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Course: Special topics in art history > Unit 1
Lesson 3: Ruins, reconstruction, and renewal- Destruction, Memory, and Monuments: The Many Lives of the Parthenon
- Views of past and present: the Forum Romanum and archaeological context
- The Roman Forum: part 1 of Ruins in Modern Imagination
- The Roman Forum, part II
- The Roman Forum, part III
- Decoding the Rosetta Stone
- Colosseum (Flavian Amphitheater)
- The Cathedral of Notre-Dame, Paris (before the fire)
- Before the fire: Notre Dame, Paris
- Reconstructing a masterpiece — Mantegna's St. James Led to his Execution
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Decoding the Rosetta Stone
The Rosetta Stone, a key to deciphering hieroglyphics, reflects a historical moment in Egypt under Greek rule. It contains the same text in hieroglyphics, demotic script, and ancient Greek. This stone, a political compromise, reveals the tension between the Greek government and Egyptian priests. Its discovery led to understanding ancient Egyptian culture. A conversation with Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker in front of the Rosetta Stone, Egypt, Ptolemaic Period, 196 B.C.E., granodiorite, 112.3 x 28.4 x 75.7 cm (The British Museum). Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
Want to join the conversation?
- Is it possible that someone could still find the rest of stone, or is it probably gone forever?(6 votes)
- It is possible, but to reassemble it into anything larger than sand or gravel is unlikely. Besides, since the text is relatively complete in ONE of the three languages, it serves its purpose very well just as it is.(6 votes)
- Is it necessary for art historians to be versed in ancient languages such as Egyptian, Sumerian, ancient Greek, etc.?(2 votes)
- No. An art historian who specializes in Korean art, for example, need not know Sumerian or Greek.
If, however, you aspire to get a PhD degree in something related to the art of the Mediterranean, Greek, Latin and Coptic may be useful tools.(2 votes)
- if someone can read greek, and if the hyroglifics and greek say the same thing, then you could just read it word over word, right?(1 vote)
- That's kind of how it worked out, but it took someone to discover that the same text was offered in all 3 languages to unlock the thing.(2 votes)
Video transcript
(gentle music) - [Steven] The British
Museum has just opened, but already there's an enormous crowd circling the glass case that
holds the Rosetta Stone. So we're not looking at
this object in a museum because it's a work of art. - [Beth] And it's certainly not beautiful. - [Steven] We value this ancient object largely for its modern history, as the key to deciphering
the writing system that the Greeks called "sacred
writing," hieroglyphics. - [Beth] The Rosetta Stone
is located in the middle of the gallery that contains
ancient Egyptian art, and as we look around, it's so clear how important writing was
to ancient Egyptian art. There's almost no ancient
Egyptian work of art that doesn't also include writing. - [Steven] Writing that we couldn't read. - [Beth] Although we looked
back more than 5,000 years to the beginnings of
ancient Egyptian culture. - [Steven] This was made
during the reign of Ptolemy V, in the period that we
call the Ptolemaic period, a period that follows
Alexander the Great's conquest of ancient Egypt. Egypt at this point was ruled by a dynasty known as the Ptolemies. - [Beth] So we have Egypt being ruled by the Ptolemaic Dynasty, and that essentially means
that Egypt is controlled by Greek rulers. - [Steven] The Greek city of Alexandria had been founded in Egypt. Greek law had been imposed. - [Beth] And the Ptolemies rule Egypt for almost three centuries, until ancient Rome takes over in 30 B.C.E. - [Steven] But in order to
understand the Rosetta Stone, it's important to understand
the political situation in Egypt at this moment. Ptolemy V, the reigning
king, came to power when he was six years old. - [Beth] And as you can imagine, there was a fight for power. - [Steven] All of which is
to say that this young king needed as many allies as he could get, and he was looking to the
ancient priestly class to help him assert his power
and to stabilize the kingdom. - [Beth] During the
reign of the Ptolemies, there is a separation between the Greek-controlled government and the priestly class, the only ones who could read
and write in hieroglyphics. Greek had become the official
language of ancient Egypt. - [Steven] But by this
late day, those Egyptians, other than the priests, who were literate would have written the Egyptian language in a different script,
one known as demotic. And this stone reflects this
historical moment in Egypt. - [Beth] At the very top,
we've got hieroglyphics, the sacred writing of the priests, in the center, the demotic script, and at the bottom, we have ancient Greek. And it was the recognition
that we had the same text in three different scripts
that allowed scholars to recognize that the
Rosetta Stone held the key to translating ancient
Egyptian hieroglyphics. - [Steven] But the Stone
is also a reflection of this historical moment, when the language of government was Greek. It's this fracturing that allows us access to ancient Egyptian text, because the same decree
is repeated in all three. And in the 18th century, Europeans could read ancient Greek. - [Beth] This is a decree
that speaks about the victory of Ptolemy V over some Egyptians who were rebelling against Greek rule. And because there is this
tension within Egyptian culture at this moment, between the priests and
the Greek government, what we're seeing in this decree is also a kind of compromise. - [Steven] On the one hand, it's the assertion of Ptolemy V's power, but it also gives
concessions to the priests. - [Beth] Before this, once a year, the priests had to travel to
the capital of Alexandria, which was Greek, in essence, even though it was in ancient Egypt. This decree allowed them not to do that and to remain in Memphis, which was a historically
great ancient Egyptian city. - [Steven] And it also
gives the priests a tax cut. So the Third Memphis Decree, written on this stone in
two different languages and three different scripts, is first and foremost
a political compromise. But what we're seeing
in the British Museum is only a fragment of what
was originally a large stele, and one of numerous steles
that was set up around Egypt with the same message. - [Beth] Let's jump about
2,000 years to 1798, to the time of Napoleon
and the British empire. At this point, Egypt is
in a strategic location for both the British and the French, who begin to vie for control of Egypt. Critically, Napoleon travels
not only with his army, but also with scholars. And when the Stone is discovered, they quickly realize its
historical importance. - [Steven] Word of this
discovery makes it way to Lord Elgin, a high-ranking
British diplomat. Now the British quickly
defeat the French Navy, but it will take the
British a couple of years to oust the French land forces. When they do, the British
look for the Rosetta Stone. - [Beth] But the French have hidden it. It is ultimately found. But in the terms of a treaty
ending these hostilities, the Rosetta Stone is mentioned as now being the property of the British. - [Steven] It lands in the
British Museum in 1802. Scholars almost immediately
began to study the Stone in an effort to read its hieroglyphs. Thomas Young made some headway, but it was really the
French scholar Champollion that cracked the code. - [Beth] So for the last almost 200 years, thanks to a remarkable series
of events through history, we've been able to read
ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and understand so much more
about ancient Egyptian culture. (gentle music)