British Museum launches immersive exhibition on Egypt’s Rosetta Stone

CAIRO – 16 October 2022: For centuries, life in ancient Egypt has been a mystery.

Some discoveries played a significant role in solving that mystery, including the discovery of the Rosetta Stone. The British Museum launched an exhibition displaying the Rosetta Stone that runs until 2023.

In its exhibition, the British Museum offers a peek into this hidden world of the Rosetta Stone, the key to deciphering hieroglyphs, allowing us to read this ancient text, and shows how this breakthrough expanded our understanding of human history.

Held on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of deciphering the Egyptian hieroglyphs, this grand exhibition also highlights the hard work that preceded the discovery.

Furthermore, the exhibition reviews the idea that hieroglyphs were not just beautiful symbols, but a living language, in which Romantic poetry as well as international treaties, shopping lists and tax returns were written. 

The ancient writings in this exhibition reveal diverse stories showing the firm belief in the power of the pharaohs and the promise of the afterlife and how the ancient Egyptians enjoyed good food, letters and jokes.

The exhibition presents a complete bibliography of the race to decipher the heiroglyphics in a decree also written in demotic, and the well-known ancient Greek language, from the initial efforts of medieval Arab travelers and Renaissance scholars to the more focused advances of the French scholar Jean-François Champollion (1790-1832) and Thomas Young of England (1773-1829). Having provided the key to deciphering ancient signs, the results of the 1822 discovery proved astounding.

Using inscriptions on the very objects that Champollion and other scholars have studied, this immersive exhibition helps visitors unlock the mysteries of one of the world's oldest civilizations.