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).
