Cracking Codes: The Rosetta Stone and DeciphermentUniversity of California Press, 1999 M01 1 - 208 páginas Napoleon's troops discovered a granitoid slab in the village of Rosetta in the western Delta in 1799. The Rosetta Stone was to become one of the most famous Egyptian antiquities in the world as well as an instantly recognizable icon of script and decipherment. In this exciting, beautifully illustrated work, Richard Parkinson tells the story of the Stone's discovery and the so-called battle of the decipherers that it inspired. Published to accompany a major exhibition at the British Museum celebrating the bicentenary of the Stone's discovery, and including a selective catalog of the exhibits, this book also examines the wider issues of script and writing in ancient Egypt and beyond. The Rosetta Stone is a fragment of a stela inscribed with a priestly decree in honor of Ptolemy V. The main significance of the text lies not in its content, however, but in the fact that it is written in three scripts--hieroglyphic, demotic, and ancient Greek. Early Orientalists recognized immediately the potential of the Stone for the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs. Thomas Young made great advances, especially with the demotic text, but it was Jean-Fran ois Champollion who made the final breakthrough in 1822. In so doing he cracked much more than two Egyptian scripts: He opened up Egyptian culture as a whole to historians. Among the subjects discussed in Cracking Codes are the relationship between hieroglyphs and art, the social prestige of literacy, and the power of writing and its practical aspects (scribal equipment and training). A brief description of other decipherments is also given, drawing on examples such as Linear B and Meroitic--a language which remains to be read. A selection of the History Book Club, the Book-of-the-Month Club, and the Quality Paperback Book Club |
Contenido
List of abbreviations and conventions | 7 |
Among the Ruined Languages | 14 |
The Original Context of the Rosetta Stone | 25 |
The Decipherment of the Rosetta Stone | 31 |
The Rosetta Stone after Champollion | 41 |
The Egyptian Language | 47 |
The Classical Egyptian Writing System | 56 |
Further Codes to Crack | 176 |
Other Deciphered and Undeciphered Scripts | 184 |
Decipherment versus Cryptanalysis | 190 |
APPENDIX | 198 |
| 204 | |
Otras ediciones - Ver todas
Cracking Codes: The Rosetta Stone and Decipherment R. B. Parkinson,Whitfield Diffie,Mary Fischer,R. S. Simpson Vista previa limitada - 1999 |
Cracking Codes: The Rosetta Stone and Decipherment R. B. Parkinson,Whitfield Diffie,R. S. Simpson Vista de fragmentos - 1999 |
Cracking Codes: The Rosetta Stone and Decipherment R. B. Parkinson,Whitfield Diffie,Mary Fischer,R. S. Simpson Sin vista previa disponible - 1999 |
Términos y frases comunes
18th Dynasty acquired alphabet Amenhotep Amennakht Amun Ancient Egypt Ancient Egyptian Antiquities archaeological artefacts BIBLIOGRAPHY British Museum Cairo caption cartouche carved century Champollion consonants context Coptic copy cultural cursive hieroglyphs decipherment Decree Deir el-Bahri Deir el-Medina demotic Egyptian hieroglyphs Egyptian script Egyptology example figure fragments funerary stela gods Greek H.R. Hall hieratic hiero hieroglyphic script hieroglyphic signs Hieroglyphic Texts hitherto unpublished Horus incised inscribed inscription King language letter limestone linguistic literary logogram London Lord Middle Egyptian Middle Kingdom modern monuments obelisk offering Old Kingdom original Osiris ostracon Oxford painted palette papyrus Period phonetic pictorial placed priests Provenance unrecorded Purchased Ptolemy Ramesside Ramses Ramses II records relief right to left Rosetta Stone royal scene scholars scribal showing statue stela sun-disk sun-god temp temple Thebes Thoth tomb translation transliteration true-of-voice vertical lines votive words World's Writing Systems written ΕΝ