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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Rosetta stone
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(British Museum) Black basalt slab found in 1799 by *Napoleon's army in Egypt, at the village of Rashid (called Rosetta by Europeans). Captured by the British from the French, it was presented to the *British Museum in 1802. Its significance is that it carries the same inscription (a text from the reign of Ptolemy V in the 2nd century BC) in three languages – hieroglyphic Egyptian, demotic Egyptian and Greek. It thus enabled hieroglyphs to be deciphered. After groundwork by several scholars, the solution was provided in the 1820s by the French linguist, Jean-François Champollion (1790–1832).
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