For centuries they were an impenetrable mystery. Hieroglyphs, pictorial writing found on ancient monuments, represented the lost language of the Egyptian pharaohs.
The code was finally cracked 200 years ago with the presentation on September 27, 1822, to a Paris academy by Jean-Francois Champollion, a gifted linguist with a passion for ancient Egypt.
Five days earlier, Champollion had made the final breakthrough, a moment so exciting that after shouting “I’ve got it,” he fainted and had to spend the next few days in bed to recover.
At the heart of the mystery was the Rosetta Stone, a 720 kilgram slab of granodiorite, a rock similar to granite, and now housed in the British Museum in London.
The story of the Rosetta Stone is almost as complex as the decoding of the hieroglyphs inscribed on its surface.
It was discovered in July 1799 during renovations to a fort at Rosetta, now called Rasheed, on the Nile Delta. Napoleon had invaded Egypt the previous year, bringing not just an army of troops but also scholars of Egyptian history, with which Napoleon had become obsessed.
The significance of the Rosetta Stone was almost instantly recognised. It carried three panels of text, one in hieroglyphs and another in a then-unknown language.
The third was ancient Greek, a language well known and understood by 19th-century classical scholars. That revealed the stone — or stele — was a proclamation to establish the authority of the then child-pharaoh Ptolemy V, and was carved around 186BC.
It also became clear that the other two panels carried exactly the same text. Suddenly the door opened to understanding hieroglyphs by comparing them with Greek.
Copies of the text began to circulate widely among scholars in Europe and even the US, but the actual stone was on a different path. Napoleon’s fleet had been destroyed by Admiral Horatio Nelson at the Battle of the Nile in 1798, and his demoralised army finally surrendered to the British in 1801.
Despite French protests, the Rosetta Stone was taken as a spoil of war and presented to King George III, who gave it to the British Museum where it has been displayed ever since.
The hieroglyphs, though, remained a mystery. Much of the text was damaged or missing, and so little was known, it was not clear if they should be read left to right, or the reverse or even up and down.
One popular theory was that they were not even a written language but instead expressed spiritual ideas.
The first breakthrough came from an English doctor, Thomas Young, who began studying the stone in 1814. Young, known as the “Phenomenon” for his scientific discoveries, eventually deduced that the hieroglyphs were phonetic when they involved names, including Ptolemy.
Young’s work was then taken up by Champollion in 1820. Working on the theory of phonetics, he eventually realised that all hieroglyphs were phonetic and that they could also be pictorial. Several hieroglyphs could also represent one word, breaking it into consonants.
It was an extraordinary achievement. Hieroglyphs had developed as a written form of ancient Egyptian from around 3,300 BCE and had become extinct by the 4th century AD.
They were designed to be read only by the most educated, including priests, at a time when most people were virtually illiterate. This was where the second panel on the Rosetta Stone came in. It was in Demotic, a script based on alphabet symbols rather than hieroglyphs and far easier to read and write. Over time it replaced hieroglyphs in everything but religious texts and evolved eventually into Coptic, the language of Egypt's indigenous Christians.
The first Demotic words on the stone were also translated by a French man, Silvestre de Sacy. An expert in Arab languages, he taught and encouraged Champollion in his early work, but eventually fell out with him, calling his rival a fraud.
Likewise, Champollion and Young were initially complimentary about each other's work, but relations cooled over who should take credit for the discovery — the English or the French?
Neither lived long enough to appreciate their fame. Champollion died in 1832 aged 41 and Young in 1829 at 55. Only de Sacy, his contribution largely forgotten, enjoyed old age, dying at 79 in 1838.
The Rosetta Stone can be found today in Room 4 of the British Museum, part of its collection of Egyptian sculptures, of which it is the greatest treasure.
Now displayed behind protective glass, it has been there for 220 years, except for a period in the First World War when it was moved to a tunnel 50 feet underground as protection against air raids.
Egypt, though, excluded from decisions about the stone’s future since the end of the 18th century, would like to have it back.
As reported in The National last month, the renowned Egyptian archaeologist Dr Zahi Hawass has launched a petition for the return of three of his country's most prized artefacts including the Rosetta Stone, a Zodiac ceiling in the Louvre in Paris, and a bust of Queen Nefertiti held by Berlin’s Neuse Museum.
“The Rosetta Stone is the icon of Egyptian identity”, he said in an exclusive interview. “The British Museum has no right to show this artefact to the public.”
For its part, the British Museum says no official request has been made for the stone’s return. The subtext, as with the Elgin Marbles demanded by Greece, is that millions more people from around the world have been able to see the stone in London than if it was in its original home.
Later this year the new Grand Egyptian Museum is due to open in the shadow of the pyramids in Cairo. Although there is no place yet for the Rosetta Stone, among other artefacts are the contents of Tutankhamun’s tomb.
The archaeologists who found the tomb In November 1922 first knew it was Tutankhamun because they could read his name on the door seals — all thanks to the work of Champollion a century earlier.
The 15 players selected
Muzzamil Afridi, Rahman Gul, Rizwan Haider (Dezo Devils); Shahbaz Ahmed, Suneth Sampath (Glory Gladiators); Waqas Gohar, Jamshaid Butt, Shadab Ahamed (Ganga Fighters); Ali Abid, Ayaz Butt, Ghulam Farid, JD Mahesh Kumara (Hiranni Heros); Inam Faried, Mausif Khan, Ashok Kumar (Texas Titans
Abu Dhabi traffic facts
Drivers in Abu Dhabi spend 10 per cent longer in congested conditions than they would on a free-flowing road
The highest volume of traffic on the roads is found between 7am and 8am on a Sunday.
Travelling before 7am on a Sunday could save up to four hours per year on a 30-minute commute.
The day was the least congestion in Abu Dhabi in 2019 was Tuesday, August 13.
The highest levels of traffic were found on Sunday, November 10.
Drivers in Abu Dhabi lost 41 hours spent in traffic jams in rush hour during 2019
Allardyce's management career
Clubs (10) - Limerick (1991-1992), Perston North End (1992), Blackpool (1994-1996), Notts County (1997-1999), Bolton Wanderers (1999-2007), Newcastle United (2007-2008), Blackburn Rovers (2008-2010), West Ham United (2011-2015), Sunderland (2016), Crystal Palace (2016-2017)
Countries (1) - England (2016)
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
The specs
- Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
- Power: 640hp
- Torque: 760nm
- On sale: 2026
- Price: Not announced yet
SNAPSHOT
While Huawei did launch the first smartphone with a 50MP image sensor in its P40 series in 2020, Oppo in 2014 introduced the Find 7, which was capable of taking 50MP images: this was done using a combination of a 13MP sensor and software that resulted in shots seemingly taken from a 50MP camera.
Cricket World Cup League 2
UAE squad
Rahul Chopra (captain), Aayan Afzal Khan, Ali Naseer, Aryansh Sharma, Basil Hameed, Dhruv Parashar, Junaid Siddique, Muhammad Farooq, Muhammad Jawadullah, Muhammad Waseem, Omid Rahman, Rahul Bhatia, Tanish Suri, Vishnu Sukumaran, Vriitya Aravind
Fixtures
Friday, November 1 – Oman v UAE
Sunday, November 3 – UAE v Netherlands
Thursday, November 7 – UAE v Oman
Saturday, November 9 – Netherlands v UAE
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Specs
Engine: Duel electric motors
Power: 659hp
Torque: 1075Nm
On sale: Available for pre-order now
Price: On request
Top tips to avoid cyber fraud
Microsoft’s ‘hacker-in-chief’ David Weston, creator of the tech company’s Windows Red Team, advises simple steps to help people avoid falling victim to cyber fraud:
1. Always get the latest operating system on your smartphone or desktop, as it will have the latest innovations. An outdated OS can erode away all investments made in securing your device or system.
2. After installing the latest OS version, keep it patched; this means repairing system vulnerabilities which are discovered after the infrastructure components are released in the market. The vast majority of attacks are based on out of date components – there are missing patches.
3. Multi-factor authentication is required. Move away from passwords as fast as possible, particularly for anything financial. Cybercriminals are targeting money through compromising the users’ identity – his username and password. So, get on the next level of security using fingertips or facial recognition.
4. Move your personal as well as professional data to the cloud, which has advanced threat detection mechanisms and analytics to spot any attempt. Even if you are hit by some ransomware, the chances of restoring the stolen data are higher because everything is backed up.
5. Make the right hardware selection and always refresh it. We are in a time where a number of security improvement processes are reliant on new processors and chip sets that come with embedded security features. Buy a new personal computer with a trusted computing module that has fingerprint or biometric cameras as additional measures of protection.
Ferrari 12Cilindri specs
Engine: naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12
Power: 819hp
Torque: 678Nm at 7,250rpm
Price: From Dh1,700,000
Available: Now
Top New Zealand cop on policing the virtual world
New Zealand police began closer scrutiny of social media and online communities after the attacks on two mosques in March, the country's top officer said.
The killing of 51 people in Christchurch and wounding of more than 40 others shocked the world. Brenton Tarrant, a suspected white supremacist, was accused of the killings. His trial is ongoing and he denies the charges.
Mike Bush, commissioner of New Zealand Police, said officers looked closely at how they monitored social media in the wake of the tragedy to see if lessons could be learned.
“We decided that it was fit for purpose but we need to deepen it in terms of community relationships, extending them not only with the traditional community but the virtual one as well," he told The National.
"We want to get ahead of attacks like we suffered in New Zealand so we have to challenge ourselves to be better."
The rules on fostering in the UAE
A foster couple or family must:
- be Muslim, Emirati and be residing in the UAE
- not be younger than 25 years old
- not have been convicted of offences or crimes involving moral turpitude
- be free of infectious diseases or psychological and mental disorders
- have the ability to support its members and the foster child financially
- undertake to treat and raise the child in a proper manner and take care of his or her health and well-being
- A single, divorced or widowed Muslim Emirati female, residing in the UAE may apply to foster a child if she is at least 30 years old and able to support the child financially
