The Writing of the Gods

The Race to Decode the Rosetta Stone

Edward Dolnick

• Publisher: Scribner
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9781501198946
• eBook ISBN:
  9781501198953
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Egyptian Ancient History
• Index: History

The fast-paced and "engrossing account" ( The New York Times Book Review ) of "one of the greatest breakthroughs in archaeological history" ( The Christian Science Monitor ): two rival geniuses in a race to decode the writing on one of the world's most famous documents—the Rosetta Stone. The Rosetta Stone is one of the most famous objects in the world, attracting millions of visitors to the British museum every year, and yet most people don't really know what it is. Discovered in a pile of rubble in 1799, this slab of stone proved to be the key to unlocking a lost language that baffled scholars for centuries.Carved in ancient Egypt, the Rosetta Stone carried the same message in different languages—in Greek using Greek letters, and in Egyptian using picture-writing called hieroglyphs. Until its discovery, no one in the world knew how to read the hieroglyphs that covered every temple and text and statue in Egypt.Dominating the world for thirty centuries, ancient Egypt was the mightiest empire the world had ever known, yet everything about it—the pyramids, mummies, the Sphinx—was shrouded in mystery. Whoever was able to decipher the Rosetta Stone would solve that mystery and fling open a door that had been locked for two thousand years.Two brilliant rivals set out to win that prize. One was English, the other French, at a time when England and France were enemies and the world's two great superpowers. Written "like a thriller" ( Star Tribune, Minneapolis), The Writing of the Gods chronicles this high-stakes intellectual race in which the winner would win glory for both himself and his nation. A riveting portrait of empires both ancient and modern, this is an unparalleled look at the culture and history of ancient Egypt, "and also a lesson…in what the human mind does when faced with a puzzle" ( The New Yorker ).

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Timeline
• Prologue
• Chapter One: The Stakes
• Chapter Two: The Find
• Chapter Three: The Challenge
• Chapter Four: Voices from the Dust
• Chapter Five: So Near and Yet So Far
• Chapter Six: The Conquering Hero
• Chapter Seven: The Burning Deck
• Chapter Eight: Monsieur Smith Makes His Exit
• Chapter Nine: A Celebrity in Stone
• Chapter Ten: First Guesses
• Chapter Eleven: The Rivals
• Chapter Twelve: Thomas Young Is Almost Surprised
• Chapter Thirteen: Archimedes in His Bathtub, Thomas Young in His Country House
• Chapter Fourteen: Ahead of the Field
• Chapter Fifteen: Lost in the Labyrinth
• Chapter Sixteen: Ancient Wisdom
• Chapter Seventeen: “A Cipher and a Secret Writing”
• Chapter Eighteen: The Exile
• Chapter Nineteen: Here Comes Champollion
• Chapter Twenty: “A Veritable Chaos”
• Chapter Twenty-One: The Birth of Writing
• Chapter Twenty-Two: The Paduan Giant
• Chapter Twenty-Three: Abu Simbel
• Chapter Twenty-Four: Eureka!
• Chapter Twenty-Five: The Unveiling
• Chapter Twenty-Six: A Duck May Be Somebody’s Mother
• Chapter Twenty-Seven: Straining to Hear
• Chapter Twenty-Eight: Strength in Numbers
• Chapter Twenty-Nine: A Pair of Walking Legs
• Chapter Thirty: Clean Robes and Soft Hands
• Chapter Thirty-One: Out of a Job
• Chapter Thirty-Two: The Lost Pharaoh
• Epilogue
• Photographs
• Acknowledgments
• Aout the Author
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Photo Credits
• Copyright