Many different disciplines study and make use of the Rosetta Stone.
Like an invincible secret code, ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs baffled onlookers for centuries until a fortuitous discovery uncovered the Rosetta Stone. The Rosetta Stone is a sort of language key that allowed scholars to unlock the secrets of the ancient Egyptian language, as well as the events recorded in it. The Stone is a slab of black basalt inscribed with three copies of the same text -- one in Greek, one in Egyptian hieroglyphs, and a third in Egyptian demotic -- that enabled archeologists to decipher the hieroglyphic language of the ancient Egyptians. These studies had far-reaching ramifications for archeology, anthropology, and historiography, among others.
Scientific Fields
"Science" is the concerted human effort to understand the natural world, according to Bruce Railsback, Ph.D., of the University of Georgia's Department of Geology. Railsback includes climatology, astrophysics, and chemistry as examples of science, while excluding art and religion. Merriam-Webster's Dictionary offers a somewhat broader definition, defining "science" as any department of systematized knowledge. Combining the breadth of this definition with Railsback's emphasis on empirical investigation, this article focuses on three scientific fields related to Rosetta Stone research: archeology, anthropology, and historiography. The social sciences, including linguistics and social history, are excluded.
Archeology
The remnants of ancient civilizations can help illuminate the human past.
Archeology seeks to understand the human past, not primarily through reading or listening to accounts of long-ago events, but through examining the very ground on which people of earlier eras left traces. Archeologists came upon the Rosetta Stone through Napoleon Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt in 1799. The primary role of an archaeologist is to uncover secrets of the past hidden in the earth and in things left behind. The Rosetta Stone was not simply discovered; it was uncovered in accordance with this science's detailed processes.
Anthropology
Anthropologists see ancient Egyptian culture as manifested in hieroglyphic writing.
Anthropology seeks to understand the evolution of human biology and the continuity of cultural and social traditions. Anthropologists study culture from the start of a civilization to its end, viewing it as manifested in language, act and artifact. Anthropology relates to the Rosetta Stone in at least two ways: first, through the concern of anthropologists with cultural continuities going back to ancient Egypt and even earlier; and second, through anthropology's concern with culture as manifested in language.
Historiography
Historiography, or the recording human events, is a practice dating back to ancient Greece.
From ancient Greece to the present, historiographers have sought to record what happened and why. Once hieroglyphic writing was deciphered through the Rosetta Stone, it would yield a treasure for historiography. The reason for this was that the ancient Egyptians, through highly trained scribes, put a great deal into writing, including their military, governmental, and religious affairs.
Tags: Rosetta Stone, ancient Egyptian, ancient Egyptians, ancient Greece, anthropology historiography, archeology anthropology
