The Tourism and Antiquities Ministry will hold a celebration to mark 200 years since the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs and the creation of Egyptology.

The ministry said in a statement on Friday that it will organize a series of events, launch media campaigns on its website and hold exhibitions to show the importance of decoding hieroglyphs.

The Culture Ministry will also participate in the celebrations by organizing two exhibitions at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Cairo’s Fustat.

The Rosetta Stone is a stele composed of granodiorite inscribed with three versions of a decree issued in Memphis, Egypt, in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty on behalf of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes.

The top and middle texts are in Ancient Egyptian using hieroglyphic and Demotic scripts respectively, while the bottom is in Ancient Greek.

The decree has only minor differences between the three versions, making the Rosetta Stone key to deciphering the Egyptian scripts.

The stone was carved during the Hellenistic period and is believed to have originally been displayed within a temple, possibly at nearby Sais.

It was probably moved in late antiquity or during the Mamluk period, and was eventually used as building material in the construction of Fort Julien near the town of Rashid (Rosetta) in the Nile Delta.

It was discovered there in July 1799 by French officer Pierre-François Bouchard during the Napoleonic campaign in Egypt.

It was the first Ancient Egyptian bilingual text recovered in modern times, and it aroused widespread public interest with its potential to decipher this previously untranslated hieroglyphic script.

Lithographic copies and plaster casts soon began circulating among European museums and scholars. When the British defeated the French they took the stone to London under the Capitulation of Alexandria in 1801.

Since 1802, it has been on public display at the British Museum almost continuously and is its most visited object.

Source: State Information Service Egypt