Dr. Ilona Regulski

So it's the language and the script of the people.

Yes, so it's made of granodiorite, which is a very hard stone, and we don't exactly know where it comes from.

It was probably quarried somewhere in the north of Egypt and then set up in one of the temples in the delta, probably.

We don't know the exact find spot.

Places like Sias in the delta have been mentioned in the past.

There have also been suggestions that maybe it comes from Heliopolis, which was a very important place to worship the sun god in ancient Egypt.

We really don't know.

We don't even know when it was transported to Rashid or Rosetta, as it was called by the French and Italians.

Probably during the Mamluk era, because it was very common, especially in the Mamluk era, to reuse stones, ancient Egyptian spolia, as we call it, in new buildings.

So actually, the very early history of the Rosetta Stone is not very well known.

Even though we have all this information historically on the stone, because of the text, we don't actually know where it was set up.

Yeah, so it's a priestly decree in which basically the king is given divine honors.

It has a long list of these honors.

For example, his statue has to be put up in the temple next to the statue of the god.

The statue has to be carried around in processions next to the statue of the god.

The priests have to honor the statue of the king and so on.

So it's really putting the king on the level of the gods, actually.

Why does he deserve all these honors?

Because he did a lot of good deeds for the country, obviously.

He protected the country from invasion.