HOW ANCIENT L ANGUAGES ARE DECIPHERED
It took more than 20 years to translate the Rosetta Stone
WORDS OWEN JARUS
Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs line the walls of tombs and temples
Some ancient societies had written languages, but deciphering their texts can be an almostimpossible task. So how do experts figure out how to translate ancient words into modern ones? The answer is multifaceted, but one famous example embodies some of the best practices: the decoding of the Rosetta Stone, discovered by a French military expedition in Egypt in July 1799, which helped pave the way to the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs.