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The Rosetta Stone is one of the most famous objects in the world, attracting millions of visitors to the British museum every year, and yet most people don't really know what it is. Discovered in a pile of rubble in 1799, this slab of stone proved to be the key to unlocking a lost language that baffled scholars for centuries.
Carved in ancient Egypt, the Rosetta Stone carried the same message in different languages—in Greek using Greek letters, and in Egyptian using picture-writing called hieroglyphs. Until its discovery, no one in the world knew how to read the hieroglyphs that covered every temple and text and statue in Egypt.
Dominating the world for thirty centuries, ancient Egypt was the mightiest empire the world had ever known, yet everything about it—the pyramids, mummies, the Sphinx—was shrouded in mystery. Whoever was able to decipher the Rosetta Stone would solve that mystery and fling open a door that had been locked for two thousand years.
Two brilliant rivals set out to win that prize. One was English, the other French, at a time when England and France were enemies and the world's two great superpowers. Written "like a thriller" (Star Tribune, Minneapolis), The Writing of the Gods chronicles this high-stakes intellectual race in which the winner would win glory for both himself and his nation. A riveting portrait of empires both ancient and modern, this is an unparalleled look at the culture and history of ancient Egypt, "and also a lesson...in what the human mind does when faced with a puzzle" (The New Yorker).
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Creators
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Release date
October 19, 2021 -
Formats
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9781501198953
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9781501198953
- File size: 54596 KB
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Accessibility
Publisher statement (EPUB)
The publisher provides the following statement about the accessibility of the EPUB file supplied to OverDrive. Experiences may vary across reading systems. After borrowing the book, you may download the EPUB files to read in another reading system.
Summary
A moderate complexity publication with numerous images, converted to meet EPUB Accessibility specifications of WCAG-AA level. This book contains various accessibility features such as alternative text for images, table of contents, page-list, landmark, reading order, structural navigation, index, and semantic structure.
Ways Of Reading
No information about appearance modifiability is available.
Not all of the content will be readable as read aloud speech or dynamic braille.
Has alternative text descriptions for images.
Conformance
The publication contains a conformance statement that it meets the EPUB Accessibility and WCAG 2 Level AA standard.
This publication claims to meet EPUB Accessibility 1.0 WCAG 2.0 Level AA.
Navigation
Table of contents to all chapters of the text via links.
Index with links to referenced entries.
Elements such as headings, tables, etc for structured navigation.
Additional Information
Page breaks included
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Library Journal
May 1, 2021
Discovered in 1799, the Rosetta Stone bears an inscription in three languages--Egyptian hieroglyphics, Egyptian Demotic, and ancient Greek--that in 196 BCE disseminated a decree on behalf of Ptolemy V. With all three texts the same, it thus allowed hieroglyphics finally to be deciphered. A former chief science writer at the Boston Globe and Edgar Award winner for The Rescue Artist: A True Story of Art, Thieves, and the Hunt for a Missing Masterpiece, Dolnick tells the story. With a 75,000-copy first printing.
Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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Publisher's Weekly
August 9, 2021
When the Rosetta Stone was discovered by French soldiers in 1799, “the first guesses were that it might take two weeks to decipher,” according to this stimulating history of a linguistic puzzle that took 20 years to solve. Journalist Dolnick (The Seeds of Life) reveals that Thomas Young (1773–1829) and Jean-François Champollion (1790–1832), the two “rival geniuses” who “did the most to crack the code,” had both been child prodigies and possessed “an uncanny flair for languages,” but were “opposites in nearly every other regard.” Polymath Young made contributions to the fields of physics, medicine, and linguistics, while Champollion “cared about Egypt and only about Egypt.” Though Champollion was the first to truly “read” the language of hieroglyphs, in the 1820s, Young made a key breakthrough in 1816, when he proposed that one grouping on the Rosetta Stone spelled out the name Ptolemy (Champollion insisted that he had come to the same conclusion independently). Dolnick lucidly explains the complex steps taken to decipher the relic, and offers brisk and enlightening history lessons on the first appearances of written language, Roman emperor Constantine’s conversion to Christianity in the fourth century, the Scientific Revolution, and Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt. The result is an immersive and knowledgeable introduction to one of archaeology’s greatest breakthroughs. Illus. Agent: Flip Brophy, Sterling Lord Literistic. -
Booklist
October 15, 2021
For many, the exciting discovery of the Rosetta Stone during the Napoleonic Wars and the ensuing race between two great minds to decipher one of the world's oldest written languages remains largely unknown. A brief overview of ancient Egypt and its cultural folklore at the time of the stone's finding sets the stage. The happenstance, mid-war discovery of this all-important artifact is vividly and accurately brought to life. From here, the tale moves on to two geniuses from the world's then-rival superpowers--Thomas Young of England and Jean-Francois Champollion of France--and how they raced to decode the inscribed slab. As these two brilliant minds decipher the Rosetta Stone, so does the reader. The text dives deep into the method of the stone's decoding, as well as ciphers and lost languages at large. Prolific nonfiction author and prior science writer at the Boston Globe, Dolnick's prose is beautifully lyrical, and will engage even those unfamiliar with the three converging subjects of ancient Egypt, the Rosetta Stone, and Europe during the Napoleonic Wars.COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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Kirkus
November 15, 2021
The story of the Rosetta Stone's discovery and decoding. Today, the Rosetta Stone occupies such a prominent role in public interest--not unlike Stonehenge or the Egyptian pyramids--that its actual significance can easily get lost amid the crowds of tourists clamoring for a view. In his latest book, Dolnick, former chief science writer for the Boston Globe who has written for a wide variety of publications, offers a strong corrective, describing not only how the Rosetta Stone was found, but also how, over several long decades, it was deciphered. He creates an engaging portrait of the two men--Jean-Fran�ois Champollion and Thomas Young--who were mainly responsible for cracking the code of Egyptian hieroglyphs. For centuries, those hieroglyphs had been unreadable. Dolnick provides an exciting narrative of the journey to legibility, and he effectively describes why it was such an important--and excruciating--process. However, the author sometimes goes awry when he strains too hard for wittiness--e.g., describing ancient Alexandria as "Paris to Rome's Podunk." Worse are the banalities that stud Dolnick's analyses. "If you pull the camera back far enough," he writes, "all cultures look the same. People meet and fall in love; they boast and puff themselves up; they mock their rivals; they pray to their god, or a host of gods; they fear death. The details make all the difference." Accessibility is no crime, of course, but the author's desire to make the book accessible to everyone leads him to oversimplify his subject with labored asides: "Imagine how much harder crossword puzzles would be if the answers could be in any language including dead ones." Despite these flaws, Dolnick makes complicated linguistic challenges not only comprehensible, but also especially vivid for readers new to the subject, and, as in his previous books, his enthusiasm is infectious. A largely engaging yet sometimes pedestrian look at language and the limits of what we can understand.COPYRIGHT(2021) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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Formats
- OverDrive Read
- EPUB ebook
Languages
- English
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