I have been thinking a lot about the Rosetta Stone as it pertains to a typography project. It was an accidental artifact that began life as a beautiful piece of granite. It became a work of Egyptian propaganda, before it was repurposed as a building material. It sat unrecognized in the desert for almost two-thousand years, then was discovered by chance and became the most important relic of Pharaonic Egypt, then plundered for safekeeping. It represents human communication and the challenges we face as separate cultures.
Napoleon was an interesting guy. He led an army to the ends of the known world and exhausted a generation of French fighting men only to return home and raise another army to his cause. He created an empire that fractured almost immediately after his departure. While France did not become the masters of Europe, the Napoleonic era did give us two of the most important advancements in modern human history.
While on tour in Egypt, Napoleon brought with him over a hundred scientists and naturalists to study the foreign land while the army pillaged and occupied. While systematically destroying an ancient wall, a group of these researchers overturned a large black granite stone whose underside was inscribed with writing. The words spelled out a decree dating from Ptolemeic Egypt in 150 BCE. This was fairly interesting to begin with, but it was the fact that the text appeared three times in different languages that made the discovery monumental.
At that time, it was thought that Egyptian hieroglyphs would likely never be fully understood. Interest in the strange world of Ancient Egypt was high, and artifacts unearthed by grave-robbers were a big commodity. The mystery of the pictographs was tantalizing. The Rosetta stone presented a key to finally understanding them.
The edict from the ruler of Egypt at the time was not particularly profound, but the normality was a benefit to its utility. The edict was written in Greek (which was still a living language), Demotic (an archaic language which was vaguely understood), and Ancient hieroglyphics (which were not understood at all). The stone had numerous plaster casts and tracings made, which were spread to universities and individual scholars across Europe to begin the work.
The stone itself became a bit of a bargaining chip. Napoleon had attacked Egypt in the first place to disrupt British trade through the region. The British Navy attacked back and defeated Napoleon with their superior sea power. The Crown collected the Rosetta Stone and many enticing Egyptian artifacts and brought them to the British Museum for safekeeping where they remain today.
The other Napoleonic advancement was canned goods. An army marches on its stomach, as it has been said. The invention of preservable rations enabled the Empire to spread quickly across Europe without relying on pillaging the locals. The locals were still pillaged, they just didn’t have to ONLY eat pillaged food.