On This Day
1799 – The Rosetta Stone is found in the Egyptian village of Rosetta by French Captain Pierre-François Bouchard during Napoleon’s Egyptian Campaign.
The Rosetta Stone is a granodiorite stele inscribed with three versions of a decree issued in Memphis, Egypt in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty on behalf of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes. The top and middle texts are in Ancient Egyptian using hieroglyphic and Demotic scripts respectively, while the bottom is in Ancient Greek. The decree has only minor differences between the three versions, making the Rosetta Stone key to deciphering the Egyptian scripts.
The stone was carved during the Hellenistic period and is believed to have originally been displayed within a temple, possibly at nearby Sais. It was probably moved in late antiquity or during the Mameluk period, and was eventually used as building material in the construction of Fort Julien near the town of Rashid (Rosetta) in the Nile Delta. It was discovered there in July 1799 by French officer Pierre-François Bouchard during the Napoleonic campaign in Egypt. It was the first Ancient Egyptian bilingual text recovered in modern times, and it aroused widespread public interest with its potential to decipher this previously untranslated hieroglyphic script. Lithographic copies and plaster casts soon began circulating among European museums and scholars. When the British defeated the French they took the stone to London under the Capitulation of Alexandria in 1801. It has been on public display at the British Museum almost continuously since 1802 and is the most visited object there.
Study of the decree was already underway when the first complete translation of the Greek text was published in 1803. Jean-François Champollion announced the transliteration of the Egyptian scripts in Paris in 1822; it took longer still before scholars were able to read Ancient Egyptian inscriptions and literature confidently. Major advances in the decoding were recognition that the stone offered three versions of the same text (1799); that the demotic text used phonetic characters to spell foreign names (1802); that the hieroglyphic text did so as well, and had pervasive similarities to the demotic (1814); and that phonetic characters were also used to spell native Egyptian words (1822–1824).
Three other fragmentary copies of the same decree were discovered later, and several similar Egyptian bilingual or trilingual inscriptions are now known, including three slightly earlier Ptolemaic decrees: the Decree of Alexandria in 243 BC, the Decree of Canopus in 238 BC, and the Memphis decree of Ptolemy IV, c. 218 BC. The Rosetta Stone is no longer unique, but it was the essential key to the modern understanding of ancient Egyptian literature and civilisation. The term ‘Rosetta Stone’ is now used to refer to the essential clue to a new field of knowledge.
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Born On This Day
1858 – Emmeline Pankhurst, English political activist and suffragist (d. 1928)
Emmeline Pankhurst (née Goulden; 15 July 1858 – 14 June 1928) was a British political activist. She is best remembered for organizing the UK suffragette movement and helping women win the right to vote. In 1999, Time named her as one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century, stating that “she shaped an idea of objects for our time” and “shook society into a new pattern from which there could be no going back”.[1] She was widely criticised for her militant tactics, and historians disagree about their effectiveness, but her work is recognised as a crucial element in achieving women’s suffrage in the United Kingdom.[2][3]
Born in the Moss Side district of Manchester to politically active parents, Pankhurst was introduced at the age of 14 to the women’s suffrage movement. She founded and became involved with the Women’s Franchise League, which advocated suffrage for both married and unmarried women. When that organisation broke apart, she tried to join the left-leaning Independent Labour Party through her friendship with socialist Keir Hardie but was initially refused membership by the local branch on account of her sex. While working as a Poor Law Guardian, she was shocked at the harsh conditions she encountered in Manchester’s workhouses.
In 1903 Pankhurst founded the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), an all-women suffrage advocacy organisation dedicated to “deeds, not words” .[4] The group identified as independent from – and often in opposition to – political parties. It became known for physical confrontations: its members smashed windows and assaulted police officers. Pankhurst, her daughters, and other WSPU activists received repeated prison sentences, where they staged hunger strikes to secure better conditions, and were often force-fed. As Pankhurst’s eldest daughter Christabel took leadership of the WSPU, antagonism between the group and the government grew. Eventually the group adopted arson as a tactic, and more moderate organisations spoke out against the Pankhurst family. In 1913 several prominent individuals left the WSPU, among them Pankhurst’s younger daughters, Adela and Sylvia. Emmeline was so furious that she “gave [Adela] a ticket, £20, and a letter of introduction to a suffragette in Australia, and firmly insisted that she emigrate”.[5] Adela complied and the family rift was never healed. Sylvia became a socialist.
With the advent of the First World War, Emmeline and Christabel called an immediate halt to the militant terrorism in support of the British government’s stand against the “German Peril”.[6] Emmeline organised and led a massive procession called the Women’s Right to Serve demonstration[7] to illustrate women’s contribution to the war effort. Emmeline and Christabel urged women to aid industrial production and encouraged young men to fight, becoming prominent figures in the white feather movement.[8] In 1918, the Representation of the People Act granted votes to all men over the age of 21 and women over the age of 30. This discrepancy was intended to ensure that men did not become minority voters as a consequence of the huge number of deaths suffered during the First World War.[9]
She transformed the WSPU machinery into the Women’s Party, which was dedicated to promoting women’s equality in public life. In her later years, she became concerned with what she perceived as the menace posed by Bolshevism and joined the Conservative Party. She was selected as the Conservative candidate for Whitechapel and St Georges in 1927.[10][11] She died on 14 June 1928, only weeks before the Conservative government’s Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928 extended the vote to all women over 21 years of age on 2 July 1928. She was commemorated two years later with a statue in Victoria Tower Gardens, next to the Houses of Parliament.
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FYI
McCormick Is Hiring a Director of Taco Relations The part-time, four-month gig pays $100,000
Wyoming is one of three states that haven’t passed hate-crime legislation since Shepard was killed, the Associated Press reports. A year after his death, lawmakers considered legislation that would have extended hate-crime protections to cover sexual orientation, according to a Wyoming State Historical Society entry. The bill failed on a 30-30 tie two days in a row and hasn’t been seriously considered since.
The Washington Post, Morning Mix: A Chinese father never stopped looking for his son, who was kidnapped at age 2. They reunited after 24 years. Guo Gangtang and his wife were reunited with their son, Guo Xinzhen, who’s now in his mid-20s
Alaska Hihgways News, The Canadian Press: From tacos to ice cream: Adam Rubin now writing for tweens
Alaska Highway News, The Canadian Press: Hong Kong book fair sees self-censorship and fewer books
Atlas Obscura: The tragic life of the last Hawaiian princess; The Proto-Oreo; Spacecraft Cemetery and more ->
Ideas
By MattZ28: WheeStroll- Wheelchair Stroller Attachment
Recipes
Taste of Home Test Kitchen: Slow-Cooker Al Pastor Bowls
Taste of Home: 49 Mexican Chicken Recipes
By Momos75: Fish Pops on Lemongrass Sticks
By Sweet Strawberry: Classy Chocolate Cake Pops
DamnDelicious
RecipeTinEats
- Irene’s Cretan biscuits (Greek almond cookies) October 4, 2024These traditional Greek Cretan biscuits are here courtesy of Irene, the very Greek mother of my very Greek hairdresser. Does it surprise anybody that I spend most of the time at the salon discussing food with everybody and anybody? 😂 Meet Irene, beloved local Greek grandmother and baker If you love buttery shortbread biscuits and... […]Nagi
- First-in-the-world pre-release GIVEAWAY! October 2, 2024I was so excited to receive a box of the overseas edition of my new cookbook Tonight I decided to do a very special giveaway….be the first in the world to receive my new cookbook! **GIVEAWAY HAS ENDED! Congratulations Kimsi from Belgium, Cathy in the USA and Renae in QLD, Australia! I have sent each... […]Nagi
wikimedia
- Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for October 8 October 8, 2024Picture of the day Blue-tailed bee-eater (Merops philippinus) in Yala National Park, Sri Lanka
- Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for October 7 October 7, 2024Picture of the day A rain-soaked jelly ear (Auricularia auricula-judae), family Auriculariaceae, on a stem of a Sambucus. Focus stack of 20 photos.
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Stump the Bookseller is a service offered by Loganberry Books to reconnect people to the books they love but can’t quite remember. In brief (for more detailed information see our About page), people can post their memories here, and the hivemind goes to work. After all, the collective mind of bibliophiles, readers, parents and librarians around the world is much better than just a few of us thinking. Together with these wonderful Stumper Magicians, we have a nearly 50% success rate in finding these long lost but treasured books. The more concrete the book description, the better the success rate, of course. It is a labor of love to keep it going, and there is a modest fee. Please see the How To page to find price information and details on how to submit your Book Stumper and payment.
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