1798 - Finding the Rosetta Stone
Seeking empire and knowledge, Napoleon Bonaparte and a unique group of soldiers, scientists, and artists came to Egypt in 1798. Their job was to record and study the remains of ancient Egypt. After one year, while French troops were demolishing a wall, a soldier happened upon one of the most significant archaeological finds of all time: the Rosetta Stone. It contained translations to Egyptian hieroglyphs-- a language that was otherwise lost for over a century until this find. After it was found, it was taken from it's original location in Egypt to the French Institute in Cairo. There, experts deciphered the translations.
This archaeological find is one of the most important in history, yet it was found all by chance. What if those French soldiers had been destroying another wall? What if that wall had fell hundreds of years prior to Bonaparte coming to Egypt? Most of our understanding of Ancient Egyptian life, culture and beliefs would all be lost. So, of course this discovery is extremely important. But does that mean that the Rosetta Stone had to be taken and held out of it's homeland? Not necessarily. As of now, the Rosetta Stone resides in The British Museum. Many of the museums that display artifacts from Ancient Egypt claim that they're able to take better care of those artifacts and let a larger population of people see and study them. Yet no doubt, you would lose the crucial culture behind that artifact if it was located in a completely different environment than the one it came from. If the Rosetta Stone had been left in Egypt, or even been taken back to it's home country after it was observed and studied, the people of Egypt would have this amazing artifact back in their possession but we would still have all the needed knowledge from this stone. While it may have been beneficial at first to have the Rosetta Stone studied outside of Egypt, the long term effects result in the country living without one of it's most precious treasures. |