On July 15, 1799 French soldiers, during Napoleon's invasion of Egypt, unearthed an ancient Egyptian slab of coarse-grained stone known as granodiorite. Dating from 196 BC, mearuring roughly 44 inches tall, 30 inches wide, and 11 inches thick—and weighing 1,676 pounds—it is inscribed with a decree from King Ptolemy V in three scripts: Hieroglyphs, Demotic, and Ancient Greek. It would become known by the name of the town near which it was discovered: Rashid, or, "Rosetta." The Rosetta Stone.
After the eventual defeat and surrender of the French forces, The Rosetta Stone passed to the British, and has since 1801 been housed in the British Museum in London. Because the Ancient Greek script was already understood, and scholars could now compare it to the Egyptian scripts, its discovery provided the crucial key to deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. In 1822, French scholar Jean-François Champollion successfully deciphered the hieroglyphs, providing modern experts with the ability to read ancient Egyptian history and language. This would lead to not only widespread study of Egyptian history language and culture, but indeed an obsession with it in the West that continues to this day.
On this afternoon's Classical Music With Foley Schuler, in honor of the anniversary of the Rosetta Stone's discovery, we'll hear a wide variety attempts by composers of the classical music tradition to creat music inspired by the sights and sounds ancient Egypt or that use ancient Egypt as a dramatic backdrop. These will include Verdi's opera Aida, Saint-Saens' Piano Concerto No. 5 "The Egyptian" and the Philip Glass opera Akhnaten—with a few other surprises as well.
You can hear Foley Schuler's musical selections—and stories behind the music—every weekday afternoon from 1 until 4 on Blue Lake Public Radio.
