title: The Rosetta Stone and the Rebirth of Ancient Egypt (Wonders of the World)
author: John Ray
description: A wonderful introduction not only to the Rosetta Stone and its story, but also to the growth and development of modern Egyptology, this slim book begins with Cambridge professor Ray's childhood encounter with the stone in the British Museum in 1958. From there, Ray traces the history of the stone from the time of its discovery in 1799 to its deciphering in 1822 by Jean-Franois Champollion, a journey populated with big personalities and world events. Balancing the stone's present-day life with its ancient one, Ray gives readers enough information about the world of Ptolemy Epiphanes-during whose reign the stone was forged-to understand the larger context, but doesn't slow the narrative with extraneous details. Ray also offers an illuminating overview of dead language studies and the colorful figures who devote their lives to it. Like the rest of editor Mary Beard's Wonders of the World series (Richard Jenkyns's Westminster Abbey, Robert Irwin's The Alhambra, etc.), this informative text has an appealing, conversational tone that non-specialists should find especially welcoming. <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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  ‘Highly readable … Ray takes us on an ancient journey from this sunset of the
  ancient Egyptian world’ _BBC History_
  
  
  ‘Delightfully written … a model of clarity. Shines as bright as the Aten disc
  – clear and bold’ _Fortean Times_
  
  
  ‘Rock idol with the power to bewitch … it is a talisman, a communication from
  the ancient world’ _THES_
  
  
  ‘An articulate idiosyncratic biography of the Rosetta Stone … The quirky
  nature of history and human achievement is highlighted throughout this book
  with a strong sense of irony by an excellent story-teller, in a thought-
  provoking manner’ _Egyptian Archaeology_
  
  
  ‘A thoroughly enjoyable introduction to this famous survival of a vanished
  civilisation’ _Contemporary Review_
  
  
  ‘Sheds new light on topics such as the fragile political position of the
  stone’s hero and the issue of whether the stone should one day be returned to
  Egypt’ _New Scientist_
  
  
  JOHN RAY is Professor of Egyptology at Cambridge University and a Fellow of
  th