Pierre de Rosette
The stone of Rivet washer is a fragment of stele in Granodiorite, frequently comparable wrongly with Basalte or Granite, discovered in the village of Rachid ( Rosette ) in July 1799 during the countryside of Napoleon in Egypt.
It is a young officer of the genious, Pierre-François-Xavier Bouchard, which noticed this black stone of more than one meter in height at the time of excavation work in an old Turkish fortress. This fortress had been named by Bonaparte, Fort Julien, in homage to his aide-de-camp Thomas Prosper Julien, assassinated during the summer 1798. At the time of the capitulation of 1801, the Britanniques victorious required the delivery of the ancient monuments, of which stone of Rivet washer. But as of 1800, a reproduction of the text had been sent in France to be studied there.
The inscriptions related to this stone proved to be the same text reproduces according to three different written forms: Hiéroglyphe S, Démotique and Greek . It was believed, at this moment, that the mystery of the hiéroglyphes was going to be quickly bored. Akerblad and Silvestre of Sacy launched out in the first attempt at deciphering, but it remained vain. It was then with the turn of a British scientist, Thomas Young, to launch out in a work which seemed promised with success. Alas, Young did not know the Copte and few old texts. On the hieroglyphic signs for which he proposed a value, five only proved to be exact, and he was obstinated with reading on the stone of Rivet washer Arsinoé , whereas was mentioned there, actually, Autocrator . So some of the signs present in the cartridges were rather simple to find, it was because they had been created to return the vowels of the names of foreign origin of the last sovereigns ( Ptolémée, Cléopâtre, Alexandre ).
Jean-François Champollion, which was not yet ten years old at the time of not discovered stone, launched out very young person in the battle of the deciphering of the hiéroglyphes. It had a presentiment of that the key was the knowledge of the old texts and especially of the Copte, spoken language in Egypt, and going down from the former Egyptian. A friend, the architect Jean-Nicolas Huyot, had sent to documents to Champollion the young person. In a cartouche, this last located the solar sign of Râ , another sign which it could be ms and two S : RâMSS , therefore Ramsès , which at the same time wants to say Re put it at the world . Idem for ThôtMS, Thoutmôsis. After eight years of baited work, in 1822, it can announce at the scientific community which it bored the secrecy. Its method was good, since it applied to the translation of other hieroglyphic texts.
The text registered on the stone is a ptolémaïque decree of -196. The Greek part of the stone of Rivet washer starts as follows: Basileuontos tou neou kai paralabontos tén basileian para tou patros… (the new king, having received the kingdom of his/her father…). It is a decree of Ptolémée V Épiphane, describing taxes that it abrogea (of which one is measured in Ardeb S (Greek artabai) by Aroure) and instituting the order to set up statues in temples. The last sentence indicates that this decree will have to be registered on a stone stele lasts, in the writing of the words of the gods (Hiéroglyphe S), the popular writing (Démotique) and the Greek language.
The stone of Rivet washer measures 112 cm height for 76 cm of width and approximately 28 cm thickness.
It is exposed to the British Museum with London, where it is preserved since 1802. It however was lent to the Louvre in the years 1980.
An immense reproduction (14 X 7 m), carved in black granite of the Zimbabwe by Joseph Kosuth, as its translation in French are accessible to the public with Figeac on the place from the Writings.
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