The Rosetta Stone
In 1799, when Napoleon’s army was dismantling a wall in Rashid, Egypt, they discovered the Rosetta Stone. Little did they know that this 11-inch thick piece of rock would be one of the greatest discoveries in history! It contained Egyptian scripture, with Greek also on the stone. This was used to decode the once lost Egyptian writing system. Before the 1800’s, attempts at trying to uncover the secrets held by the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics found on walls inside numerous tombs were useless. The pictures were falsely believed to be symbolic, representing some sort of object or idea. Something soon changed all of this misconception. 1799 was the year of a great breakthrough in Egyptology. French troops, under
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Another man who devoted many years of his life to studying the stone was Jean-Francois Champollion. After many years of perseverance, Champollion finally translated the stone in 1822. He accomplished this feat by first recognizing that hieroglyphs were not symbols, but instead were associated with phonetics, as Thomas Young had proved. (Andrews 166) His first major breakthrough in his studies was in 1808, when he resolved those fifteen signs of the demotic script related with alphabetic letters from the Coptic language. From this he concluded that Coptic language must be based on the remnants of the last of the ancient Egyptian language, and written with the Greek alphabet, which is why it was readable to Champollion and other scholars researching the stone. Also, that the hieroglyphic text was a translation of the Greek, not the reverse, as had been previously believed. By 1818, Champollion had successfully concluded that though some signs were basically ideograms, many of the glyphs had phonetic value, meaning the ancient Egyptian script was at least partially alphabetic. (Giblin 83) He came to this conclusion after referring back to three other different forms of Egyptian writing and also using Coptic as a reference. Recognizing the name 'Ptolemy' and 'Cleopatra' in the Greek and demotic sections of the stone allowed him to identify those same names in hieroglyphics. Still wondering, he didn't think that hieroglyphs were
In the late 1700's an elite of Napoleons men had found the stone after overtaking Egypt. The stone had various hieroglyphs and demotic carved into it. Giblin touches bases on how many people had unsuccessful outcomes with solving the Rosetta Stone mystery. Eventually this mystery was solved successfully after realizing it's meaning was not just symbolic but needed
Section 1: Question 1 – The society of Gattaca works to repress rather than to enhance the potential of human beings. Discuss.
Ancient Egyptians developed a writing system based on pictures, known as hieroglyphics. The difference between cuneiform and hieroglyphics was hieroglyphics stood not only for ideas or objects, but also sounds. According to document four, Egyptians also created papyrus, the first paper, in order to keep records.
This is my book report about, “The Amulet Book 1 The Stonekeeper” by Kazu Kibuishi. The main characters of the story are Emily, Navin, Miskit, Karen, and Silas. Emily is the 12-year-old daughter of Karen Hayes. Emily is the natural born leader who hasn’t been the same ever since she witnessed her father’s death. Navin is the youngest of the Hayes family. He loves video games, robots, and making Emily laugh. Miskit is known as the brains of the team and acts as Silas’s right-hand robot for many years. Karen is Emily’s mother. She is a single mother who wants what is best for her kids. She’s still going through some tough problems ever since her husband died. Silas is Emily’s great-grandfather and the previous owner of the amulet. The bad guy in the story is the Elf King’s son, Trellis. He sent the monster after Emily’s mother in order to get to Emily.
In Ancient times written languages had been some of the tools that they used to communicate. “The designation ‘hieroglyphics’ is a Greek word; the Egyptians referred to their writing as medu-netjer ‘the god’s words’, as they believed writing had been given to them by the great god Thoth” (Mark). The Egyptians believed that hieroglyphics were given to them as a special gifts from their god. Another thing is that they used hieroglyphics to represent their
The story of Vincent shows in Gattaca that there is possibility of beating the genetic engineering system. Vincent is one of the last naturally born babies born into a sterile, genetically enhanced world, where life expectancy and disease likelihood are ascertained at birth. Myopic and due to die at 30, he has no chance of a career in a society that now discriminates against your genes, instead of your gender, race or religion. Vincent an invalid, dreams of working within Gattaca and making it into space. He combines with Jerome who was disabled in an accident to take his identity and live his life to enter the Gattaca Corporation. Vincent is selected for his lifelong desire, a manned mission to Titan.
The movie “Gattaca” is a sci-fi movie that takes place in “the not-too-distant” future, where genetic engineering of humans is common. In this sci-fi future, class differences are construct is primarily determined by your DNA. In the movie society’s culture is ingrained with eugenics, evident by the clear institutionalized discrimination. Eugenics is a set of beliefs and practices that aim at improving the genetic quality of the human population. Eugenics is not a “new” concept, people have been discriminating based on looks ever since prehistoric times. The movie inspired me to do some research on popular eugenics movements in the post-industrial age (1850-present). My primary goal of was to identify the motives behind early eugenics
In his view, of all the languages written on the stone, the most important writing was the Egyptian writing. He discusses how "each scholar was eager to be the first to decipher the mysterious hieroglyphs." Giblim tells his reader that due to the important work of these
It all began, On Feb. 171923. A crowd of invited archeologists and Egyptian dignitaries, were gathered in the Valley of the Kings. They were there to view the uncovering of King Tutankhamen’s burial chamber. The outer rooms were filled with treasures, Egyptian art, and furnishings. But everyone was more anticipated to view the actual mummy. While the more leading kings and queens treasures had been looted long ago whereas, King Tut’s tomb had practically been untouched. It had only been robbed twice and luckily the robbers only got past the first chamber. Two months after the
Gattaca is a science-fiction thriller movie, directed by Andrew Niccol. It presents a story of the future prospect of genetic engineering and how it will affect human society. Gattaca gives one perspective of how the future of discrimination is no longer determined by social status or the colour of skin because the discrimination is now down to a science, Vincent: "I belonged to a new underclass, no longer determined by social status or the colour of your skin. No, we now have discrimination down to a science." The better the genes in your body are the better job you will get. In the future world, like presented
As a society, each and every one of us possesses an inner strength that aids us to overcome the impediments in life that we may face. This inner strength is what we call our human spirit.
After the death of Champollion, He made a systematic study of the French scholar’s Grammaire egytienne, which had been published posthumously in 1836, but was yet to be widely accepted. Lepsius when on to write a massive 12-volume called Monument from Egypt and Ethiopia, that stand as the earliest reliable publication documenting a large number of temples and monuments. As early as 2000, Ancient Egypt remains a comparatively young area of study, and is still haunted by a reputation for exotic mystic wisdom that existed in the pre-decipherment period and has been termed ‘Egyptosophia’ by Erik Hornung. The attention giving to the bizarre and the speculation, however, can distract attention from scholarly work. Nevertheless, there is no full dictionary of the ancient Egyptian language. Great work like the German ‘Agyptisches Worterbuch’ continues, since the first edition (1926-31) and new corpuses of text have been published. Tools such as the ‘Lexikon der Agyptogie’ (1975-92) and the ‘Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Hieroglyphic Texts, Reliefs and paintings’ (Oxford, 1927-, continuously updated) are invaluable reference
The Rosetta Stone was a crucial part of deciphering hieroglyphs for mankind. The Rosetta Stone is a large piece of dark grey granite. The Stone is three feet nine inches long and two feet four inches wide. The stone approximately weighs a massive 1,680 pounds. Carved by the Egyptians in 196 B.C., the Stone contains a portion of text reflected in three scripts. One of the scripts, Hieroglyphs, had not been deciphered when the Stone was discovered. The other two scripts are Demotic and Classical Greek. Demotic is a language spoken by the Egyptians used in the Nile Delta. The Stone was discovered by the French at the end of the 18th century. The Rosetta Stone was the key to translating the
Then the scholars named the stone the "Rosetta Stone" to honor the place where the soldiers had found the stone. They also studied the stone for a while, trying to decode what the hieroglyphs mean. In the third part "Clues to the Puzzle," the scholars were trying to decipher the hieroglyphs and what the writing on the slab, and then they discovered that the demotic script was in cursive, and the scholars guessed it was written in an alphabet in Western language. Then when they discovered that alphabet, they thought it can be easier to translate than the hieroglyphs, and soon a person named Sylvestre de Sacy, figured out one the groups of hieroglyphs spelled out the name Ptolemy. Also many people made copies of the Rosetta Stone so someone can try to figure out the meaning behind the hieroglyphs.
The Rosetta Stone was a very important part of history. Today we might never know what the Egyptian ancient writings of the priest say if it were not for the stone. The Rosetta Stone has broadened people’s languages and helped people to communicate with Egyptians and Greeks.