Editing Rosetta Stone (section)

==Rediscovery==
[[File:Rosetta news.jpg|thumb|alt=A newspaper column of approximately three column inches. See image description page for a full transcript.|Report of the arrival of the Rosetta Stone in England in ''[[The Gentleman's Magazine]]'', 1802]]

[[Order of battle of the Armée d'Orient (1798)|French forces]] under [[Napoleon Bonaparte]] [[French campaign in Egypt and Syria|invaded Egypt]] in 1798, accompanied by a corps of 151 technical experts (''savants''), known as the [[Commission des Sciences et des Arts]]. On {{nowrap|15 July}} 1799, French soldiers under the command of Colonel d'Hautpoul were strengthening the defences of [[Fort Julien]], a couple of miles north-east of the Egyptian port city of Rosetta (modern-day Rashid). Lieutenant [[Pierre-François Bouchard]] spotted a slab with inscriptions on one side that the soldiers had uncovered when demolishing a wall within the fort. He and d'Hautpoul saw at once that it might be important and informed General [[Jacques-François Menou]], who happened to be at Rosetta.{{Cref2|A}} The find was announced to Napoleon's newly founded scientific association in Cairo, the [[Institut d'Égypte]], in a report by Commission member [[Michel Ange Lancret]] noting that it contained three inscriptions, the first in hieroglyphs and the third in Greek, and rightly suggesting that the three inscriptions were versions of the same text. Lancret's report, dated {{Nowrap|19 July}} 1799, was read to a meeting of the Institute soon after {{Nowrap|25 July}}. Bouchard, meanwhile, transported the stone to Cairo for examination by scholars.<ref>[[#Parkinson69|Parkinson et al. (1999)]] pp.&nbsp;17–20</ref>

The discovery was reported in September in ''[[Courrier de l'Égypte]]'', the official newspaper of the French expedition. The anonymous reporter expressed a hope that the stone might one day be the key to deciphering hieroglyphs.{{Cref2|A}}<ref name="Cracking20"/> In 1800 three of the commission's technical experts devised ways to make copies of the texts on the stone. One of these experts was [[Jean-Joseph Marcel]], a printer and gifted linguist, who is credited as the first to recognise that the middle text was written in the Egyptian [[Demotic (Egyptian)|demotic]] script, rarely used for stone inscriptions and seldom seen by scholars at that time, rather than [[Syriac language|Syriac]] as had originally been thought.<ref name="Cracking20"/> It was artist and inventor [[Nicolas-Jacques Conté]] who found a way to use the stone itself as a [[woodblock printing|printing block]] to reproduce the inscription.<ref name="Adkins38">[[#Adkins69|Adkins (2000)]] p.&nbsp;38</ref> A slightly different method was adopted by [[Antoine Galland (1763–1851)|Antoine Galland]]. The prints that resulted were taken to Paris by General [[Charles Dugua]]. Scholars in Europe were now able to see the inscriptions and attempt to read them.<ref>[[#Gillispie87|Gillispie (1987)]] pp.&nbsp;1–38</ref>

After Napoleon's departure, French troops held off British and [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman]] attacks for another 18 months. In March 1801, the British landed at [[Abu Qir Bay|Aboukir Bay]]. Menou was now in command of the French expedition. His troops, including the commission, marched north towards the Mediterranean coast to meet the enemy, transporting the stone along with many other antiquities. He was defeated in battle, and the remnant of his army retreated to Alexandria where they were [[Siege of Alexandria (1801)|surrounded and besieged]], with the stone now inside the city. [[Capitulation of Alexandria (1801)|Menou surrendered]] on 30 August.{{sfn|Wilson|1803|pp=274–284}}<ref name="Cracking21"/>