WEBVTT - How the Rosetta Stone Works 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:06.440 Brought to you by the all new Toyota Corolla. Welcome 0:00:06.480 --> 0:00:16.080 to Stuff You Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, 0:00:16.120 --> 0:00:19.159 and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. 0:00:19.320 --> 0:00:22.680 Chuck Bryant, and this is Stuff you Should Know, the 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:27.960 Overly Hot Studio Edition. I have a bit of a chill. No, 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:31.240 you don't, I do. I'm not at all hot. Yeah. 0:00:31.280 --> 0:00:33.519 You also said that it hurt when our new coworker 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:39.000 shook your hand. So what does that say that it 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:42.520 is a strong hand shape. Okay, and you're always cold? Yeah, 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:45.840 it's always lamps in here. Well, Jerry's decorated. It's nice. 0:00:46.000 --> 0:00:51.120 It is nice. It's just like an Ikea cattalog. That's right. Um, Chuck, 0:00:51.640 --> 0:00:54.880 how many times have you been to Egypt? Um? Kinding 0:00:55.320 --> 0:01:00.880 that trip in high school? Zero? Same here? Yeah, and 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:05.080 yet we know an awful lot about Egypt. Yeah, it's popular, 0:01:05.280 --> 0:01:08.760 especially ancient Egypt. Like I would wager that we probably 0:01:08.760 --> 0:01:12.720 know more about ancient Egypt than modern Egypt most people 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:15.840 in the West. Yeah, is there a modern Egypt? There is? 0:01:15.880 --> 0:01:20.680 And uh, it's undergoing quite a bit of turmoil right now. Um, Okay, 0:01:21.400 --> 0:01:22.760 I just wanted to make sure that you knew that 0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:26.920 Egypt was still around. Kay Um. Well, the reason that 0:01:26.959 --> 0:01:29.720 you and I know a lot about Egypt is thanks 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:33.160 to a soft science one of the humanities. You would 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:37.960 call it um called egyptology, pretty on the nose name 0:01:38.040 --> 0:01:42.040 for the study of ancient Egypt. It's a real popular 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:44.880 thing and has been for a while a while, but 0:01:45.000 --> 0:01:48.000 not too terribly long, I would say, about the beginning 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:52.360 of the nineteenth century. Uh. And the reason that all 0:01:52.440 --> 0:01:54.160 of it was foster than that all of it came 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:59.320 about and that we you and me know about Egypt 0:01:59.760 --> 0:02:04.080 was because of the discovery of a tablet known as 0:02:04.120 --> 0:02:07.800 the Rosetta stone. Right. But you can also go back 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:09.679 even further and make the case that if it wasn't 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:14.880 for Napoleon Bonaparte, we may not understand Egypt to this day. Yeah, 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:17.440 that little guy, he wasn't that little though, is that right? Right? 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:20.440 He was average height? Why why does why do people 0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:22.639 say that? Then? Where that come from? Because some doctor 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:24.640 wrote down I think upon his death that he was 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:28.000 five ft two. But what a lot of people don't 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:32.320 realize is that the doctor was using the French inch, 0:02:33.760 --> 0:02:39.359 which is longer than the British Imperial inch. So when 0:02:39.360 --> 0:02:41.600 you translate five ft two from the French inch to 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:46.040 the imperial he was about five six, which is average height. 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:48.560 And uh. The other reason why he was called like 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:52.600 the little Emperor by his armies was because compared to 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:55.840 most of his bodyguards and his people he had around him, 0:02:56.160 --> 0:02:58.200 he was shorter than them. Yeah. I guess when you're 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:01.320 five six, he wants some six four dudes or on you. Right. So, 0:03:01.400 --> 0:03:03.079 but the idea that he was a very short man 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:06.120 is is not correct. Yeah, I'd always heard that, but 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:08.839 I did another story, the French Inch. There's your band 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:14.440 name for the day. Although I typically don't like rhyming names, 0:03:15.240 --> 0:03:19.000 French inch doesn't rhyme. It's just it sounds similar. I 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:23.400 wouldn't call it a rhyme. French and inch, Yeah, French 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:27.160 of the e and the eye. Yeah, that's nippicky. Well yeah, 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:30.160 it's the vowels that rhyme, that the confidence. Yeah. But 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:32.120 if you're Steve Maltmous and you put French at the 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:33.400 end of the line and an inch at the end 0:03:33.440 --> 0:03:36.200 of another, it would be it would be rhymy and 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:40.720 you'd sell a lot of records. That's right. Yeah. Um, yeah, Well, 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:45.960 there was our pavement reference episode. That's becoming a daily 0:03:46.040 --> 0:03:50.040 thing too. So you want to get on with this, Yeah, 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:52.560 let's do it. We're gonna be talking Rosetta Stone, not 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:56.280 the language software, which neither one of us has ever used. No, 0:03:56.840 --> 0:04:00.640 we're talking about the the real thing, which is actually 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:04.120 bigger than I thought. You know, many things are smaller 0:04:04.560 --> 0:04:07.000 for me, like when you see him in person, Lisa, 0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:09.480 of course, mona Lisa small. Like I went to England, 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:12.800 I was like, big Ben, that ain't so big. Yeah, 0:04:12.960 --> 0:04:15.280 I don't think I had the impression of big Bembo. 0:04:15.480 --> 0:04:18.120 It's kind of underwhelmed. It definitely didn't seem big. Whereas 0:04:18.120 --> 0:04:20.560 the Eiffel Tower that was bigger than I thought. That 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:23.120 is where I developed a fear of heights that still 0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:26.320 plagues me to this day. Like it literally happened to 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:29.200 me on the Eiffel Tower on the way up. Never 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:31.160 had a fear of heights in my entire life. On 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:34.320 the way down, I like was hanging on to the 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:37.200 fence and it took me forever to get down because 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:40.000 I was suddenly deathly afraid of height. Just hit me 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:46.600 my brain Uh changed? How old were you? Uh? Seventeen 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:49.360 is wow? Yeah? I didn't go up to the top. 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:51.640 I probably missed out. I didn't either. It was the 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:57.480 first level that got me really wow. Alright, so, um, anyway, 0:04:57.520 --> 0:04:59.240 where was I going? Oh, it's bigger than I thought 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:02.480 it was. It is um black basalt, and it weighs 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:07.080 about three quarters of a ton um inches high point 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:11.320 five inches wide and twelve inches deep. And it's it's large, 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:16.160 it's heavy, it's um. You didn't write this, did you? No? Um, 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:18.360 it's about the size of a heavy coffee table. Were 0:05:18.400 --> 0:05:21.400 you about to make fun of something? I was just 0:05:21.440 --> 0:05:24.160 gonna say. Whoever wrote this ref referenced an l c 0:05:24.320 --> 0:05:27.440 D TV of medium size. Yeah, a medium screen l 0:05:27.480 --> 0:05:29.560 c D television. Oh, by the way, thank you to 0:05:29.720 --> 0:05:36.320 Teresa Dove fan request. That's who requested this one. Yeah. Okay, so, um, 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:38.960 it's larger than I thought. And I learned a lot 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:42.480 about this. I thought the Rosetta stone because I'm a dummy. 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:46.560 Um was literally like, here's what our alphabet is, and 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:49.120 here's what everything means, and now that you found it, 0:05:49.160 --> 0:05:51.800 you can decipher everything. Yeah. I think I had the 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:55.400 same impression as well. Until I read this, I thought 0:05:55.440 --> 0:05:59.320 it was like created as a key to higher glyphics, 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:03.000 not at all. Not so it was a government document. Basically, 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:07.800 it's a stella stella. Stella is the plural. And uh, 0:06:07.839 --> 0:06:11.880 it's not just the Egyptians that use stella stella um. 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:15.240 The Mayans have largely been figured out their language has 0:06:15.320 --> 0:06:19.280 from old stella. Yeah. Um. Well, and that's it. Those 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:22.839 are the two that use stella. Yeah. In this case, 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:28.400 it's an inscription carved in three different languages, Greek, hieroglyphics 0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:33.159 and demotic with the t not demonic. Yeah, demotic. But 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:35.240 since I'm from the South, I saw it in my tea, 0:06:35.320 --> 0:06:39.120 so it might sound like I'm saying demonic um. And 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:41.440 basically it was in the three languages to ensure that 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:44.760 everybody could read it because it was an official government decree. 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:48.120 Not super exciting though. No, it wasn't basically what the 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:50.960 Rosetta stone says. And like you said, it's in three languages. 0:06:51.120 --> 0:06:55.479 There's a degree that says um. Essentially that Ptolemy the 0:06:55.520 --> 0:06:59.560 fifth is a great ruler and he is a righteous 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:02.760 worship or of all the right gods. So he's okay 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:05.720 in our book. And this decree was made by some 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:11.040 priests who gathered at Memphis and they um inscribed the 0:07:11.080 --> 0:07:16.600 stoner had and inscribed and dated March, and it's not. 0:07:16.800 --> 0:07:22.440 It doesn't actually say March hieroglyphics. It says eighteen must Shire, 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:27.120 which on the Egyptian calendar translates to something like um 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:32.560 March uh. And then they got the because somewhere in 0:07:32.600 --> 0:07:36.440 there the references the ninth year of Ptolemy, the fifth reign, 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:40.000 which is about so that's where they got the date 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:45.080 from the what we would in the West equate it to. Yeah, 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:47.880 so um, like we said, it doesn't say anything of 0:07:47.920 --> 0:07:51.120 particular interest at the time, it was an important message. 0:07:51.120 --> 0:07:54.480 But it's not the Rosetta stone because of what is 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:57.880 transcribed upon that stone. No, it's the fact that it's 0:07:57.880 --> 0:08:02.400 in three different languages. So there's like you said, hieroglyphics, 0:08:03.160 --> 0:08:11.679 Demotic and Greek, and hieroglyphics were a sacred um alphabet. Yeah, 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:14.240 they used that for really important stuff. I didn't know 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:16.200 this either. I thought just any old thing they wanted 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:19.080 to write was a hieroglyphics. Now that's what they had 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:24.000 demiotic for or demotic that was kind of like an 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:29.280 abbreviated shorthand more vulgar version of hieroglyphics. Yeah, and in 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:35.080 between that was hieratic um, which was slightly more complicated 0:08:35.160 --> 0:08:40.040 than demotic, but less complicated and not sacred like hieroglyphics. Yeah, 0:08:40.040 --> 0:08:43.079 it was like a kind of a transition between Um 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:48.800 demotic and hieroglyphics. Curve right, so you can UM, so 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:54.840 you could use um hieratic for like a business transaction. 0:08:55.400 --> 0:08:57.760 But if you were saying the king is a very 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:01.280 righteous ruler and you mentioned the gods, you're to use hieroglyphics. 0:09:01.120 --> 0:09:06.280 That's so to have it written in Greek UH demotic, 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:10.320 which was an offshoot of hieratic, which was an off 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:17.800 shoot of hieroglyphics, and UM hieroglyphics. These priests that gathered 0:09:17.840 --> 0:09:20.440 and issued this decree that was written on the Rosetta stone, 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:23.680 they made sure that everyone in Egypt two was literate 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:26.120 could read this one way or another. Yeah, And it 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:27.839 was sort of not a stroke of luck. I mean, 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:30.000 it was just smart thinking at the time, but ended 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:33.040 up being a stroke of luck because the three languages, 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:35.360 I mean, without that, I don't think we we may 0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:37.840 have never been able to figure out hieroglyphics. No agreed, 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:41.720 And I've been lost forever exactly. Um. And that's that's 0:09:41.720 --> 0:09:44.080 not the only way that the Rosetta Stone was kind 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:47.920 of a bit of fortune. But UM. So the reason 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:50.760 that it was lost was up until the fourth century 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:55.120 a d any average Egyptian could have read the Rosetta 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:59.240 Stone one way or another. But after that the egypt 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:05.079 it left the pharonic stage. Cleopatra is the last pharaoh 0:10:05.080 --> 0:10:07.400 of Egypt, and then it came to be ruled by 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:12.800 the Greeks, later on the Romans, the Tlamites, UM, and 0:10:12.960 --> 0:10:17.800 a bunch of different foreigners or different groups. And with 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:22.080 these groups came the introduction of new gods and the 0:10:22.200 --> 0:10:28.079 suppression of old gods. And since hieroglyphics were um very 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:32.400 much religious in nature. They're sacred or holy, but associated 0:10:32.440 --> 0:10:36.320 with those old gods, hieroglyphics itself came to be cut 0:10:36.320 --> 0:10:41.120 off stop suppressed. Yeah, especially Christianity. Um. They tended to 0:10:41.320 --> 0:10:45.720 want to get rid of other competing gods and languages 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:47.800 that are tied to those gods. Right, But luckily we 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:51.960 still had Demotic, that's right, and Demotic wasn't taboo. UM. 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:57.360 That eventually became what's known as Coptic, and Coptic used 0:10:58.160 --> 0:11:00.880 UM some Greek um and in a little bit of 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:04.560 still of the hieroglyphic symbols. So there's still like this, 0:11:04.920 --> 0:11:09.120 just a little bit, very tenuous link between Coptic and hieroglyphics. 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:12.520 But then Coptic is lost, it's pushed out by Arabic, 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:17.800 and then that was like way gone, goodbye hieroglyphics. That's it. 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:21.600 That was like the hieroglyphics is no longer understood by 0:11:21.640 --> 0:11:25.480 anyone walking planet Earth. And that means that all of 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:30.520 the ancient Egyptian civilization itself was lost thousand years aside 0:11:30.520 --> 0:11:34.480 from its structures, um, the the thought put into it, 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:37.640 the reasoning behind it, all the explanations, all of the inscriptions, 0:11:37.640 --> 0:11:41.359 all the writing all over these ancient buildings are understood 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:44.360 by no one now. And then as a result of that, 0:11:45.080 --> 0:11:49.920 the buildings themselves, the last vestiges of this ancient civilization, 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:55.360 are deconstructed and used for the next wave by new rulers, 0:11:55.600 --> 0:12:00.440 and so ancient Egyptian culture is lost to the mists 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:04.560 of time. Yeah, wow, thanks very nice. Yeah, there was 0:12:04.600 --> 0:12:07.000 no love lost. They were basically like, we don't need 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:09.480 this language anymore, we don't need these sacred buildings anymore. 0:12:09.640 --> 0:12:11.960 They're pagan anyway. Yeah, let's tear them all down, build 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:16.720 up new ones. And oddly, the Rosetta stone was actually 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:22.000 used as a buttress in a wall of a new building. Yes, 0:12:22.160 --> 0:12:25.720 so part of the construction. Right, that's how this is 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:28.320 another way that this is all just stroke of luck 0:12:28.320 --> 0:12:30.840 after stroke of luck. So the first stroke of luck, 0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:33.120 as you pointed out, is that they just happened to 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:37.800 decree that this thing be written in three languages, same 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:42.640 message in three languages. Then it's used for a building 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:47.119 a wall, right, Yeah, Then it happens to be discovered 0:12:47.160 --> 0:12:51.240 by some French who are marooned in Egypt because they 0:12:51.280 --> 0:12:54.560 got crushed by the British right when they tried to invade. Yeah, 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:58.280 I guess let's talk about that person. The French thought, hey, 0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:01.120 we need to we need to get a stronghold on 0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:04.120 India eventually, and Napoleon said, I think a good way 0:13:04.120 --> 0:13:07.960 to do that is to start a little further away, 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:11.880 and let's say Egypt. Let's cut off the the Brits 0:13:12.520 --> 0:13:14.880 access to the Nile River and that will really help 0:13:14.920 --> 0:13:18.920 our cause. Unfortunately, the Brits at a great navy and 0:13:19.120 --> 0:13:21.920 pretty much destroyed all their ships and stranded them in 0:13:21.960 --> 0:13:25.120 Egypt for what nineteen years? Yeah. Yeah. And so for 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:28.679 the French, whose ships were now at the bottom of 0:13:29.040 --> 0:13:34.040 Abu Kir bay Um, they decided that they really kind 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:39.000 of needed to set themselves to creating forts, like since 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:42.760 we're here, right, um. And it wasn't just military that 0:13:42.840 --> 0:13:46.680 was there part of this invasion, this um strategy that 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:50.520 Napoleon had come up with to take over Egypt, it 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:53.440 was kind of a hearts and mind strategy too, and 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:56.400 so he created something called the Institute of Egypt, also 0:13:56.440 --> 0:14:00.040 known as the Scientific and Artistic Commission uh mineral a. 0:14:00.240 --> 0:14:04.680 Just mathematicians, art historians, a lot of engineers, chemists, all 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:07.320 of like, all of these people from the letters and 0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:13.559 sciences UM brought together to understand and study Egypt. Yeah, 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:16.640 they were actually given military rank, but they weren't. I 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:19.960 think that was just more of a here just so 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:23.880 we'll call you military, Like, they weren't from military backgrounds, 0:14:23.960 --> 0:14:27.400 so they were thinkers. But they were among this invading 0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:30.840 force that was left stranded in France. So as the 0:14:31.240 --> 0:14:34.520 real military guys were billing the forts, the people from 0:14:34.520 --> 0:14:38.040 the Institute Egypt starts studying Egypt. Yeah, I guess they 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:43.720 were the first Egyptologist. Yeah, boy, it was close. Uh, 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:47.640 they definitely were. Uh, and it was very covert operation, 0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:49.840 like they weren't really allowed to talk about what they 0:14:49.840 --> 0:14:52.480 were doing that much except to just say, hey, we're 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:55.760 following Napoleon's orders, acting on behalf of the good of 0:14:55.800 --> 0:14:58.320 the French Republic. This is what we're doing. Don't ask 0:14:58.320 --> 0:15:00.840 any questions, yeah, that's what. Don't ask why I have 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:04.560 this measuring tape out or why I'm transcribing things from papyrus. 0:15:04.600 --> 0:15:08.640 But they did, um, they did become I guess embedded 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:11.160 with the local population as well to help learn as 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:13.960 much as they could. And so it's under this climate 0:15:14.000 --> 0:15:19.359 that French soldier one day, um finds this very polished 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:24.840 black stone that's inscribed and something about it told him 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:27.080 that it was pretty important. So we took it to 0:15:27.200 --> 0:15:33.320 these um early egyptologists, the French, and said, you guys 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:36.200 think this is important and they said yes, yeah. That 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:40.480 was Lieutenant Pierre Francois Bouchard, and uh, he took it 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:42.960 to his boss and they they said, okay, this is 0:15:43.040 --> 0:15:45.640 weird that this is built into a wall, but it's 0:15:45.680 --> 0:15:48.800 clearly something of note and maybe we should take a 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:52.400 closer look at it, and UM, immediately they started to 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:55.800 get to work on trying to transcribe it. Super difficult 0:15:55.800 --> 0:15:59.080 at the time, UM, and would prove to be difficult 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:02.920 over the years. UM. It eventually ended up in the 0:16:02.960 --> 0:16:07.040 hands of England, of course, but luckily these uh, the 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:11.080 Institute of Egypt people made copies of it. Yeah, I 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:14.320 think that like etchings or in the plaster molds and things. 0:16:14.400 --> 0:16:18.480 I'm sure, yeah, But they had readable copies of the 0:16:18.600 --> 0:16:21.000 Rosetta Stone, so when they did give it up to 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:24.480 the British, it wasn't entirely lost to them, that's right, 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:27.640 and give it up as in not here have this. 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:31.520 It was more like here, we're taking this in the 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:33.960 Treaty of Alexandria. We're gonna take this in a bunch 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:38.280 of other stuff. So now basically you have the French 0:16:38.600 --> 0:16:42.280 and the British both have the Rosetta Stone. The one 0:16:42.280 --> 0:16:47.360 group that doesn't are the Egyptians. We'll get to that later. UM. 0:16:47.480 --> 0:16:50.800 And both of them recognized that this is a very 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:56.080 very important something. They know that it's some sort of decree. 0:16:56.360 --> 0:16:58.800 They recognize that it's in three different languages, and I 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:01.720 think it becomes obvious to them that this could be 0:17:01.800 --> 0:17:07.760 the key to understanding hieroglyphics, which people have tried to understand. 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:11.720 This is not new people going back to a fellow 0:17:12.040 --> 0:17:19.040 named um Horapolo, who was a fifth century scholar. Supposedly 0:17:19.119 --> 0:17:24.160 he may not have actually existed. Um he created basically 0:17:24.200 --> 0:17:28.960 what was a translation for hieroglyphics, right, but it was 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:32.520 a false translation, as we'll see. But you know, dating 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:37.840 back basically from the moment that hieroglyphics were lost to history, 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:41.400 people have tried to understand them. So these this this 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:43.840 was the British and the French were aware of this, 0:17:44.000 --> 0:17:47.320 like this may be the key to these mysterious hieroglyphics, 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:49.879 and this is important, so we're going to try to 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:52.919 translate it. Yeah. Well it became a race really because 0:17:53.600 --> 0:17:55.360 they didn't like each other very much and they both 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:57.920 wanted to be the first ones to figure out what 0:17:57.960 --> 0:18:01.879 these hieroglyphics meant and how to unlock this history and 0:18:02.200 --> 0:18:04.720 um so they sent their best, in their brightest on 0:18:04.760 --> 0:18:07.480 the English side, the British side, it was a scholar 0:18:07.560 --> 0:18:10.800 named Thomas Young, and then on the French side we 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:16.720 had Jean Francois Champollon who he was sort of born 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:19.639 to do this. Apparently he was way into Egypt as 0:18:19.680 --> 0:18:22.960 a kid even and as a young child said I'm 0:18:22.960 --> 0:18:25.600 gonna I'm gonna figure out hieroglyphics one day. Yeah. He 0:18:25.680 --> 0:18:28.120 was even called the Egyptian because he had dark skin 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:32.040 and dark hair. And um, I think a magician like 0:18:32.359 --> 0:18:35.080 foretold his fame one day. Yeah, when he was born. 0:18:35.119 --> 0:18:38.160 Supposedly a magician said this guy's can be famous, and 0:18:38.440 --> 0:18:41.240 and he was and um, yeah, he was a very 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:49.080 talented linguist. He studied under a guy named Um Sylvester 0:18:49.520 --> 0:18:54.560 de Sassy. Yeah, Antoine Isaac Sylvester de Saucy. Uh he um, 0:18:55.119 --> 0:18:57.480 who would take a crack at the Rosetta stone. But 0:18:57.560 --> 0:19:02.920 he trained uh Champolion. Is that how we're saying it. Yeah, 0:19:02.960 --> 0:19:08.360 sure he trained him. Um, but Champolion quickly became went 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:11.960 from student to master. He applied for he applied to 0:19:11.960 --> 0:19:14.840 be a student at an institute in Paris, and they 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:18.080 were impressed enough with his application that they said, how 0:19:18.119 --> 0:19:19.920 about you just skipped the school part and come beyond 0:19:19.920 --> 0:19:23.920 the faculty. That's pretty good. Yeah, that's a talented linguist. Yeah. 0:19:23.920 --> 0:19:25.880 They did the same thing when I applied to Georgia. 0:19:26.080 --> 0:19:27.240 Is that right? Like you just want to go and 0:19:27.280 --> 0:19:31.080 be an English teacher? Na, Oh really you turned it down. Huh. Sure, 0:19:31.119 --> 0:19:34.760 I wanted to be a student. Oh gotcha. Um. So 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:38.439 before all this happens, Um, we we have the Greek 0:19:38.520 --> 0:19:42.479 inscription transcribed, which that was Reverend Stephen Watson in eighteen 0:19:42.480 --> 0:19:44.919 o two. And I don't want to say it was 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:48.240 no big deal, but there were quite a few people 0:19:48.280 --> 0:19:51.080 that could have done this. It wasn't like unlocking hieroglyphics, 0:19:51.600 --> 0:19:54.639 but it was a necessary part of the process. Right, 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:56.240 So we want to give him his due. So we 0:19:56.280 --> 0:19:59.119 have a we have a translation and accurate translation of 0:19:59.160 --> 0:20:03.280 what the says exactly. So that's step one. And if 0:20:03.320 --> 0:20:07.200 you have one translated, then if you're a linguist, I guess. 0:20:07.200 --> 0:20:09.600 I mean it sounds really difficult to do too. I 0:20:09.600 --> 0:20:14.199 mean it's I can't imagine the painstaking the process of 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:17.200 figuring out and alphabet. Yeah, I mean, I think about 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:20.640 how hard it is to translate a well known language 0:20:20.640 --> 0:20:25.040 and a language that you speak. Imagine translating uh, language 0:20:25.040 --> 0:20:30.240 that's totally lost into something understandable. Um. So we had 0:20:30.240 --> 0:20:34.399 the Greek and then eventually we had the demotic as well. Um. Yeah, 0:20:34.400 --> 0:20:39.760 thanks to Yeah Antoine Uh and that same year at 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:44.199 the same time as Swedish diplomat named Aker balade Um 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:48.280 also translated the demotic um and they both went about 0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:51.000 it two different ways. I thought this was pretty interesting. Yeah, 0:20:51.040 --> 0:20:54.160 so do saucy Um figured out that there were two 0:20:54.200 --> 0:20:58.520 proper names at least in there, Ptolemy and Alexander, and 0:20:58.640 --> 0:21:02.760 he used those two match up sounds and symbols. Um 0:21:02.920 --> 0:21:07.560 Awker Blode probably had the bigger breakthrough. He used a 0:21:07.600 --> 0:21:12.360 different technique. He recognized that there was something similar between 0:21:12.400 --> 0:21:15.600 demotic and coptic, and he was well schooled and coptic, 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:19.320 which helped obviously. Yeah, that that was his big breakthrough. 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:23.159 He he figured out what words spelled love, temple, and Greek, 0:21:23.280 --> 0:21:27.040 and he used that to form basically this rough uh 0:21:27.240 --> 0:21:31.080 structure for Demotic based on his awareness of coptic. Yeah, 0:21:31.080 --> 0:21:34.239 that's only eleven letters. It's pretty impressive. Yeah, but I mean, 0:21:34.280 --> 0:21:37.199 if you've got eleven letters, it's a decent I think 0:21:37.240 --> 0:21:39.480 they called it a skeletal outline. I guess that's what 0:21:39.520 --> 0:21:42.000 you'd have. Well, yeah, I mean, especially since Coptic was 0:21:42.040 --> 0:21:45.119 only what twenty two plus a couple more from hieroglyphics. 0:21:45.400 --> 0:21:48.080 It's like a big wheel of fortune game. Yes after that, right. 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:51.880 So the thing is though, this established connection now between 0:21:52.240 --> 0:21:56.440 coptic and demotic and then demonic and hieroglyphics, since they're 0:21:56.440 --> 0:21:59.920 side by side, that kind of opened up this meant 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:03.879 reality that would be needed to finally crack the hieroglyphics 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:08.280 for for um, the Rosetta stone. And Thomas Young was 0:22:08.320 --> 0:22:10.640 the first to really try it. He was the British guy, 0:22:11.359 --> 0:22:16.080 and he got somewhat far, but he gave up. Yeah, 0:22:16.119 --> 0:22:19.560 he in eighteen fourteen. His big breakthrough was figuring out 0:22:19.640 --> 0:22:24.440 what a cartouche was, and that is um, it's they 0:22:24.480 --> 0:22:27.119 say oval, but it's a little more squared away with 0:22:27.240 --> 0:22:31.400 round edges, but it's a loop basically with hieroglyphic characters 0:22:31.400 --> 0:22:35.239 in it. And he figured out that these are not 0:22:35.280 --> 0:22:38.320 only proper names, but royal names. Anything in pain and 0:22:38.440 --> 0:22:41.280 containing a cartouche is a royal name, which was a 0:22:41.280 --> 0:22:45.639 big breakthrough because he identified Tolemy, the pharaoh's name in 0:22:45.640 --> 0:22:53.280 one of the car cartouches cartouche cartouches, and uh, his 0:22:53.400 --> 0:22:56.040 Queen Baronica was in there as well, so he said 0:22:56.080 --> 0:22:58.440 you know what again, I've got these two names now 0:22:58.480 --> 0:23:01.760 to work with hum but he was still working on 0:23:02.440 --> 0:23:07.320 Roppolo's false premise that hieroglyphics was not phonetic in nature 0:23:07.480 --> 0:23:09.840 and that it was based just on symbols. Right, That's 0:23:09.920 --> 0:23:15.800 what Horopolo's big contribution was to confuse a centuries worth 0:23:15.840 --> 0:23:19.280 of scholars bad for young because he was onto something 0:23:19.320 --> 0:23:21.960 and if he wasn't using that the fake or or 0:23:22.119 --> 0:23:24.120 not fake but just the poor system, then he might 0:23:24.119 --> 0:23:26.840 have figured it out. Right. So this is the thing 0:23:26.880 --> 0:23:31.520 like everyone believed for Apolo, because Popolo claimed that his 0:23:31.640 --> 0:23:36.280 translation was a direct translation from hieroglyphic. It was written 0:23:36.280 --> 0:23:39.720 in the fifth century a d. Right around the time 0:23:39.920 --> 0:23:44.320 we lost hieroglyphics, so it was considered to be a 0:23:44.480 --> 0:23:51.760 primary source and basically completely reasonable. Yeah, but it was wrong. 0:23:51.880 --> 0:23:56.320 It was wrong because it said that hieroglyphics are symbolic. 0:23:56.920 --> 0:24:00.119 So like, if you see a cart a picture that 0:24:00.119 --> 0:24:02.880 looks like a cart next to a cat and then 0:24:02.960 --> 0:24:07.359 a lizard, what that should say under a Hiropolos translation 0:24:07.560 --> 0:24:13.000 is cart, cat lizard. This kept throwing everybody off because 0:24:13.200 --> 0:24:16.399 it didn't make sense, especially right, especially when compared to 0:24:16.440 --> 0:24:19.520 the Greek translation and the translation of Demotic that didn't 0:24:19.560 --> 0:24:23.040 make any sense whatsoever. So, like you said, Young gave up, 0:24:23.040 --> 0:24:26.000 but he published his findings, and you can really strongly 0:24:26.040 --> 0:24:29.560 make a case that had it not been for Young's breakthrough, Uh, 0:24:29.800 --> 0:24:34.680 Champolion would not have cracked the Rosetta Stone. No, which 0:24:35.000 --> 0:24:38.399 uh we should mention here that like they should just 0:24:38.600 --> 0:24:42.240 accept each other as as co workers and colleagues and 0:24:42.240 --> 0:24:45.119 get along. But there was a competition that exists to 0:24:45.200 --> 0:24:50.320 this day of who what country claims that they translated 0:24:50.359 --> 0:24:52.920 the Rosetta Stone. The French still say that Champagnan was 0:24:52.960 --> 0:24:55.280 really the one. The Brits obviously say no, it was 0:24:55.320 --> 0:24:58.359 really Young. And even when they displayed it in nineteen 0:24:58.440 --> 0:25:00.840 seventy two with the one of the times it's left 0:25:00.920 --> 0:25:04.679