The Rosetta Stone

Rating:
Summary: a much needed republication - excellent
Review: A republication of the first edition, published in 1929, this book provides the English translations of the hieroglyphic, demotic and Greek texts as well as the original Greek and hieroglyphic inscriptions, as they appear on the Rosetta Stone. It also describes its discovery and its arrival in London. The author briefly explains the coptic alphabet and tells the history of the decipherment by Thomas Young and Jean-François Champollion. Finally, in the last section are the English translations of the decrees of Canopus and of Memphis. Interesting to all persons curious about the Rosetta Stone and particularly those needing its inscriptions.

Rating:
Summary: A source for the original texts
Review: I dislike giving a fixed rating to a book, as this one would get five stars if you want an inexpensive collection of the actual texts of the Rosetta stone and other copies of the same inscription. As a source of the current understanding of ancient Egypt it would get two stars: the book's scholarship is outdated, including its approach to the history of the finding and decipherment of the stone.

Many quotes are untranslated, and you are expected to be able to read a bit of French, German, Greek, and Latin, or skip over those few paragraphs. Having studied only the latter three of those, and too long ago to do much good, I ended up missing most of the quotes.

This review was written just after the election of George W. Bush to the presidency of the United States, and it is amazing how much the proclimation of the Rosetta Stone sounds like Bush's program; reducing taxes, beefing up the military against potential threats, punishment of those who opposed his father, professions of faith, and positioning the new leader as a benefactor of the common people.

Rating:
Summary: This is where I first saw the Coptic alphabet
Review: I like this book, because it is informative, and it has a copy of the Coptic alphabet on page 247. I had not known the Coptic alphabet until I first saw this book (January 1998).

Rating:
Summary: Useful, but not perfect
Review: This is a fairly solid account of the Rosetta Stone, and its deciphering. There is ample background, and the actual inscriptions are presented, and analyzed in considerable detail. Its worth owning, if you're an archaeology buff.

Let me just warn people that real archaeologists, real Egyptologists don't have a whole lot of respect for the author of this book anymore. A lot of conventions in translation have sort of moved on since his time. In the movie "Stargate," they make fun of him a little. This is because people don't really use his writings anymore. This book itself is okay as far as it goes, but you need to be very careful of what Budge says.

Look for "Egyptian Grammar" by Sir Alan Gardiner. That's the standard textbook, used by real Egyptologists. The magazine KMT is good to know about, too. It's all about ancient Egypt, and is easy to find online.

If you enjoy this type of puzzle-solving, let me recommend a few titles. "The Decipherment of Linear B," by John Chadwick, "Breaking the Maya Code" by Michael Coe, and "The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries" by David Ulansey are all still in print. "Forgotten Scripts" by Cyrus Gordon, and "Voices in Stone" by Ernst Doblhofer are harder to find, but if you ask your local librarian to search for them using interlibrary loan services, he or she will probably find them. It's really worth it... Also, there are still a few ancient scripts out there that no one has deciphered yet. The Indus Valley Script, the Easter Island Script, and the Meroitic script are three of them. The Meroitic script could shed light someday on the issue of how much contact there was between Ancient Egypt and pre-historic Africa. The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, at www.mfa.org, has the best collection around on Meroe, and Meroitic, if anyone's interested. A good book for that script is "Ancient African Civilizations," edited by Stanley Burstein, which contains several useful chapters.

Well, happy deciphering to you!

Rating:
Summary: Useful, but not perfect
Review: This is a fairly solid account of the Rosetta Stone, and its deciphering. There is ample background, and the actual inscriptions are presented, and analyzed in considerable detail. Its worth owning, if you're an archaeology buff.

Let me just warn people that real archaeologists, real Egyptologists don't have a whole lot of respect for the author of this book anymore. A lot of conventions in translation have sort of moved on since his time. In the movie "Stargate," they make fun of him a little. This is because people don't really use his writings anymore. This book itself is okay as far as it goes, but you need to be very careful of what Budge says.

Look for "Egyptian Grammar" by Sir Alan Gardiner. That's the standard textbook, used by real Egyptologists. The magazine KMT is good to know about, too. It's all about ancient Egypt, and is easy to find online.

If you enjoy this type of puzzle-solving, let me recommend a few titles. "The Decipherment of Linear B," by John Chadwick, "Breaking the Maya Code" by Michael Coe, and "The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries" by David Ulansey are all still in print. "Forgotten Scripts" by Cyrus Gordon, and "Voices in Stone" by Ernst Doblhofer are harder to find, but if you ask your local librarian to search for them using interlibrary loan services, he or she will probably find them. It's really worth it... Also, there are still a few ancient scripts out there that no one has deciphered yet. The Indus Valley Script, the Easter Island Script, and the Meroitic script are three of them. The Meroitic script could shed light someday on the issue of how much contact there was between Ancient Egypt and pre-historic Africa. The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, at www.mfa.org, has the best collection around on Meroe, and Meroitic, if anyone's interested. A good book for that script is "Ancient African Civilizations," edited by Stanley Burstein, which contains several useful chapters.

Well, happy deciphering to you!