The Rosetta Stone, discovered in 1799 near the Egyptian town of Rosetta by French soldiers, is a black granodiorite slab that provided the key to deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. It contains a decree issued at Memphis in 196 BC on behalf of King Ptolemy V, written in three distinct scripts: Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, Demotic script, and Ancient Greek. Because the Greek translation was already readable, scholars like Jean-Francois Champollion were able to compare the texts and decode the hieroglyphs in 1822, opening a window into ancient Egyptian history.