The Riddle of the Rosetta Stone: Key to Ancient Egypt

Rating:
Summary: An ideal introduction to how heiroglyphics were decoded.
Review: "The Riddle of the Rosetta Stone" is accessible to our 9-year-old would-be Egyptologist with just a bit of vocabulary help from adults, yet is not the least insulting to her parents. This small book, with fewer than 100 pages, largeish type, and many clear illustrations, gives a readable and straightforward account of how the Rosetta stone allowed scholars to understand and even find the pronunciation of a language long after its last speaker was long dead. We learn, for example, that to the ancients, she was "Cleopadra" and not "Cleopatra".

There is enough detail to help understand the process, and to convince the reader that the reconstructions are sound. The stone and its translation is put into its historical context, both ancient and modern.

This is an admirable, brief, and inexpensive introduction to the subject, and is well-written. The professional will look elsewhere, and the complete greek, demotic, and heiroglyphic texts are available in the inexpensive Dover reprint of E.A. Wallis Budge's "The Rosetta Stone", which I review separately.

Rating:
Summary: This is a young persons book, written with not much detail
Review: A nice little book, easy to read and worth the price paid for it. I would have liked to see more detail, perhaps in the next book I buy. I gave it three stars as it is a light report of the Rosetta Stone. I read the whole book in about 1/2 hour. It does have other sources from which to select more detailed books.

Rating:
Summary: The Riddle of the Rosetta Stone
Review: The Rosetta Stone, found in Egypt in 1799 by the French but later turned over to the British, contains text written in three alphabets: Greek, Egyptian, and hieroglyphics. Decoding the hieroglyphics on the stone remained a puzzle to many experts for years. This book provides a biography of the stone, describing the contributions made by many linguists that eventually led to deciphering the mysterious symbols.

Black and white photographs of the stone as well as portrait illustrations of the men who helped decode the symbols break up the text. The book provides a very informative history of the writing system of ancient Egypt.