How did we (re)learn most of Egyptian hieroglyphics simply from the Rosetta Stone?

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Yes, we were able to determine the Egyptian symbols/words specifically used on the Rosetta Stone, as well as get the gist of the grammatical structure.

But how did/do we determine the meaning of all the other symbols/words/grammar not used on the Stone?

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6 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Essentially what you’re looking at is a form of literary translation. The Rosetta Stone was inscribed with the exact same message on top and bottom, one in Egyptian, one half in Greek. Ancient Greek, but still far closer to a currently spoken language than hieroglyph. Essentially if you translate one message from a known language, then you use inference and what you already know of hieroglyphs to posit a potential meaning for each glyph. It gave us many basics, but much of Ancient Egyptian is still mysterious and may have had multiple meanings per glyph, each with its own inflection on the glyphs around it. Not to mention that about every site uncovered brings about a new hieroglyph nobody has seen before. But most of it is interpretation based upon the comparison of two identical messages written in unique languages/styles, at least as far as Rosetta is concerned. Likely why many dead languages stay dead, the Rosetta Stone is a VERY rare artifact.

Edit: Outside Rosetta its basically a game of finding the same symbol in multiple places and guessing how it was used based upon context clue as other redditors have pointed out, just its a whole word, not a letter.

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