They did not know that the Greeks (from whom they had learned their
alphabet) had in turn obtained theirs from the Phoenicians who had again
borrowed with great success from the old Egyptians. They did not know
and they did not care. In their schools the Roman alphabet was taught
exclusively and what was good enough for the Roman children was good
enough for everybody else.

You will understand that the Egyptian language did not long survive the
indifference and the opposition of the Roman governors. It was
forgotten. It died just as the languages of most of our Indian tribes
have become a thing of the past.

The Arabs and the Turks who succeeded the Romans as the rulers of Egypt
abhorred all writing that was not connected with their holy book,
the Koran.

At last in the middle of the sixteenth century a few western visitors
came to Egypt and showed a mild interest in these strange pictures.

But there was no one to explain their meaning and these first Europeans
were as wise as the Romans and the Turks had been before them.

Now it happened, late in the eighteenth century that a certain French
general by the name of Buonaparte visited Egypt. He did not go there to
study ancient history. He wanted to use the country as a starting point
for a military expedition against the British colonies in India. This
expedition failed completely but it helped solve the mysterious problem
of the ancient Egyptian writing.