French Book Publication: The Rosetta Stone: Restoring the Language of Ancient Egyptians

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The BA Writing and Scripts Center released the French version of the book The Rosetta Stone: Restoring the Language of Ancient Egyptians, by Dr. Ahmed Mansour and Dr. Azza Ezzat, under the supervision of Prof. Ahmed Abdullah Zayed, Director of the BA. The book provides an innovative vision and a deeper and clearer understanding of the story of discovering the Rosetta Stone, how it was read and how it left Egypt. The book shows a photograph of the original draft manuscript that Jean-François Champollion worked on to decipher the Rosetta Stone, which is now preserved in the Champollion Museum in the French city of Figeac.

The publication of this version coincides with the bicentenary of the decipherment of the ancient Egyptian language (1822-2022), as well as the twentieth anniversary of the inauguration of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina on 16 October 2022, an event attended by kings, princes and presidents of several countries around the world, believing in Egypt's cultural leadership as well as the cultural importance of the ancient city of Alexandria. The publication also coincides with the twentieth anniversary of the establishment of the BA Writing and Scripts Center (2003-2023).

The book examines the attempts made by the French scholar Jean-François Champollion to decipher the Rosetta Stone, and how he introduced the correct methodology for reading the ancient Egyptian language, in less than ten years of painstaking research.

It is worth noting that this book was previously published by the BA in Arabic and English, before it was released this year in French. It will be available at the 2024 Cairo International Book Fair.


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