Discovery at Rosetta (Revealing Ancient Egypt)

In 1798, the young French general, Napoleon Bonaparte, entered Egypt with an army and a brigade of savants, scientists, anthropologists, and historians. His aim was not just conquest on the banks of the Nile but the rediscovery of the ancient world after centuries of Ottoman rule. At the heart of this quest was a stone that was discovered in the small town of Rosetta in the Nile Delta that would offer the key to unlock the mysteries of ancient Egypt. It contained wording in Greek, hieroglyphs, and demotic Egyptian. It was the prize that Napoleon had dreamed of, but in a series of adventures the stone came into English hands. Discovery at Rosetta tells the full story of how the English won the battle to claim the Stone and how it was then shipped to England. The book also tells the story of the extraordinary characters involved in the race between Thomas Young and Jean-François Champollion to decipher the Stone's code.