Among the soldiers of Napoleon Buonaparte there was a young officer by
the name of Broussard. He was stationed at the fortress of St. Julien on
the western mouth of the Nile which is called the Rosetta river.

Broussard liked to rummage among the ruins of the lower Nile and one day
he found a stone which greatly puzzled him.

Like everything else in that neighborhood, it was covered with picture
writing.

But this slab of black basalt was different from anything that had ever
been discovered.

It carried three inscriptions and one of these (oh joy!) was in Greek.

The Greek language was known.

As it was almost certain that the Egyptian part contained a translation
of the Greek (or vice versa), the key to ancient Egyptian seemed to have
been discovered.

But it took more than thirty years of very hard work before the key had
been made to fit the lock.

Then the mysterious door was opened and the ancient treasure house of
Egypt was forced to surrender its secrets.

The man who gave his life to the task of deciphering this language was
Jean Francois Champollion--usually called Champollion Junior to
distinguish him from his older brother who was also a very learned man.