The Rosetta Stone at the British Museum

The recent scandal at the British Museum has prompted me to visit it to have a look at some important ancient art & artefacts.

Below is the Rosetta Stone of the British Museum. It's enormous, dark and amazingly well-preserved - and really quite meticulous and beautiful to look at.

There are actually several Rosseta stones. 28 to be precise, of which 21 are in Egypt. It was part of a royal decree by a Pharaoh during the Ptolemaic era of ancient Egypt (the last one). This famous one was discarded as rubbish and used as rubble to fill in a wall. The slab of rock was stumbled upon in 1799 in Rosetta (Egypt) during Napoleon's campaign - which deciphered the Egyptian script, essentially starting Egyptology. When the British defeated them shortly afterwards, it ended up at the British Museum. 

Famously, it allowed the ancient Egyptian script to be decoded for the first time. 

It bears a priestly decree issued by Pharaoh Ptolemy V in 196BC which was copied out in three languages: hieroglyphics, demotic – language of the time – and ancient Hellenistic Greek. 

My camera didn't pick up the Greek script, so I will have to visit again soon. But they are so ornate and beautiful. 

Demotic

Egyptian hieroglyphs

The main thrust of this text is about giving honours to the Pharaoh.  For example, a statute of himself was to be placed in the Temple (Edfu?); including celebrating his birthday in the Temple. 

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Returning to Egypt?

There have been calls in recent years to return the Rosetta Stone to Egypt.

I thought I would add a little bit explaining why I think is mistaken and should be politely rejected - mostly for being ahistorical. But, below are some arguments for my position.

1. It is an object of human history created by people who've been dead for over millennia. Objects of a dead civilization don't "belong" to anybody. I don't accept that merely because people are living in the same area today, that they get some special priority.
2. It shouldn't be the case that every country has to return objects from other countries. It shouldn't only be displaying "their" own stuff. (What is "theirs" - see point 4). I accept that the rules and laws governing how an object was acquired are critical.
3. Technically, it was written during the Ptolemaic era of Egypt - which was a Greek state. Nothing about this stone is Egyptian. The people who carved it are ancestors of everyone in the Mediterranean basin. 
4. Ancient Egypt has almost nothing to do with modern-day Egypt. Not the language, not the culture, not the religion, not the government. Only, somewhat, the land. And that land has been subject to invasion and assimilation by the Macedonians, the Romans, then by the Caliphate, then the Ottoman empire, and Mameluks, then a Khedivate of Egypt - before finally becoming an autonomous Egyptian Republic with a permanent borders as we tend to understand it. And, that discounts the temporary invasions by the Hyksos, the Nubians, the Assyrians, the Persians, the Sassanid, the French and the English. In fact, Narmer (the great unifior of the Upper and Lower Egypt and forger of the First Dynasty) did so via conquest and subjugation of others. So, who - among all these peoples - are the 'real' Egyptians are?