Teach Logic, Coding, Writing, & History in a Visit with the Rosetta Stone
In the past, we’ve dazzled our children with the beauty of Bernini, the Hagia Sofia, and even ancient experiments with hand carved dragons.
But today, we have an seemingly dull rock with words on it… a stele.
But this rock is actually quite special. It was the key that unlocked perhaps the most famous and mysterious of ancient civilizations - Egypt.
The Rosetta Stone → A key to the Past
The Rosetta Stone was created over 2,000 years ago (196 BCE) during the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt. It was a decree naming which priests would oversee the inauguration of the new king. The words themselves aren’t special. What makes the Rosetta Stone special is that it contained 3 languages: Greek, Egyptian hieroglyphics, and Demotic. This still might not seem that special a world with Google translator but even Google can’t translate extinct languages.
When Napoleon “found” the Rosetta Stone in 1799, we could not read Egyptian hieroglyphics. We had these extravagant pyramids, tombs, and art but we didn’t actually know that much about the people who created them. Ancient Egyptian had been extinct for over 1,500 years! But the Rosetta Stone had the same words in Greek and Egyptian allowing scientists and linguists to crack the code of ancient Egyptian. It took them decades but today we are able to hear from ancient Egyptians in their own words what their world was like—their mythology, their government, their stories. We’ve unlocked a door to the past.
For our children, studying the Rosetta Stone offers the opportunity to contemplate the importance of writing, extinct languages, and even code breaking like real spies (and scientists)!
Today, let’s discover Archeology, Logic, Writing, and History in a visit with the Rosetta Stone.
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