How the Rosetta Stone was discovered

<div style="background-color: silver; color: black; font-weight: bold;"> Nearly 2 000 years after the Rosetta stone decree was written, the French military engineer Pierre Francois Bouchard was repairing the defenses of an Arab Fort strengthening it against the ottoman Fleet that's expected to arrive within a short time. Only a year ago the French army had invaded Egypt and attempted to set up a colony but that increasingly looked doomed to failure as both the Ottomans and British were mustering to attack the French and the Army has to consistently battle internal revolts. </div>

Discovery of the Rosetta Stone

<div style="background-color: DarkCyan; color: white; font-weight: bold;"> During the repair work the engineers find the stone seemingly used as scrap construction material in an old wall. They immediately brought it to Bouchard's attention as they're supposed to do with any artifact. Seeing the script on the broken Stone Bouchard immediately realized the implications of this find as this inscription was in three different languages and it could be the key to finally deciphering Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics. so he sends out a message saying he's found a curious artifact near Rosetta the French name for Rasheed. </div>

How Rosetta Stone was deciphered

<div style="background-color: LightCyan; color: black; font-weight: bold;"> Bouchard sent out a message saying he's found a curious artifact near Rosetta, the French name for Rasheed. He then passed the stone to General Mano transferring it to his tent to be cleaned and the Greek to be translated while they dug in hopes of finding its missing pieces but then as the French army fought off an Ottoman landing at Abu kirbei Bouchard accompanied the 1700 pound Stone to the savants headquarters at Cairo. It arrived just in time for Napoleon to see it before he ditched the Expedition and sailed back to France. In doing so he left the savants with a deteriorating military situation alongside a Priceless but extremely heavy artifact that they had no way of getting back to France. </div>

Note:The French Expedition also had an academic component of over 150 so-called savants - scientists, writers, linguists and other academics who had come along setting up a research institute in Cairo where they studied everything from local Wildlife to ancient artifacts.

The deciphering of the Rosetta Stone

Rosetta Stone changes hands from French to the British:

It became soon obvious that the mysterious third language was not Syriac as originally thought but the Demotic mentioned in classical sources. At first they tried copying it by hand but it proved too intricate. Then they just smeared ink on the front and then pressed it with paper like it was a printing press. It worked ! All the while the French army hauled the stone around even to battlefields unwilling to leave it unguarded. Prints of the inscription had already reached Paris which was good because the Rosetta Stone could not be transported there.

in 1801 General Menou, now in charge of the Expedition, signed a surrender agreement with the British and the Ottomans and one of the provisions was that all of the artifacts retrieved during the French expedition to Egypt were now Spoils of War and the personal property of King George III, especially the Rosetta Stone. In fact, the British were so pleased with its acquisition that they actually painted on the side "captured in Egypt by the British Army in 1801".

Click Captured-by-British-Rosetta-Stone

A year later when King George donated it to the British museum