A broken stone carries three blocks of signs. One is in ancient Greek; the other two use hieroglyphics and demotic, two Egyptian scripts. The versions present the same decree, which makes it possible to put the texts in relation.
Greek remains accessible to scholars. It therefore provides support to address the inscriptions whose reading had been lost. The stone becomes a major part of a decryption work that mobilizes comparisons, hypotheses and other documents.
It is sometimes thought of as a ready-made dictionary. It does not offer an orderly list of words and translations. Its value comes from a repetition: a message intended for several readers of his time much later helped other readers to find a writing.
What we know
There are three scriptures. Hieroglyphics and demotic are two written forms of Egyptian, not two unrelated languages.
To go to the source
References consulted on September 20, 2026. Linked pages may be in another language.
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