The Rosetta Stone, dated 196 BC, is of course famous worldwide – and perhaps the best-known object in the British Museum, following its 1801 capture by the British army from its French military discoverers in Egypt. Yet, although most people are aware of this early British–French rivalry, few really know what the Stone is, claims Edward Dolnick, probably accurately. He himself was one of them for 20 years, despite having a Rosetta Stone postcard on his bulletin board as a souvenir of a trip to London.
Inspired by subsequent curiosity to understand the Stone, his book is designed to answer a general need, without extensive scholarly detail. As a notable science writer, good at popularising tricky subjects, Dolnick is well placed, by drawing on the scholarship of Egyptologists and others, including my own biographies of the two leading Rosetta decipherers: the English polymath Thomas Young, and the French Egyptologist Jean-François Champollion. (I should add that I have no personal involvement with the book.) The only surprising omission is The Riddle of the Rosetta by Jed Buchwald and Diane Josefowicz, a recent, significant, scholarly study.
As Dolnick remarks upfront, ‘the Rosetta Stone is that unlikeliest of objects, a window made of solid stone, and the view through the window tells us not only about the nitty-gritty of sleuthing and deciphering but also about the nature of language and the byways of history and the evolution of human culture.’ His book skilfully integrates these aspects.
