The Rosetta Stone: the Key That Unlocked an Ancient Language

Welcome to Season 2 of Digging Deeper, the podcast where we explore biblical history through archaeology and geography! In this episode, hosts Barry Britnell and Dan Kingsley take a deep dive into the Rosetta Stone—the key that unlocked the mysteries of Egyptian hieroglyphics and revolutionized our understanding of ancient civilizations. How did this remarkable discovery impact biblical archaeology? Why is Egypt’s history so vital to the biblical narrative? Join us as we uncover the significance of this artifact and its role in shaping our knowledge of the Bible’s historical backdrop.

🔎 Key Takeaways:

The Rosetta Stone helped decode Egyptian hieroglyphics, unlocking vast historical knowledge.
Egypt played a major role in biblical history, from Joseph’s time to Jesus' early years.
The artifact, now in the British Museum, remains one of the most visited pieces of ancient history.

📌 Watch more episodes and explore biblical archaeology at https://appianmedia.org

Special thanks to the sponsors of this season of Digging Deeper:

CEI Bookstore (https://truthbooks.com) - CEI Books is a retail supplier of Bibles, books, and other religious materials to individuals and churches nationwide.

Sacred Connections (https://www.sacredconnections.com) - Sacred Connections is a safe, online space for Christians to connect and build meaningful relationships. With a focus on community and channels dedicated to various interests and events there is something for users at every life stage.

Transcript

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Archeology is one of those sciences that's difficult for you to get your arms around. When you start digging, you never know exactly what you're going to discover. And often, the things that you do find in the ground cause you to have even more questions than when you started. That's the case for many things that are found in Egypt. For decades, we saw the hieroglyphics on the columns in the walls, but we could not read them. That is, until a stone was found in the small ancient town of Rosetta. Welcome to Digging Deeper, the podcast where we talk about the geography, archeology, people and cultures of the lands of the Bible by exploring those areas, we hope to broaden your understanding of the biblical narrative. You can learn more about all of us here at Appian Media, or watch our free video series at Appian media.org. Our sponsors for today's episodes are the CTA Bookstore and Sacred Connections. We'll be happy to tell you a little bit more about both of those A little later in our show. Okay, then let's get started here. It's been a while since we've gotten together. Let's, let me say a little bit about myself first, and then let you introduce yourself. My name is Barry Brittenham. If you've watched any of the AP media videos or things, you may have seen me on there, and, often I'm kind of on camera or doing some, hosting, duties, maybe off camera as well, but, I grew up, being a meteorologist that I got my degree in. And right now I'm a software developer, but I do this kind of on the side. And, my partner in this podcast is Dan Kingsley. Dan, introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about you. Well, I was originally from new Jersey, and I now live in North Alabama, just about an hour away from you. I'm a medical oncologist, so I do blood and cancer, but I'm passionate about biblical archeology, geography and the lands of the Bible. And, just can't get enough of that. Well, Dan and I have known each other for a long time, but it was probably about, 10 or 12 years ago when we really started spending a lot of time with each other. For a while, Dan, lived here in North Alabama, before he moved to various other places. And we would, often meet at a local barbecue restaurant and talk about the lands of the Bible. We would. And I got really excited when you started talking about the fact you're going to lead tours over there, because that's something I've always wanted to do. And so I was living, Well, I've enjoyed doing that. And, you know, several years ago, both Dan and I got involved with Appian Media. As I said, I've kind of done some hosting and done some researching. Dan has done a lot of things behind the scenes. He's usually traveled with us. Dan is our stills photographer. And, I encourage you to look at our website, because nearly every single photograph that's on there is one that that Dan did. And I think I'm an Easter egg. Hidden through some of the videos. If you know where to look. Yeah, that's exactly right. Okay. This is actually, as we said, this is our second season of Digging Deeper. And, our first season was actually six years ago. It's amazing. It's actually been that long. And, we apologize to everybody. We have had a number of people ask us about, more episodes of Digging Deeper. But quite frankly, life just kind of got in the way. Life and the world. And the world do. when we did our last episode, we didn't even know what the words global pandemic meant. And, then we kind of lived through it. Yes. And then we both had kids graduating from high school. You had some graduating college? I've moved a couple of times. You. Yeah. That's right. And then we've traveled a lot. That we have. I mean, in the last, you know, six years I. I've been to Israel several times. Been to Egypt twice. Been to Turkey and Greece. You where where have you been? Well, I've been to Israel twice and Turkey twice a year. Been to Greece twice. I was with you in Egypt. One of the trips I've been to Jordan, Italy. Don't forget our layover in France. Yeah. That's right. But then I've also been to, England and Scotland and, Ireland. And Ryan, Dan and I, for some reason, a couple of years ago, without even trying, it was just happenstance. But we happened to be in six different countries. I believe in the same year at the at the same time. But it was pure happenstance, really, but it kind of worked out that way. But anyway, regardless of all that that's going on the last six years, we're so glad to be here. today. So, let's get started. In this first episode, we're trying to decide how do we start this first episode. And we wanted to concentrate this year with a lot of things dealing with archeology. And so as we were talking about where do you start with this? There was one thing that really kind of jumped to the front. Dan, what is that. The Rosetta Stone? It's really, the first object that kind of jump start a modern archeology. You're right. We do read about some of the ancient, kings of Babylon being archeologists. But this was modern archeology. This is just. Open the doors. Okay, so let me just ask a very simple question. What? What is the Rosetta Stone? It is a stone. Yeah. Okay. All right. Granite. Stone. It's about four feet high and three feet wide. It probably was, taller. If you look at other Egyptian monuments. But right now, that's what's left. It's been chipped off and right. You can see broken parts on it. That's right. Yeah. And so, Well, I mean, how long we had this? When was it found? Where was it found? Well, we know it as the Rosetta Stone. So obviously probably found in Rosetta. Yeah. And that if you know your world history, Napoleon had invaded Egypt. And so he brought scientists with him, and they found this stone. And so it was French for a little bit. But then the wars between the English in and the French in, in Egypt, the English acquired. okay, so we've got this stone. We know where it's from. We know where it was found. What makes this stone so important? Why? Why is this such a so important for archeology and for biblical study? Well, if you've seen it, you realize there's three different writing styles on there. You have the Egyptian hieroglyphics. You have another Egyptian script from that time, the demotic script. But then there's Greek. We know how to read ancient Greek. Okay. You and I probably know. No, I don't. Yeah. No, no, But people who do linguistics know how to read ancient Greek, and so we could translate part of it. Okay. That was the key to unlocking the rest. So all of a sudden, all these strange pictures on all the walls all over Egypt can be read. Okay, so these three sections on the Rosetta Stone, they all say the same, thing, but it's in three different languages. Yes, it was a proclamation. because of the the scholars who understood Greek, they could read the Greek and then they could translate into the hieroglyphics. Yeah. It's one of those things I encourage everybody to to read a little bit more. Cartouches or proper names had an oval around it. Okay. Key believe it was Ptolemy's name that they first said, oh, here it is. Okay. All right. So fantastic. So, So where is the Rosetta Stone now? Well, there's a common joke, but, everything's in the British Museum, but. Yes. Oh. Okay. Right. That's right. Dan and I have both, in our travels, have been fortunate enough to to travel to London, traveled to the British Museum. I have read to that. It is the most visited item in the British Museum, which is actually saying something because of the sheer size of the British Museum. to me that's not surprising because, everybody wants to see the Rosetta Stone, and be where it's located. You know, if you remember, you walk in the front door into that large atrium area and then you take a left it's right there. And there's this glass case. And in the old days, it was actually out and everybody was touching it to be able to feel it. Right. That would have worn the entire front away. So I'm glad it's behind glass, except for those of us who like photography. Yeah, it makes it hard to get. A good picture. Yeah. And, usually the times that I've been there because of where it's located, its popularity, it's usually surrounded by people. So it's really hard to get a good picture of it. as Dan said, because it's it's behind glass, it is usually has, you know, fingerprints all over it. It's really hard to get a good picture of, but it really is kind of an amazing thing to see. Oh, absolutely. It's one of those museums that you have to go to multiple times if you're going to actually see everything. That's right. And you'll walk by something, not realizing how important it is. And then you yeah, I got to go back but realize that that was important. Yeah. That's right. Okay. Then I want to spend a few minutes talking about the biblical importance of this stone. And we'll do that right after our word from our sponsors. during the entire history of Appian Media. We've had several companies reach out to us and offer to sell our products. One of the first to contact us was the CTA bookstore. The CTA bookstore has been in business for over 70 years and is a nonprofit religious bookstore and retail supplier of Bibles, books, church supplies, and other religious resources. They're located in Athens, Alabama, but serve customers across the entire United States. If you're in need of any of the wonderful products that they offer, we encourage you to reach out to them through their website at Truth books.com. Sacred connections is a safe online space for Christians to connect and build meaningful relationships, with a focus on community and channels dedicated to various interests and events. There is something for users at every life stage, and right now, when you download the app, you use the code digging deeper to receive a special discount for all listeners of the Digging Deeper podcasts. So we invite you to start your journey by going to their website today and learning more. Their address is Sacred connections.com. Now back to the show. Milbury we've been talking about facts about the Rosetta Stone. And while those are great, a lot of what we we do with digging deeper is we want to dig deeper. We want to know more. Why is this important? so my question to you is, as a student of the Bible, why would the Rosetta Stone be so important to us? Well. Just as you said, as students, the Bible, we want to try to draw connections to all of these things. If you read through the Bible, you realize that the nation of Egypt keeps coming up over and over and over again. And because, Egypt is one of the longest running and civilizations on the Earth, I mean, there have been civilizations go up and down throughout history, but the Egyptians have always been there. And so we'd like to know as much about them as possible. I mean, there's several biblical stories that we can read about. Joseph, of course, was sold as a slave into Egypt. Eventually, Jacob's whole family moved down there. And of course, while they were down there, they grew. They eventually became slaves in Egypt. Moses came to power, within the Israelites led them out of Egypt, through through that, through all the plagues and everything that we read. The Egyptians continued to attack the Israelites once they made it to the Promised Land. Once they made it into Canaan. And, sometimes throughout history, the Israelites formed alliances with the Egyptians. If you remember, during the time, after, you know, of the divided kingdom, Jeremiah actually went down to Egypt for a little while. Yes, once. Jesus. Was born, there was a situation that came up that required him and his family to move to Egypt for a couple of years throughout history, as I said, civil relations have risen and fallen. But Egypt has kind of always been there. And so it's nice to know and nice to learn as much about Egypt as possible. And the Rosetta Stone opened the door for that. It allowed us to learn so much more about the culture of the people, and by doing so, it allows us to understand those biblical stories even more. That is such a good summation of looking at Egypt and how a nation interacts with our understanding of the Bible. Yeah, In this season of digging deeper, Dan and I want to spend some time looking at some of the things that we have found through the science of biblical archeology. And as we said today, we decided to start this year by looking at the Rosetta Stone. This discovery in the late 18th century was a true turning point in archeological history. By unlocking the language of Egyptian hieroglyphics, all of us can better understand the history and culture of an amazing civilization that has played such a key role through the biblical narrative. Digging deeper is a production of Appian Media. We're a nonprofit media production company that is 100% crowdfunded. If you are interested in learning more about how you can support Appian Media, so we can continue to create more great and free content, visit us at Appian media.org slash. Listen. If you'd like to contact us, you may reach us at Barry Dot Britain l at Appian Media, dawg. And I'm at Dan Kingsley at Appian Media Dawg. We would love to hear from you and answer any questions that you might have. Barry and I are in front of the microphones, but as you know, it takes much more to produce this podcast. So a special thanks to the entire AP media team who are all doing their part. Join us next time as we look at another key find in the world of archeology the Cyrus Cylinder. Barry and I have some interesting stories to tell about our experiences with that piece. So you're not want to miss our next episode? Until then, thank you for joining us, and we look forward to being with you on the next episode of Digging Deeper.