Ancient Egyptian Writing

Ancient Egyptians thought it was vital that they recorded information creating many religious and government documents, referred to as scripts that allowed them to record this information.

Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics

The most well-known type of script is the hieroglyphic script. However, this was not the only script that was written during Ancient Egypt, more than three others were used for other purposes throughout three thousand years of ancient Egyptian civilisation, being used for different purposes. With these scripts scribes were able to write down the beliefs, history and ideas of ancient Egypt, on Temple and Tomb walls and on papyrus scrolls.

The Rosetta Stone

When Egypt changed faith and became a Christian country, the majority of the Egyptian Temples were destroyed and their goods (brick, stone, craftwork) were re-used.  During this time, the Rosetta Stone was relocated from its initial place to Rashid. This place was then converted to a fortress by Sultan Qaitbay, the ruler of Egypt throughout the fifteenth century. The Rosetta stone was discovered by Napoleon's army during mid-July 1799 when they were attacking a town of Rashid (Rosetta). The French quickly recognised acknowledged the significance of the Stone, however the Stone was soon after in the possession of the British when they beat Napoleon in 1801.

The Rosetta Stone

The Rosetta Stone was placed in the British Museum. It was written in three different scripts, which were -hieroglyphic (the script that was used for the important or religious papers), demotic (the script that was most commonly used in Egypt) and lastly, Greek (which the rulers of Ancient Egypt used). This helped scholars who 25 years later were able to translate the hieroglyphs.