Although the Rosetta Stone was the base of decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics, the success following Champollion's labours is largely due to the discovery of a small obelisk in the island of Philæ. This obelisk was said to have been fixed in a socket bearing a Greek inscription containing a petition of the priests of Isis at Philæ, addressed to Ptolemy, to Cleopatra his sister, and to Cleopatra his wife. The hieroglyphic inscription upon the obelisk itself included certain characters within a cartouche which were identical with those within the only cartouche occurring on the Rosetta Stone. Here, then, was a clue, which was the more easily followed up because the names of Ptolemy and Cleopatra have, in the Greek, certain letters in common which could be used for comparison with the hieroglyphics. "If the characters which are similar in these two names express the same sound in each cartouche, their purely phonetic character is at once made clear," and the recovery of the Egyptian alphabet was only a question of time (Figs. 47, 48, 49).
Fig. 47.—Ptolemy
Fig. 48.—Cleopatra
Fig. 49.—Kaisars (cæsar) A. Takrtr (autokrator)
The Rosetta Stone is inscribed with fragments of fourteen lines of hieroglyphics, thirty-two lines of demotic, and fifty-four lines of Greek. These have for their subject-matter a decree of the priesthood assembled at Memphis in honour of Ptolemy V. Epiphanes, King of Egypt, b.c. 195. They set forth the beneficent deeds of that monarch, in his consecration of revenues of silver and corn to the temples, his abolition of certain taxes and reduction of others, his grant of privileges to the priests and soldiers, and his undertaking at his own cost, in the eighth year of his reign, when the Nile rose to so great a height as to flood all the plains, the task of damming it and directing the overflow of its waters into proper channels, to the great gain and benefit of the agricultural classes. Besides his remissions of taxes, he gave handsome gifts to the temples, and subscribed to the various ceremonies connected with public worship. In return for these gracious acts, the priests assembled at Memphis decreed that a statue of the king should be set up in a conspicuous place in every temple of Egypt, and inscribed with the names and titles of "Ptolemy, the saviour of Egypt." Royal apparel was to be placed on the statues, and ceremonies were to be performed before them three times a day. It was also decreed that a gilded wooden shrine, containing a gilded wooden statue of the king, should be placed in each temple, and that these were to be carried out with the shrines of the other kings in the great panegyrics. It was also decreed that ten golden crowns of a peculiar design should be made and laid upon the royal shrine; that the birthday and coronation day of the king should be celebrated each year with great pomp and show; that the first five days of the month of Thoth should each year be set apart for the performance of a festival in honour of the king; and, finally, that a copy of this decree, engraved upon a tablet of hard stone in hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek Characters, should be set up in each of the temples of the first, second, and third orders, near the statue of the ever-living Ptolemy. Dr. Wallis Budge adds that "the Greek portion of the inscriptions appears to be the original document, and the hieroglyphic and demotic versions merely translations of it." (The Mummy, pp. 110, 111.)
As the principle of interpretation is the same for all the inscriptions, and as the key to that interpretation is knowledge of one of the languages in which the inscription occurs, brief reference to another historical tablet often bracketed with the Rosetta Stone will suffice. This is known as the Stele of Canopus, which also bears inscriptions in hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek. It is about half a century earlier than the Rosetta Stone, and was set up at Canopus in the ninth year of the reign of Ptolemy III. to record a decree made by the priesthood there assembled in honour of the king. It recites acts similar in their beneficent character to those recounted of Ptolemy V., and decrees what honours shall be paid him and his consort Berenice, whose famous hair, dedicated in the temple of Arsinoë at Zephyrium in gratitude for Ptolemy's safe return from his Syrian expedition, was said to have been metamorphosed into the constellation known as Coma Berenices.