Hello. This is 6 Minute English from
BBC Learning English. I'm Rob.
And I'm Sam.
In this programme, we'll be unlocking
the secrets of the ancient Egyptians,
pyramid builders and the inventors
of hieroglyphs - a writing system
which uses pictures and symbols
to represent words.
The meaning of Egyptian hieroglyphs
remained a mystery until 1799
when Napoleon's soldiers unearthed
a dark, damaged rock in the Egyptian
coastal town of Rosetta.
On the broken granite stone three
scripts were faintly carved: Greek at
the bottom, Demotic in the middle and
Hieroglyphs at the top. Today, the
Rosetta Stone is perhaps the most
famous museum object in the world.
But what's actually written on it is quite
dull! In fact, the Rosetta Stone contains
a tax break! It describes an agreement
exempting priests from paying taxes
to the King.
Ah, the famous Egyptian pharaohs!
Exactly - but which one, Sam?
Let's test your ancient Egyptian
knowledge with this quiz question:
the writing on the Rosetta Stone
is a tax agreement between the
priests and which Egyptian pharaoh?
Is it:
a) Cleopatra?, b) Ptolemy?,
or c) Ramesses?
I'll guess a) Cleopatra.
OK, Sam, I'll reveal the answer to
that mystery later on. Before the
discovery of the Stone, no scholar
had been able to understand the
strange symbols carved on
the great pyramids.
Egyptologist, Richard Parker, was
in charge of the Rosetta Stone
exhibition at the British Museum
for twenty years. Here he is,
telling BBC Radio 4 programme,
In Our Time, about circumstances
before the discovery of the Stone:
People were exploring all sorts of
means of trying to decipher, including
trying to link the script with Chinese to
see if that offered a parallel. It was
known from the classical authors
that the Egyptian script contained
great, mysterious pearls of wisdom
from the Egyptian philosophers and
people had hugely high expectations
and all attempts to decipher, to get a
grip on the script, I think,
had really failed.
Before the discovery of the
Rosetta Stone, no-one had
managed to decipher
hieroglyphs - to work out the
meaning of writing which
is difficult to read.
Experts hoped that the Egyptian
script contained great pearls of
wisdom - wise words,
sayings or advice.
As we know, the actual meaning
of the text turned out to be
quite dull. But it was the fact
that the messages were written
in three scripts, including Greek -
a language scholars already knew -
that provided the key to finally
crack the code.
In 1801 the race was on between
Egyptologists in Britain and France
to be the first to translate the entire
system of hieroglyphs.
In the end, it was a young Frenchman
named Jean-François Champollion who
became the first person to understand
hieroglyphs since the ancient Egyptians
themselves, nearly two
thousand years earlier.
Here's Penelope Wilson, Professor
of Egyptian Archaeology at Durham
University, explaining more about
this remarkable young Frenchman
to BBC Radio 4's, In Our Time:
He was certainly a prodigy, I think
as far as language is concerned,
but also had a fascination for
Egypt I think, and the story is he
was taught Coptic by a Coptic priest,
and at that lecture was one of the
first to argue that Coptic was
related to ancient Egyptian. So, he
was also encouraged in this by his
older brother so I think there was
soon to be no holding him back,
once he got the bug he was
encouraged and he
made great strides.
When Penelope Wilson calls
Champollion a prodigy, she
means someone young with
a great natural talent for
something, in this case,
studying languages.
Added to his natural ability was
a fascination with Egypt and
the encouragement of his
brother, so Champollion soon
got the bug - suddenly developed
a strong enthusiasm for something.
In English, we often add a noun to
describe exactly what someone is
enthusiastic about - so, for example,
the skiing bug, for someone
who loves to ski.
Champollion was so enthusiastic, there
was no holding him back - an idiom to
say that you are doing something
so eagerly, you cannot
be stopped.
The story goes that he worked so
hard deciphering hieroglyphs, when
he finally finished, he ran through
the streets of Paris shouting,
'I've done it!', before
collapsing unconscious.
Rob, earlier you asked me which
pharaoh ordered the
Stone to be written.
Yes. And what did you say?
I thought it was Cleopatra.
Was I right?
Well, Cleopatra was from the same
dynasty but a little later than the
correct answer, which was
b) Ptolemy, the pharaoh who
ruled from around 300 BCE.
OK. Let's recap the vocabulary
we've learned, starting with
hieroglyphs - symbols used
represents words in ancient Egypt.
The challenge was to decipher them -
to uncover the meaning of writing
which is difficult to read or understand.
Maybe they contained pearls of
wisdom - wise words, sayings or advice.
The hieroglyphic code was finally cracked
by Jean-François Champollion -
a prodigy or young person
with a great natural talent.
When Champollion got the bug,
or suddenly became very
enthusiastic about
understanding hieroglyphs, there
was no holding him back - nothing could stop
him from succeeding.
And nothing can stop us
from saying goodbye, because
our six minutes are up!
Goodbye!