Dr. Ilona Regulski

So very few people actually had the opportunity to see monumental hieroglyphs and objects of that size in collections in Europe in general.

So it was a very exciting moment, absolutely.

Of course, it takes some time for the museum to reorganize, to build and to expand before it becomes one of the first public institutions.

That already starts very soon after discovering the stone.

And while the stone was still in Egypt, the French, and then also immediately afterwards the British, make many copies of the text.

So the French make a few casts, even when the Rosetta Stone is then handed over to the British, they still allow the French to make more copies.

So there was a lot of, on the scholarly level, there was a lot of collaboration.

Then more copies were made of the Rosetta Stone.

We actually have correspondence

between scholars who were still back here in England and were writing to friends and colleagues in Egypt and said, can you make another copy of the stone before you put it on the boat, just in case something happens that we have a copy of the stone.

They were all very, very keen to have the text available in some kind of copy, whether it was a cast or a print, because they used the Rosetta Stone as a printing block.

So they would put ink on the block and then roll it as a print because the script is so small, it's really difficult to copy in a traditional way, especially if you don't know what you're copying.

So it's better to use it as a printing block.

And these copies were distributed all over Europe.

And within two or three years after the discovery, every country had a copy of the Rosetta Stone.

A very important group of scholars are the French scholars who had joined Napoleon's army.

As we know, Napoleon took a large group of scholars with him.

who, in addition to his political adventure, were supposed to document the country, ancient Egypt, the monuments, modern Egypt, the customs, the nature, and so on.

And they went back home with their copies and also with copies of the Rosetta Stone.

And they were quite instrumental in distributing these copies in France.