Talk:Rosetta Stone

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[edit] Typos in the "Full Text of the Stone" ?

The "Full Text of the Stone" section has very many spellings that don't - to this amateur - appear to be merely archaic constructs.

Examples: "Stabalizer" "recieving" "recieved" "Pyolemy" "Osirus" (twice) "consentrated" (seems like it should be "consecrated," anyway!) Other possible problem: "to all those subjects to his rule"

Where did this "Full Text" come from?

Peter 21:49, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The UK Gothic Rock band

I've added a disambiguation link to Rosetta Stone (band), an influential British gothic rock music band from the 1990s who used Ancient Egyptian imagery and other ancient myths in their works. I note that there is a "See Also" section, but the Manual of Style states that a disambiguation section at the top of the article is preferred. If there is a strong consensus towards moving the goth link to the See Also section, then I'd be happy for that to happen, provided it is discussed here first.

evilandi

2003-01-03: I note the disambig link has been repeatedly removed, so I've moved the goth band link to the See Also section. Again I plea that if anyone disagrees with this, please discuss it here first, otherwise I'll assume it is mindless vandalism and restore it.

evilandi

[edit] Hi Res Images

Is there any high-resolution images of the stone? All the ones I found are either small, or of low resolution so you cannot read the writing at all. Naelphin

You can go to this link. http://www.bgst.edu.sg/realia/rosetta.htm There is an over all picture with smaller ones focused on details of the 3 types of writting on the stone. -Wikipedia user

Is this really how big it is, or is this a reproduction? : http://www.slower.net/pl.php?photo_id=1232 Koyaanis Qatsi 00:23, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Yeah, the real thing is over six feet long, according to the British Museum. --MIRV 00:27, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

You can also find the book Cracking Codes the Rosetta Stone and Decipherment by R. Parkinson. It has it's percise dementions.-Wikipedia user

Try the Google image search at

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Rosetta+Stone%22+images+jpg&btnG=Google+Search

When my browser window is a "normal" width, the headline "Use as metaphor" and many lines below it are overwritten by the smaller of the two pictures. Can someone good at tables fix this? Tempshill 05:48, 15 Jan 2004 (UTC)

The larger image was floating (which it shouldn't have been, judging by its size), so I've confined it to its own table. Also spaced things out a little and repositioned the insertion points of both images. If the overlap isn't fixed, I suppose the larger image can be moved up even higher. Failing that, I don't see any harm in removing the smaller image (though I'm not bold enough to do so myself). Hadal 06:05, 15 Jan 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Basalt or granite?

Paragraph 1: The Rosetta Stone is a dark granite stone (often incorrectly identified as "basalt")

Paragraph 3: Pierre-François Bouchard (1772-1832) found a black basalt stone when guiding construction works in the Fort Julien...

So... which is it?

From http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/conservation/cleaning2.html -

Analysis of the stone has shown that it is a granite-like rock and not a basalt as it has previously been described.

Wizzy 16:29, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I noticed this yesterday, and had planned a cleanup, but (obviously) never got around to it. The section on provenance (I see you've corrected the heading) really should be re-written completely, but at least it, the article ((sic) no) longer contradicts itself. Austin Hair 17:26, Jul 16, 2004 (UTC)

The ( 6 ) stelae listed for stone types are: fine limestone, white limestone, dark granite, sandstone, dark granite, limestone; See the section for "3-Stone Series"..Mmcannis

[edit] deciphering of the hieroglyphs

Did modern scientists use computer technologies to check the deciphering for accuracy? The multilingual wikipedia here works like a Rosetta stone too. However, if you read wikipedia articles written in different languages on the same topic, you'll notice it is not easy to map the meaning word for word unless the entries are presented in dictionary form. Different language have different sentence structure and grammer. The deciphering was done in 1822 with no help from advance technology. Nowadays, the century old work can easily be checked by computer for consistency. Perhaps many historical accounts will be rewritten if errors are found in the deciphering. Kowloonese 19:32, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)

Teach your grandmother to suck eggs. Modern computational techniques, etc etc are indirectly based on the work done by Champollion and Young. Of course many researchers have revisited the discoveries made in 1822-23 and continue to improve our understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphs. Tafinucane 18:59, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

I believe the only way to refine the translation is to do the "pairings" translated line-by-line, and translate the "pairing" texts simultaneously:

Demotic w/ Hieroglyphs
Demotic w/ Greek
Greek w/ Hieroglyphs
and also all ( 3 ) in a "triplet" Demotic w/Hieroglyphs w/Greek

That's 4 categories of translating. (Note: The demotic with its abbreviated shorthand words is informative.)

Just another note:

I just found the Text corpus page (and it needed a 'Major' edit omission), but it leads an Individual to POS tagging. Part-of-speech tagging synchronized with commas, or end of sentences, is what one does in these pairings. The root of the word ( the lemma?) is all that is important. The thread and direction of the story is the Important thing. The "Rosetta Stone" page never mentions that there are 22/23 Reasons for honoring the Pharaoh, and 10 Actions in Reward, including the Erection of the Stone for all to know (Greek, gnostic..)(( This is also the Egyp. god Saa, who "sees". "Knows" the way forward. The hieroglyph is above his head for Saa. )) ..The word "kathidra" as a seat, or chair, or to sit is presented, like the word Cathedral is in the Rosetta Stone. Of the 23 reasons, no one mentioned the "Rebels" who are impaled on wooden stakes... " for everybody to know the error of The Ways (against Pharaoh) "(The complete story is in the Demotic text). These are the foreshadowings of the whole Christian thing. In the Canopus Stone, Ptol III, leap year is implemented. (238 BC,..Caesar then did it for real in 55 BC.) Any how translating these pairings, are all about Part-of-speech tagging.M McAnnis,YumaAzMmcannis 03:17, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I made pages with " Greek vs/Hieroglyphs ", for each 1/2 line, lines 1.00 to 1.50, then 1.50 to 1.100 (the mid point has to be chosen as a mid-point for end of sentence, or comma in sentence.) (The last (2 pages), line 14.00 to 14.100 has the 3 languages, the erecting of the stone in temples of order I, order II, order III, so how many stones actually got produced? ) For lines 1-14 of Rosetta Stone, that's 28 pages. It takes some months. I did it for various lines in the Decree of Canopus, as a trial run, specifically the "kosmos" lines with Leap Year ( 2 of 26 lines)( 4 pages). Michael McAnnis,YumaAZ

The "Decree of Canopus" is 100 percent complete, and could give an excellent study ( of 4 comparisons ). Yet to be completed...Mmcannis

[edit] Importance

I'd like to see more about the importance of the stone. For example, according to one of the linked articles, "For 1400 years, no one knew how to read Egyptian hieroglyphs. Virtually all understanding of this mysterious script had been lost since the 4th century AD..." That really drives home what a special and historic find it was.

Seconded The reason the Rosetta Stone is special is because up to that point people had been unable to read hieroglyphics. But the linguistic signifigance is barely mentioned in this article. I'd like to know: Why hieroglyphics had been lost, what were the difficulties in learning from the Rosetta Stone, and what gaps in our knowledge of hieroglyphics still remained.

[edit] Clunky prose

A note on the W of Ionian: many languages have the EE, double E, long E, or I sound; modern Russian is an example. But the common Ionian with short i, might be more properly understand, as double E, EEonian, though spelled Ionian. The U, Y in Greek, and the W used for Egyptian (translating only), may all be sometimes more properly understand as EE, in some situations. Note EEonian.

What? EE, double E, long E, or I sound? Instead of this amateurish roundabout description, why not just say "[i]"? And what's the rest of the paragraph trying to say? The U, Y in Greek, and the W used for Egyptian (translating only), may all be sometimes more properly understand as EE, — the "Y" in Greek? You mean the letter "upsilon"? And what's the "W used for Egyptian, translating only"?

This paragraph really needs a bit of reworking. Can someone who knows the situation well rewrite it? -- ran (talk) 00:58, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

I just came here to say the same thing. Makes no sense to me. — KayEss | talk 14:15, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

I have a problem with the phrase "There are approximately two copies..." in the Contents of Stone section. This seems like a very odd thing to have an approximate number of, and I think it should be re-phrased. I would do it, but I dont know what exactly is approximate about it.

The first paragraph reads a little clunky to me. I've slipped a line break in, and when I have a little more time I'll try to make it make a little more sense. I don't know much about the stone or Ptolemey so I wont alter the content, just the structure. Strato

[edit] ROSETTA STONE

[edit] Is it granite or basalt?

Earlier this week I posted a comment on the Wikipedia talk page that said "how can I trust Wikipedia?". After reading tons of sites about this stone, I have two questions: Why are stones so popular in history, like the Sorcerer's Stone and the Rosetta Stone? And my second question is: it the Rosetta Stone made of basalt or granite? Other sites say it's basalt, others say granite, but now Wikipedia says "incorrectly sited as basalt" . . . how do I know basalt is incorrect? Janet6 31 January 2006, 12:19 PM

it's granite i looked at a british site and they had it

user neosurfer2695

[edit] Examples

The examples given are ridiculously obscure.

Hey i got a ? where is the stone now?

There were more Metaphor examples previously. They were removed and also condensed. They are lacking (my opinion).MichaelMmcannis 02:35, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] dimension

Does anyone have any idea of the dimensions (in dm) of the stone? I always thought it was small, but on the second picture, the stone looks quite big. (unsigned)

Sign your name. (edits) --Mmcannis 03:39, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] One Question

I just have one question wikipedia, what does the Rosseta stone say? What were the degrees?

You can sign ur name you know with 4 tildes ( ~ ). And since the word "chair", Grk: 'kathridra', is used: as in, ... "and the statue (of Pharaoh Ptolemy V), will be "seated" ( i.e. verb usage of "chair") next to the other statues. ...." Are you, or is any one really interested in the true, knowledge, or scholarship, of our ancient peoples? They constantly used the word "..Know", as in 'be cognizant', or "Gnostic", obviously just the common usage (keeping the religious stuff out of it). I find the scholarship of people today lacking. Do your own translating. The grandfather's stone, for Ptolemy III used Gk: syngoge, (synagogue). (i.e. To Gather) Michael M in YUMA,AZ,usa--Mmcannis 02:30, 21 May 2006 (UTC)one editMmcannis 02:32, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Conflicting info about discovery of the stone.

The article has some conflicting info about the discovery and history of the stone, see the second paragraph of the "Use as a metaphor" section. It looks like somebody was just having some fun. Should this section just be removed?

earl 01:51, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Someone has removed the offending text, thanks.

earl 16:09, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

It was cute, kinda like Stream of consciousness. It's too bad creativity like that wouldn't actually be used to program a rock-chiseling-machine to engrave real stone with Cuneiform, or Egyptian hieroglyphs. A la the designs that can now be put into wood-inlay. --Michael--Mmcannis 18:47, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Huh?

I moved this from the article. It looks like yet another 'hot' new discovery which will be forgotten within a year.

On June 29, 2006, two scientists from MASA (Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts) found that the second script on the Rosetta stone is the official language of Ptolemy dynasty and is not at all Egyptian ptolemaic demotic. They have found grammar rules, sounds, and all meanings. Most of the advancement had been around identification of the position of one letter in the sentence which gave clear meaning of every word and sentence. That pointed out to clear language identification. Middle script is written in a language which had live words in conemporary Macedonian dialects, Old Slavic, and language "Jotovanje," present in Balcan Slavic languages. Both scientist pointed out that situation in this area is full of confusion and they have helped to clear some of the smoke with clear identification of 167 words from Rosetta stone. Script in middle text on the Rosetta stone is Syllabic with syllables of type Consonant-Vowel. Behind all ready sounding of consonants for the first time, they introduced the sounding of vowels. Identified and sounded have been 25 consonants and 8 vowels, half of the consonants (12) form syllables with all 8 vowels. The rest of the consonants have 4-5 vowels only. Identified have been four pictographical signs and use of ligatures with purpose to cover multiple uses of "to". ("Contributions XXVI 2 MASA - Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts Academician Tome Boševski and PhD Aristotel Tentov")

The second text of the Rosetta Stone is written in the script and language of the then-masters of Egypt – the Ancient Macedonians.

The results of the research from the project "Decyphering the second text of the Rosetta Stone" were presented in the Macedonian Academy of Arts and Sciences (MANU) Thursday.

Academic Tome Boshevski and prof. Aristotel Tentov conducted the project was conducted under MANU auspices.

The Rosseta Stone, the researchers stressed, was discovered in 1799 in Egypt. Made of granite, 1.44 m tall, 0.72 m wide and weighting 762 kg. Text's contents is a decree by Ptolemy V Epiphanes written in three scripts: hierogliphic, "demotic" and ancient Greek in the year 196 before Christ. Currently the stone is stored in the British Museum in London.

"Contemporary science has mainly adopted the stance that there are no traces remaining from the script and the language of the Ancient Macedonians," Boshevski said. "Thus, the Rossetta Stone is considered as written with three scripts in two languages, in the following order: Hieroglyphic in Ancient Egyptian, Demotic in Ancient Egyptian, and Ancient Greek in Ancient Greek [Ionian]. Our starting premise was that it is unlikely that there's not a single complete sentance in the language and the script of the Ancient Macedonians preserved. Based on this, we hypothesized that the text on the Rosetta Stone is written in three languages, in the following order: Hieroglyphic in Ancient Egyptian, with a syllabic alphabet in Ancient Macedonian, and with a phoenetic alphabet in Ancient Greek."

The researchers came to these conclusions by comparing the basic characteristics of the writing in that period. The texts of the time did not contain interpunction characters in the contemporary sense, the alphabets consisted of capital letters only, and all was written in an unbroken series without spaces between words. The texts on the stone have the following characteristics, as indicated by the researchers: the Hieroglyphic and the "demotic" text are written from right to left, while the Ancient Greek text is written from left to right. They also indicated the following characteristics of the second text: it is written in with dominantly syllabic alphabet with very few pictographic characters, the syllables exclusively consist of consonant-vowel pairs, there are also characters for writing isolated consonants and vowels, and besides the standard writing order of syllables one next to the other, they could be written one above the other, too. Exceptions in the text are the names of two gods, which were written as they were pronouncend in Ancient Egyptian language.

At the end, by way of conclusion, the authors stressed that the script of the second text of the Rosetta Stone is syllabic with syllables consisting of consonants and vowels, besides the consonants there are letters for vowels – with 25 consonants and 8 vowels identified. Almost half (12) of the consonants form syllables with all of the 8 vowels, while the rest with 4-5 vowels only. They also identified four pictographic characters, and use of ligatures to cover the frequent use of the article "of". Using the defined reading and sounding rules the researchers identified over 160 words. From all this they conclude that the second text is definitly written in the script and the language of the then-masters of Egypt, the Ancient Macedonians. P.S.I will remind you after one year...

ancient macedonian =/= contemporary slavic macedonian biggest joke ive heard in a while :D

Hahahahaha!!! I agree 100% with your last statement. What a JOKE!!! Now this really is pathetic. :D : Apro 13 September 2006

[edit] Thomas Young

My source says that Thomas Young linked some of the hieroglyphs to specific names in the Greek version in 1818 but in article the year 1814 appears. Igor Skoglund

[edit] move 'the three decrees, the three-stone series'

The 'three decrees, the three-stone series' section seems to only add confusion as its not about the rosetta stone per se; I suggest that it be moved to its own article, or moved under the ptolmeic dynasty artice, and the reference shortened to a sentence stating that the rosetta stone was part of a series of decrees...

Also, and unrelated, the artice says the stone was a 'copy of the decree' sent to whichever city. Isn't it the actuall decree? or is it a copy? wgh 19:32, 7 October 2006 (UTC)dialectric

[edit] 'three-decree series'

Is there any evidence that this was a three-decree series? As far as I can see, it's just the fact that they're all trilingual and written by three succeeding pharoahs. Unless there's something in the texts themselves (which I don't think there is...) the 'three decrees' is unproven. Re also the article on 'three decrees', which is a mess. I would change it but don't have time and I'm not sure how. ~~visitor~~ —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 137.73.127.31 (talk) 17:45, 8 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Article Creation and Improvement Drive

I nominated this article for ACID's collaboration. If you think that B-class is a poor condition of an article of this importance, you can go there and vote. --Gray Porpoise^{Phocoenidae, not Delphinidae} 00:43, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Translation of the text

The full translation contains the phrase "has consentrated to the temples revenues both of silver and of grain". I can guess that "consentrated" is a typo for "concentrated", but unfortunately that makes little or no sense. There are a couple of other passages that aren't really proper English either. It would be good if an expert could fix these. Matt 00:40, 21 October 2006 (UTC).

It struck me later that maybe it's a typo for "consecrated"?? Matt 10:17, 21 October 2006 (UTC).

It says Rosetta Stone#Full text of the Stone, but it isn't the full text. Compare to the 6 times longer translation in the External Links here. The ellipsis (...) near the end of the shorter version actually skips most of the second paragraph of the longer version. The last paragraph of the longer version is removed without even an ellipsis in the shorter version. 3 choices: call it something like "partial translation" not full text, use the whole translation, or take it out relying on the external link. Art LaPella 07:36, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

The Rosetta Stone, (the Decree of Memphis (Ptolemy V)) is equivalent in length to the 1st Decree of the Series: Decree of Canopus. That decree's length, is about the same length. See English version here: The Canopus Decree, modern English version.

It is of note, the last line of the Decree of Canopus also has it written in: script of the egyptian hieroglyphs, egyptian Demotic, and Greek. --(from the Arizona-deserts)--Mmcannis 14:37, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

What is Kooolll is, you get different length versions from the 3--different scripts, (The vagueries of the Scribes adding, or omitting some information.)--Mmcannis 14:37, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

The external link doesn't work today, neither here nor at Decree of Canopus. But anyway you are aware of the difference. Art LaPella 18:13, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

The entire, about 2000 word text was available. Sorry about that. --Mmcannis 18:41, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] AID: Improvement tips

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[edit] Meaning

I just glanced at this article, not in depth, and I couldn't seem to find where it said the sotnes purpose was in ancient times. Shouldn't there be a section for what it was used for within the Egyptian society, and it's effect? If it's there, maybe it should be mentioned in the intro section as well. RENTASTRAWBERRY ^{FOR LET?} röck 03:23, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

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