemy Veth 00:05:38.670 --> 00:05:40.810 was officially crowned when he was 12. 12 years 00:05:40.810 --> 00:05:42.810 old. But he had technically been king since he 00:05:42.810 --> 00:05:45.129 was five, after his parents died very suddenly 00:05:45.129 --> 00:05:48.490 and very suspiciously. Assassinated. It's widely 00:05:48.490 --> 00:05:50.410 believed they were murdered in a palace coup 00:05:50.410 --> 00:05:53.509 by the king's mistress, Agathoclea, and her brother. 00:05:53.670 --> 00:05:56.750 So you have a child king and a bunch of powerful, 00:05:56.850 --> 00:05:59.750 scheming regents running the show. That sounds 00:05:59.750 --> 00:06:02.110 like a recipe for disaster. It was total chaos. 00:06:02.310 --> 00:06:04.490 For years, the kingdom was run by the secession 00:06:04.490 --> 00:06:06.730 of warring guardians who were mostly interested 00:06:06.730 --> 00:06:09.259 in their own power. And I'm guessing their rivals 00:06:09.259 --> 00:06:12.199 on the outside saw this weakness and pounced. 00:06:12.379 --> 00:06:14.639 Immediately. The big threat came from the north. 00:06:14.839 --> 00:06:17.639 The Seleucid Emperor Antiochus III and Philip 00:06:17.639 --> 00:06:21.220 V of Macedon basically made a pact to carve up 00:06:21.220 --> 00:06:23.939 Egypt's overseas territories. So the empire was 00:06:23.939 --> 00:06:26.779 shrinking. It was hemorrhaging territory. And 00:06:26.779 --> 00:06:28.839 at the same time... there was an even bigger 00:06:28.839 --> 00:06:31.360 problem at home. The revolt in the south. Yes, 00:06:31.399 --> 00:06:34.540 a massive long -running revolt in Upper Egypt. 00:06:34.879 --> 00:06:36.759 The southern part of the country was an open 00:06:36.759 --> 00:06:38.819 rebellion against the Greek rulers. I mean, the 00:06:38.819 --> 00:06:41.199 instability was existential. So this decree, 00:06:41.379 --> 00:06:45.220 issued in March of 96 BC, it wasn't really a 00:06:45.220 --> 00:06:47.379 celebration. It was more like a political transaction. 00:06:47.839 --> 00:06:50.139 It was a desperate attempt to buy stability and 00:06:50.139 --> 00:06:53.449 legitimacy. And it's so telling that the Congress 00:06:53.449 --> 00:06:56.329 of Priests who issued it met in Memphis, not 00:06:56.329 --> 00:06:58.410 the Ptolemaic capital of Alexandria. What's the 00:06:58.410 --> 00:07:00.930 significance of that? Well, by going to Memphis, 00:07:01.170 --> 00:07:04.329 the ancient spiritual heart of Egypt, the rulers 00:07:04.329 --> 00:07:06.870 were signaling how much they needed the support 00:07:06.870 --> 00:07:09.800 of the Egyptian priesthood. These priests had 00:07:09.800 --> 00:07:12.699 immense influence. If they endorsed Ptolemy V, 00:07:12.860 --> 00:07:15.300 it would help bridge that legitimacy gap. The 00:07:15.300 --> 00:07:17.319 fact that he was a Greek ruling over Egyptians. 00:07:17.660 --> 00:07:20.439 So what was the deal exactly? What did the priests 00:07:20.439 --> 00:07:22.959 get for their support? It's a classic quid pro 00:07:22.959 --> 00:07:25.879 quo. The priests pledged to establish a divine 00:07:25.879 --> 00:07:27.980 cult for the young king to celebrate him every 00:07:27.980 --> 00:07:31.019 year. And in return, Ptolemy V gave them huge 00:07:31.019 --> 00:07:34.500 gifts of silver and grain, canceled debts, handed 00:07:34.500 --> 00:07:37.769 out tax exemptions. Anything to solidify their 00:07:37.769 --> 00:07:39.970 power and buy their loyalty. And he also made 00:07:39.970 --> 00:07:42.029 a point of mentioning his public works to show 00:07:42.029 --> 00:07:44.149 he was a good king for the common people. He 00:07:44.149 --> 00:07:46.550 did, and it's remarkably specific. The decree 00:07:46.550 --> 00:07:49.189 talks about this one unusually high Nile flood. 00:07:49.709 --> 00:07:52.449 And Ptolemy claims he personally directed the 00:07:52.449 --> 00:07:55.189 damming of the excess water to protect the farmers. 00:07:55.389 --> 00:07:58.350 A bit of political PR. Classic PR. It was a tangible 00:07:58.350 --> 00:08:00.189 benefit that people would understand. The message 00:08:00.189 --> 00:08:03.250 was clear. This king, backed by the priests and 00:08:03.250 --> 00:08:05.839 the gods, protects your livelihood. It's just 00:08:05.839 --> 00:08:08.220 so interesting how these foreign rulers had to 00:08:08.220 --> 00:08:11.259 constantly use these multilingual decrees to 00:08:11.259 --> 00:08:13.560 communicate. This wasn't a one -time thing. Not 00:08:13.560 --> 00:08:15.480 at all. It was standard practice for the Ptolemies. 00:08:15.560 --> 00:08:18.180 We know there were other copies of this exact 00:08:18.180 --> 00:08:20.540 decree, and it was part of a whole series of 00:08:20.540 --> 00:08:23.949 similar decrees issued by earlier kings. So this 00:08:23.949 --> 00:08:26.310 object that unlocked all of ancient history was, 00:08:26.470 --> 00:08:28.990 at its heart, just a piece of government propaganda. 00:08:29.350 --> 00:08:31.529 A mandatory government announcement, yeah. An 00:08:31.529 --> 00:08:34.450 eternal key hidden in a temporary political crisis. 00:08:34.690 --> 00:08:37.169 And it lay buried for almost 2 ,000 years until 00:08:37.169 --> 00:08:39.629 another war brought it back into the light. Right. 00:08:39.769 --> 00:08:43.570 We fast forward to 1799. Napoleon invades Egypt. 00:08:43.850 --> 00:08:46.210 And this wasn't just a military campaign. Napoleon 00:08:46.210 --> 00:08:49.889 was smart. He brought 151 scientists and technical 00:08:49.889 --> 00:08:52.379 experts with him, the savants. He was trying 00:08:52.379 --> 00:08:54.759 to conquer Egypt intellectually as well as militarily. 00:08:55.059 --> 00:08:57.360 And the discovery itself was just this incredible 00:08:57.360 --> 00:09:01.220 accident. So what happened? It's July 1799. French 00:09:01.220 --> 00:09:04.039 soldiers are reinforcing this old Ottoman fort 00:09:04.039 --> 00:09:06.539 near the town of Rashid, which they called Rosetta. 00:09:06.940 --> 00:09:09.399 They were tearing down an old wall to build new 00:09:09.399 --> 00:09:12.539 defenses. And a soldier just spots it in the 00:09:12.539 --> 00:09:14.940 rubble. Lieutenant Pierre -Francois Bouchard 00:09:14.940 --> 00:09:18.279 sees this big, dark slab with writing on it being 00:09:18.279 --> 00:09:20.899 pulled out of the demolition. And he knew right 00:09:20.899 --> 00:09:22.799 away it was something special. Because of the 00:09:22.799 --> 00:09:25.580 three scripts. Exactly. He realized it was probably 00:09:25.580 --> 00:09:28.379 three versions of the same text. So the stone 00:09:28.379 --> 00:09:30.659 gets sent down to Cairo, and the news spreads 00:09:30.659 --> 00:09:33.080 like wildfire through the French scientific community 00:09:33.080 --> 00:09:35.399 there. And they figured out what they had pretty 00:09:35.399 --> 00:09:38.519 quickly. Amazingly quickly. Jean -Joseph Marcel, 00:09:38.940 --> 00:09:41.789 a printer, was the first to correctly identify 00:09:41.789 --> 00:09:45.029 the middle text as demonic, which was a huge 00:09:45.029 --> 00:09:48.230 step. But now they have this single, massive, 00:09:48.330 --> 00:09:51.090 heavy object. The challenge must have been, how 00:09:51.090 --> 00:09:53.110 do we share this with scholars back in Europe? 00:09:53.409 --> 00:09:56.259 That was the next big problem. So in 1800, a 00:09:56.259 --> 00:09:58.240 few of the French experts came up with some really 00:09:58.240 --> 00:10:01.220 clever ways to make copies. One of them, Nicolas 00:10:01.220 --> 00:10:03.799 -Jacques Conte, actually figured out how to use 00:10:03.799 --> 00:10:05.960 the stone itself as a printing block. Like a 00:10:05.960 --> 00:10:08.659 giant stamp. Pretty much. They'd ink the stone 00:10:08.659 --> 00:10:11.980 and press paper onto it. And those prints were 00:10:11.980 --> 00:10:15.100 vital. They were rushed back to Paris so scholars 00:10:15.100 --> 00:10:17.460 could start working on it long before the stone 00:10:17.460 --> 00:10:20.460 itself ever left Egypt. Which was good thinking 00:10:20.460 --> 00:10:22.100 because the French weren't going to hold onto 00:10:22.100 --> 00:10:25.159 it for long. No. The British landed in 1801, 00:10:25.419 --> 00:10:28.759 defeated the French, and laid siege to Alexandria. 00:10:29.200 --> 00:10:31.899 And the stone was in Alexandria with the French 00:10:31.899 --> 00:10:34.840 commander, General Manu. Right. And when Manu 00:10:34.840 --> 00:10:37.519 was forced to surrender, the stone became this 00:10:37.519 --> 00:10:40.000 huge point of contention. This is where the ownership 00:10:40.000 --> 00:10:42.399 dispute kicks off. It gets incredibly tense. 00:10:43.320 --> 00:10:45.740 Menuh actually tried to claim the Rosetta Stone 00:10:45.740 --> 00:10:49.039 as his personal private property to keep it from 00:10:49.039 --> 00:10:51.539 being surrendered. You're kidding? Nope. He argued 00:10:51.539 --> 00:10:54.480 it wasn't a military or state artifact. But the 00:10:54.480 --> 00:10:56.879 British were determined. The scholars with the 00:10:56.879 --> 00:10:59.519 British army, like Edward Daniel Clark, were 00:10:59.519 --> 00:11:01.659 absolutely adamant that it belonged to the British 00:11:01.659 --> 00:11:03.879 crown. So the academics were driving the conflict. 00:11:04.240 --> 00:11:06.600 They were at the heart of it. And this led to 00:11:06.600 --> 00:11:10.440 this incredibly dramatic moment. The French scholars... 00:11:10.620 --> 00:11:13.019 furious at the idea of handing over their discoveries, 00:11:13.220 --> 00:11:15.700 basically threatened to burn everything. They 00:11:15.700 --> 00:11:18.120 said they'd rather throw it all into the sea 00:11:18.120 --> 00:11:20.440 than surrender it to the English, invoking the 00:11:20.440 --> 00:11:23.179 destruction of the Library of Alexandria. Wow. 00:11:23.419 --> 00:11:26.240 So history itself was the bargaining chip. It 00:11:26.240 --> 00:11:28.960 was. Eventually a compromise was reached and 00:11:28.960 --> 00:11:31.679 all the antiquities, including the stone, were 00:11:31.679 --> 00:11:34.110 handed over to the British. And the story of 00:11:34.110 --> 00:11:36.950 the actual handover is a bit theatrical itself. 00:11:37.009 --> 00:11:38.570 There are a couple of different versions, right? 00:11:38.710 --> 00:11:40.850 There are. Colonel Turner, the British officer 00:11:40.850 --> 00:11:43.350 in charge, claimed he just marched in and seized 00:11:43.350 --> 00:11:45.830 it from Manu. But the more interesting account 00:11:45.830 --> 00:11:49.330 is from Clark, the scholar. He said he was secretly 00:11:49.330 --> 00:11:52.149 led by a French officer who apparently didn't 00:11:52.149 --> 00:11:54.690 like Manu to where the stone was hidden. Hidden 00:11:54.690 --> 00:11:57.669 where? Under some carpets mixed in with Manu's 00:11:57.669 --> 00:12:00.070 personal baggage in the back streets of Alexandria. 00:12:00.860 --> 00:12:03.299 So they grabbed it, put it on a captured friendship, 00:12:03.620 --> 00:12:06.220 and sent it to England. And its public life in 00:12:06.220 --> 00:12:09.179 Britain began almost the second it landed. Immediately. 00:12:09.759 --> 00:12:14.240 It arrived in Portsmouth in February 1802. It 00:12:14.240 --> 00:12:16.139 was presented to King George III, who directed 00:12:16.139 --> 00:12:18.850 it be placed in the British Museum. But first, 00:12:18.990 --> 00:12:21.169 it was shown to the scholars at the Society of 00:12:21.169 --> 00:12:23.409 Antiquaries of London. And they made copies right 00:12:23.409 --> 00:12:26.470 away. That was the priority. They made four high 00:12:26.470 --> 00:12:29.389 -quality plaster casts and sent them to Oxford, 00:12:29.629 --> 00:12:32.570 Cambridge, Edinburgh, and Dublin. And prints 00:12:32.570 --> 00:12:34.990 were sent all over Europe. They knew this had 00:12:34.990 --> 00:12:36.850 to be an international effort. When it finally 00:12:36.850 --> 00:12:39.230 got to the British Museum, they made its origins 00:12:39.230 --> 00:12:41.750 very clear. Oh, yeah. They painted inscriptions 00:12:41.750 --> 00:12:44.169 right on the side of it in white paint. Captured 00:12:44.169 --> 00:12:47.370 in Egypt by the British Army in 1801 and presented 00:12:47.370 --> 00:12:51.110 by King George III. Not subtle. Not at all. And 00:12:51.110 --> 00:12:52.690 it's been on display pretty much continuously 00:12:52.690 --> 00:12:55.330 ever since. It's the museum's single most visited 00:12:55.330 --> 00:12:57.929 object. It's so important that they've even moved 00:12:57.929 --> 00:13:00.470 it for safety. Only once, really. During World 00:13:00.470 --> 00:13:03.269 War I in 1917, there was a real fear of German 00:13:03.269 --> 00:13:05.769 bombing raids over London. So they moved the 00:13:05.769 --> 00:13:08.610 stone 50 feet underground into an unused station 00:13:08.610 --> 00:13:11.269 of the Postal 2 Railway. Incredible. Just to 00:13:11.269 --> 00:13:13.870 keep it safe. For two years. A testament to its 00:13:13.870 --> 00:13:16.149 value. Okay, so this brings us to the intellectual 00:13:16.149 --> 00:13:19.870 heart of the story. Reading the unreadable. Before 00:13:19.870 --> 00:13:22.590 the stone, Egyptian history was just silent. 00:13:23.169 --> 00:13:26.110 How did that happen? How does a whole civilization's 00:13:26.110 --> 00:13:29.679 writing system just... It was a slow death, really, 00:13:29.720 --> 00:13:31.919 driven by cultural and religious shifts in the 00:13:31.919 --> 00:13:35.240 late Roman Empire. The last known hieroglyphic 00:13:35.240 --> 00:13:39.659 inscription is dated to 394 AD. That's it. The 00:13:39.659 --> 00:13:42.220 end of the line. That's the end. As Christianity 00:13:42.220 --> 00:13:44.940 spread, the old Egyptian religious practices, 00:13:45.039 --> 00:13:47.159 which were completely tied to the hieroglyphs, 00:13:47.159 --> 00:13:50.340 were suppressed. The temples were closed, and 00:13:50.340 --> 00:13:52.519 the script lost its reason for being. So the 00:13:52.519 --> 00:13:53.980 culture that supported the script disappeared. 00:13:54.320 --> 00:13:57.120 Exactly. The language evolved into Coptic, which 00:13:57.120 --> 00:13:59.940 used the Greek alphabet. And for the next thousand 00:13:59.940 --> 00:14:02.639 years, all these misleading ideas about what 00:14:02.639 --> 00:14:05.039 hieroglyphs were took hold. You're talking about 00:14:05.039 --> 00:14:07.539 Hor Apollo. He's the main culprit. His book, 00:14:07.559 --> 00:14:09.679 Hieroglyphica, argued that the symbols were purely 00:14:09.679 --> 00:14:11.980 allegorical. You know, a picture of a goose meant 00:14:11.980 --> 00:14:14.659 sun because geese are loving parents. That kind 00:14:14.659 --> 00:14:16.379 of thing. So everyone thought it was a picture 00:14:16.379 --> 00:14:18.820 language, not a sound language. Exactly. And 00:14:18.820 --> 00:14:21.919 that one idea blocked any real progress for centuries 00:14:21.919 --> 00:14:24.580 until the Rosetta Stone provided the proof they 00:14:24.580 --> 00:14:27.600 needed. So the stow arrives. Step one is the 00:14:27.600 --> 00:14:29.860 Greek text. Right. That's the starting point. 00:14:29.940 --> 00:14:32.759 It's the known quantity. Scholars like Stephen 00:14:32.759 --> 00:14:35.399 Weston in England and Hubert Pascal Amelian in 00:14:35.399 --> 00:14:38.639 France quickly produced translations. They knew 00:14:38.639 --> 00:14:41.100 what the decree said. So once they have the meaning, 00:14:41.259 --> 00:14:43.559 they can attack the other scripts. And they start 00:14:43.559 --> 00:14:46.220 with the middle one, Demotic. That was step two. 00:14:46.600 --> 00:14:50.059 A Swedish scholar, Johan Akerblad, and the French 00:14:50.059 --> 00:14:53.059 Orientalist, Sylvester de Sassy, had a brilliant 00:14:53.059 --> 00:14:56.320 idea. Which was? Use the proper names. They took 00:14:56.320 --> 00:14:59.159 the foreign names from the Greek text, Ptolemaeos, 00:14:59.179 --> 00:15:02.039 Alexandros, and looked for similar looking groups 00:15:02.039 --> 00:15:04.120 of symbols in the demonic text. Because names 00:15:04.120 --> 00:15:05.840 have to be spelled out phonetically. Exactly. 00:15:05.899 --> 00:15:08.519 And it worked. To a point. Archibald managed 00:15:08.519 --> 00:15:10.659 to identify about half of the demonic alphabet 00:15:10.659 --> 00:15:13.379 correctly. It was a huge first step. But they 00:15:13.379 --> 00:15:15.480 got stuck. But they did. Because they made a 00:15:15.480 --> 00:15:17.980 wrong assumption. They thought the entire script 00:15:17.980 --> 00:15:20.600 must be purely alphabetic. They didn't understand 00:15:20.600 --> 00:15:23.639 that Egyptian writing is a hybrid. It uses phonetic 00:15:23.639 --> 00:15:26.799 signs and ideograms, which are signs that represent 00:15:26.799 --> 00:15:29.659 whole words or ideas. Which is where Thomas Young 00:15:29.659 --> 00:15:32.600 comes in, step three. Right. Thomas Young, this 00:15:32.600 --> 00:15:35.419 brilliant British polymath, he decided to focus 00:15:35.419 --> 00:15:38.159 on the hieroglyphs, specifically the ovals, the 00:15:38.159 --> 00:15:40.679 cartouches. The theory being that cartouches 00:15:40.679 --> 00:15:43.740 always contained royal names. Exactly. So he 00:15:43.740 --> 00:15:46.600 took the one name he knew was there. Ptolemy. 00:15:46.600 --> 00:15:48.940 And he managed to isolate the phonetic signs 00:15:48.940 --> 00:15:54.240 for P -T -O -L -M -N -S. It was a massive breakthrough. 00:15:54.480 --> 00:15:56.820 He proved hieroglyphs had a phonetic component. 00:15:57.059 --> 00:15:59.700 But he got stuck too, for a similar reason. A 00:15:59.700 --> 00:16:02.059 very similar reason. Young assumed that phonetic 00:16:02.059 --> 00:16:04.059 spelling was only used for foreign names, like 00:16:04.059 --> 00:16:06.860 the Greek Ptolemies. He thought that for native 00:16:06.860 --> 00:16:09.100 Egyptian words, the script went back to being 00:16:09.100 --> 00:16:11.860 purely symbolic. Like Cor Apollo said. So he 00:16:11.860 --> 00:16:13.840 could read the name of the ruler, but he couldn't 00:16:13.840 --> 00:16:16.059 read what the ruler was actually doing. Precisely. 00:16:16.279 --> 00:16:18.899 He had a key, but he thought it only opened one 00:16:18.899 --> 00:16:22.120 very specific lock. And that sets the stage for 00:16:22.120 --> 00:16:25.399 the final breakthrough. Jean -Francois Champollion. 00:16:25.580 --> 00:16:28.759 Champollion. He was obsessed with Egypt and was 00:16:28.759 --> 00:16:31.179 fluent in Coptic, which he was convinced was 00:16:31.179 --> 00:16:34.200 the descendant of the ancient language. He knew 00:16:34.200 --> 00:16:36.740 Young's work, but the final piece of the puzzle 00:16:36.740 --> 00:16:39.320 came from another artifact. The Philae obelisk. 00:16:39.600 --> 00:16:41.559 Right. It had another bilingual inscription, 00:16:41.879 --> 00:16:44.639 this time with the names Ptolemaeus and Cleopatra. 00:16:44.759 --> 00:16:47.039 Having a second name was the key. It was everything. 00:16:47.639 --> 00:16:49.659 Because he could cross -reference the letters. 00:16:50.120 --> 00:16:53.620 The P and the T and the L appeared in both names, 00:16:53.720 --> 00:16:56.279 so he could confirm their sounds and quickly 00:16:56.279 --> 00:16:58.899 build out a whole alphabet. He announced it in 00:16:58.899 --> 00:17:02.429 1822. But the real eureka moment, the thing that 00:17:02.429 --> 00:17:04.430 unlocked everything, wasn't a Greek name, was 00:17:04.430 --> 00:17:06.210 it? No. And this is the crucial distinction. 00:17:06.490 --> 00:17:09.569 In 1823, he got copies of cartouches from much 00:17:09.569 --> 00:17:12.009 older temples with the names of native pharaohs. 00:17:12.190 --> 00:17:14.430 And he was able to sound out the names Remesis 00:17:14.430 --> 00:17:18.250 and Thutmose. Wow. And that was it. That proved 00:17:18.250 --> 00:17:20.109 that the phonetic system wasn't just for foreigners. 00:17:20.410 --> 00:17:22.769 It was used for native Egyptian names from a 00:17:22.769 --> 00:17:25.250 thousand years before the Greeks. It shattered 00:17:25.250 --> 00:17:28.240 Jung's assumption. And the entire 1 ,400 years 00:17:28.240 --> 00:17:31.319 of silence just ended. The floodgates opened. 00:17:31.740 --> 00:17:34.400 Because he knew Coptic, he could start to reconstruct 00:17:34.400 --> 00:17:37.220 the grammar and the vocabulary. He had cracked 00:17:37.220 --> 00:17:39.200 the entire system. Of course, this incredible 00:17:39.200 --> 00:17:43.200 intellectual race was not always friendly. There 00:17:43.200 --> 00:17:45.500 was a lot of rivalry. Oh, a huge amount. Yeah. 00:17:45.599 --> 00:17:48.099 The British accused Champollion of plagiarizing 00:17:48.099 --> 00:17:51.799 Young's initial work. It was a very nasty nationalistic 00:17:51.799 --> 00:17:54.710 fight that went on for... And there was even 00:17:54.710 --> 00:17:57.230 scandal inside the French camp. The Salvallini 00:17:57.230 --> 00:18:00.230 affair. One of Champollion's own students basically 00:18:00.230 --> 00:18:02.769 stole his notes after he died and tried to pass 00:18:02.769 --> 00:18:05.490 the work off as his own. It was a cutthroat world. 00:18:05.670 --> 00:18:07.789 So even with the code cracked, the work wasn't 00:18:07.789 --> 00:18:09.630 done. It took decades to refine the translations. 00:18:09.789 --> 00:18:11.930 The initial decipherment was just the framework. 00:18:12.440 --> 00:18:15.039 It took until the 1850s for scholars to produce 00:18:15.039 --> 00:18:18.680 really reliable revised translations. And there's 00:18:18.680 --> 00:18:20.660 still debate today about which of the three texts 00:18:20.660 --> 00:18:22.880 was the original. The source code, so to speak. 00:18:23.099 --> 00:18:26.240 Right. Was it written in Greek first and then 00:18:26.240 --> 00:18:29.900 translated? Or did it start with the sacred hieroglyphs? 00:18:30.799 --> 00:18:33.140 The most likely answer is that it was all drafted 00:18:33.140 --> 00:18:35.920 at the same time by a committee, blending the 00:18:35.920 --> 00:18:37.720 three traditions together. Which makes sense. 00:18:37.720 --> 00:18:39.799 It feels like a document created by a committee. 00:18:40.200 --> 00:18:43.519 It really does. The Rosetta Stone is now probably 00:18:43.519 --> 00:18:46.420 the most famous rock in the world. It's so famous 00:18:46.420 --> 00:18:48.619 that its name has become part of our language. 00:18:48.839 --> 00:18:51.900 It's a huge cultural achievement. The term Rosetta 00:18:51.900 --> 00:18:55.599 Stone. Now just means the key to cracking any 00:18:55.599 --> 00:18:58.000 kind of code, the one clue that lets you understand 00:18:58.000 --> 00:19:00.019 a much bigger system. And you see that metaphor 00:19:00.019 --> 00:19:03.019 everywhere. Everywhere. In physics, the spectrum 00:19:03.019 --> 00:19:05.240 of the hydrogen atom is called the Rosetta Stone 00:19:05.240 --> 00:19:08.019 of modern physics because understanding it allowed 00:19:08.019 --> 00:19:10.160 us to understand all other atoms. And in biology, 00:19:10.339 --> 00:19:12.440 too. Yeah, a little plant called Arabidopsis 00:19:12.440 --> 00:19:15.019 is the Rosetta Stone of flowering time because 00:19:15.019 --> 00:19:17.299 its simple genetics provided the key to how all 00:19:17.299 --> 00:19:20.099 flowers work. Even the European Space Agency 00:19:20.099 --> 00:19:23.039 named their comet -chasing probe. Rosetta. Because 00:19:23.039 --> 00:19:25.539 they hoped the comet would hold the key to the 00:19:25.539 --> 00:19:27.980 origins of the solar system. Exactly. The metaphor 00:19:27.980 --> 00:19:30.339 is perfect. And it's important to remember, as 00:19:30.339 --> 00:19:33.019 a concept, it's not totally unique. There have 00:19:33.019 --> 00:19:35.420 been other bilingual texts that have unlocked 00:19:35.420 --> 00:19:38.220 languages. That's a great point. The Rosetta 00:19:38.220 --> 00:19:41.039 Stone is the most famous, but the Behistun inscription 00:19:41.039 --> 00:19:43.980 in Iran did the same thing for cuneiform scripts, 00:19:44.279 --> 00:19:46.380 which was just as important for Mesopotamian 00:19:46.380 --> 00:19:49.200 history. So it's part of a larger story of decipherment. 00:19:49.339 --> 00:19:51.920 It is a very important part. But that brings 00:19:51.920 --> 00:19:55.019 us to its complicated modern life and the calls 00:19:55.019 --> 00:19:58.930 for its repatriation. Yes. This has been a consistent 00:19:58.930 --> 00:20:02.470 call since the early 2000s, led by Dr. Zahi Hawass 00:20:02.470 --> 00:20:05.589 in Egypt. He's called it the icon of our Egyptian 00:20:05.589 --> 00:20:08.450 identity and argued that it belongs in Egypt. 00:20:08.630 --> 00:20:10.849 And he's proposed compromises, right? Not just 00:20:10.849 --> 00:20:13.529 demanding it back permanently. He has. He's asked 00:20:13.529 --> 00:20:15.630 for temporary loans, for example, for the opening 00:20:15.630 --> 00:20:17.809 of the new Grand Egyptian Museum. The British 00:20:17.809 --> 00:20:20.630 Museum did give Egypt a full -size replica, but 00:20:20.630 --> 00:20:22.509 the original has stayed in London. And what is 00:20:22.509 --> 00:20:24.250 the position of the British Museum and other 00:20:24.250 --> 00:20:26.490 big international museums? They have a unified 00:20:26.490 --> 00:20:29.720 defense. They argue that these objects were acquired 00:20:29.720 --> 00:20:32.059 in a different era with different values and 00:20:32.059 --> 00:20:35.640 that now they serve as world objects in world 00:20:35.640 --> 00:20:37.619 museums. The argument being that more people 00:20:37.619 --> 00:20:40.359 can see it in London, that it belongs to humanity. 00:20:40.680 --> 00:20:42.900 That's the core of their position, that they 00:20:42.900 --> 00:20:45.319 serve the people of every nation by making these 00:20:45.319 --> 00:20:48.240 treasures of global heritage accessible. It's 00:20:48.240 --> 00:20:50.680 a really complex debate with no easy answers. 00:20:50.940 --> 00:20:53.380 A clash between national identity and global 00:20:53.380 --> 00:20:55.740 access. And it leads to this great little irony 00:20:55.740 --> 00:20:58.319 that the scholars... John Ray pointed out. He 00:20:58.319 --> 00:21:01.079 noted that the day is coming when the Rosetta 00:21:01.079 --> 00:21:03.079 Stone will have spent more time in the British 00:21:03.079 --> 00:21:06.079 Museum than it ever did in Rosetta or anywhere 00:21:06.079 --> 00:21:09.079 else in ancient Egypt. Its modern life as an 00:21:09.079 --> 00:21:11.839 icon has now completely eclipsed its original 00:21:11.839 --> 00:21:15.019 purpose. So when you boil it all down, what does 00:21:15.019 --> 00:21:17.900 this all mean? We've traced this journey from 00:21:17.900 --> 00:21:20.279 a piece of rock made for a nervous teenage king 00:21:20.279 --> 00:21:23.180 all the way to the tool that brought a civilization 00:21:23.180 --> 00:21:26.160 back to life. The deep dive really shows that 00:21:26.160 --> 00:21:28.680 the genius wasn't just finding the stone. It 00:21:28.680 --> 00:21:31.160 was the incredible intellectual effort that followed. 00:21:31.259 --> 00:21:33.980 That moment of realizing that a single name, 00:21:34.099 --> 00:21:38.720 Halimaos, held the phonetic key to unlock. Everything 00:21:38.720 --> 00:21:41.059 else. That one connection was the thread that 00:21:41.059 --> 00:21:43.799 unraveled the whole mystery. It gave us back 00:21:43.799 --> 00:21:46.140 a millennium of history. And proved that even 00:21:46.140 --> 00:21:48.019 the most difficult codes can be broken if you 00:21:48.019 --> 00:21:50.359 just find the right key. Absolutely. Right. And 00:21:50.359 --> 00:21:51.940 the final thought to leave you with is this. 00:21:52.460 --> 00:21:54.839 That original decree was made for one reason 00:21:54.839 --> 00:21:57.599 and one reason only. To secure the power of King 00:21:57.599 --> 00:22:00.880 Ptolemy V. It was pure political propaganda designed 00:22:00.880 --> 00:22:03.880 for immediate local relevance in a very turbulent 00:22:03.880 --> 00:22:07.400 time. Meant to glorify one king. For a fleeting 00:22:07.400 --> 00:22:10.059 moment. But consider the incredible irony. This 00:22:10.059 --> 00:22:12.299 routine political document designed to solve 00:22:12.299 --> 00:22:14.940 a short -term crisis instead became the eternal 00:22:14.940 --> 00:22:17.480 key to understanding the entire religious and 00:22:17.480 --> 00:22:19.960 historical world of the various civilization 00:22:19.960 --> 00:22:23.140 it was meant to govern. This object, intended 00:22:23.140 --> 00:22:26.259 to elevate a single king's cult, ended up resurrecting 00:22:26.259 --> 00:22:27.599 an entire ancient world.