Egypt's gifts to the modern world

25 min

One stone, three scripts

In July 1799 French soldiers rebuilding a fort near the town of Rashid (Rosetta), in the Nile delta, found a broken slab of dark stone covered in writing. The same text was carved on it three times: in hieroglyphs at the top, in a flowing Egyptian script called Demotic in the middle, and in ancient Greek at the bottom. Scholars could read the Greek. Could it unlock the other two?

Worked example: why the Rosetta Stone was the key

What kind of source? A primary written source: an official decree of 196 BCE, carved to be displayed in temples.
Why three scripts? Egypt was ruled by Greek-speaking kings, so the priests wrote for Greek readers, for scribes using everyday Demotic, and for the gods in sacred hieroglyphs.
How did it help? Because the Greek could be read, scholars knew what the Egyptian texts said. They looked for names, such as Ptolemy, which in hieroglyphs are written inside an oval ring (a cartouche).
Who solved it? The British scholar Thomas Young made progress; the French scholar Jean-François Champollion, who also knew Coptic (a late form of the Egyptian language), showed in 1822 that hieroglyphs record sounds as well as ideas.
Result: thousands of Egyptian texts, silent for about 1,400 years, could be read again. Our knowledge of Egypt's history, religion and daily life grew enormously.

Definition

Hieroglyphs: the picture-signs of ancient Egyptian writing, used from about 3200 BCE. Some signs stand for sounds, others for whole words or ideas. The name is Greek for "sacred carvings".

Definition

Papyrus: a writing material made from strips of the papyrus reed, which grows beside the Nile, pressed together and dried into sheets and rolls. The English word "paper" comes from it.

Definition

Scribe: a trained writer who kept records for the government, temples or rich families. Scribes spent years at school learning hundreds of signs.

What Egypt gave the world

Field	Egyptian achievement	Legacy today
Writing	hieroglyphs, and faster scripts for daily use; ink and papyrus	one of the world's first writing systems; the word "paper"
Calendar	a year of 365 days: 12 months of 30 days, plus 5 extra days	Julius Caesar based the Roman calendar, the ancestor of ours, on Egyptian advice
Time	day and night each divided into 12 hours; shadow clocks and water clocks	our 24-hour day
Mathematics	a decimal number system; fractions; geometry for measuring fields and building pyramids	land surveying; geometry
Medicine	the Edwin Smith Papyrus (c. 1600 BCE) describes 48 injuries with examination, diagnosis and treatment	the step-by-step method of examining a patient
Architecture	pyramids, stone temples with columns, obelisks	columns and obelisks copied by Greeks, Romans and modern cities
Farming	basin irrigation, canals, the shaduf, the ox-drawn plough	irrigation farming along rivers worldwide
Crafts	glass, jewellery, cosmetics, linen, boat-building with sails	world museums; many techniques still in use

Egyptian numbers

Figure 6. The seven hieroglyphic number signs, and the number 1,325 written with them. Drawn by Ganzaa.

Part of the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, copied by the scribe Ahmes about 1550 BCE from an older book, now in the British Museum. It is a set of 84 worked problems in arithmetic, fractions and geometry, written in hieratic, a quick joined-up form of hieroglyphs; notice the triangles drawn at the left and the red ink used for headings. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Worked example: the area of a round field (Rhind Papyrus, problem 50)

Problem: A round field has a diameter of 9 khet (a unit of length). What is its area?

Ahmes's method: take away one ninth of the diameter, then square the result. $9 - \frac{9}{9} = 8, \qquad 8^2 = 64$
Modern method: the radius is $4.5$ , so $\pi r^2 = \pi \times 4.5^2 \approx 63.6$
Compare: the difference is $64 - 63.6 = 0.4$ , less than 1% of the area. Ahmes's rule works as if $\pi \approx 3.16$ .
Conclusion: Egyptian scribes had practical rules accurate enough for measuring fields and calculating taxes, about 3,500 years ago.

Tip

Memory hook for the number signs, from 1 to a million: Stroke, Hobble, Coil, Lotus, Finger, Tadpole, God: "Some Hungry Cats Like Fresh Tilapia, Generally."

TED-Ed: "Why was the Rosetta Stone so important?". Watch for how the names of rulers helped scholars to read the hieroglyphs.

Discussion

Class debate: The Rosetta Stone was found in Egypt but was taken to Britain in 1801 and has been in the British Museum since 1802. Egyptian scholars have asked for it to be returned. Where should it be kept today, and why? Think of Rwandan objects held in museums abroad as well.

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Practice

Which three scripts are on the Rosetta Stone?
Who deciphered hieroglyphs, and in which year?
Why was the Greek text on the Rosetta Stone so useful?
Give three Egyptian achievements that are still part of life today.
Write 2,406 in Egyptian number signs (name the signs and how many of each).
Using Ahmes's rule, find the area of a round field with a diameter of 18 khet. (Hint: take away one ninth, then square.)
Which Egyptian achievement do you think has had the greatest effect on the modern world? Give two reasons.

Show answersHide answers

Hieroglyphic, Demotic and ancient Greek.
Jean-François Champollion, in 1822 (building on the work of Thomas Young).
Scholars could read Greek, so they knew what the other two texts said and could match Egyptian signs to words, especially royal names.
Any three: the 365-day calendar; the 24-hour day; paper (from papyrus) and writing; geometry and surveying; irrigation; medical examination; columns and obelisks.
Two lotus flowers (2,000), four coils of rope (400), no hobbles (0 tens), six strokes (6).
$18 - \frac{18}{9} = 16$ , and $16^{2} = 256$ square khet.
Any well-argued choice, for example writing: it made records, laws, science and history possible, and it led, through papyrus, to the paper used for books today.

1One stone, three scripts

2What Egypt gave the world

3Egyptian numbers

4Discussion

One stone, three scripts

What Egypt gave the world

Egyptian numbers

Discussion