• The Rosetta Stone is a stone slab on which are engraved three sets of inscriptions: one in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics; one in a demotic, or common, Egyptian script used in everyday writing; and one in Greek as used by the Ptolemaic rulers (see “Building a Hellenized Society” in Chapter 5). The identical texts contain a Ptolemaic decree written by Egyptian priests to honor Ptolemy V. By comparing the Greek and demotic texts against the hieroglyphics, scholars for the first time could decipher the hieroglyphs. An excerpt from these texts appears in the first selection. One of the earliest surviving documents describing any part of Africa is the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. Written in Greek around 70 C.E. , probably by an Egyptian merchant from Alexandria, the Periplus provides a detailed account of the author’s sea voyage for use by future travelers. The excerpt in the second selection describes the East African coast.

The Rosetta Stone

“With good fortune! It has seemed fitting to the priests of all the temples of Egypt, as to the honours which are due to King Ptolemy, living forever, the Manifest God whose excellence is fine, in the temples, and those . . . due to the Father-loving Gods, who brought him into being, and those . . . due to the Beneficent Gods, . . . and those . . . due to the Brother-and-Sister Gods, . . . and those . . . due to the Saviour Gods, the ancestors of his ancestors, to increase them; and that a statue should be set up for King Ptolemy, . . . which should be called “Ptolemy who has protected the Bright Land,” the meaning of which is “Ptolemy who has preserved Egypt.” . . .

And there should be produced a cult image for King Ptolemy, . . . son of Ptolemy and Queen Arsinoe, the Father-loving Gods, . . . and a procession festival should be held in the temples and the whole of Egypt for King Ptolemy, . . . each year, from first month of Akhet, day 1, for five days, with garlands being worn, burnt offerings and libations being performed, and the rest of the things that it is fitting to do; and the priests . . . in each of the temples of Egypt should be called “The Priests of the Manifest God.” . . .

And the decree should be written on a stela of hard stone, in sacred writing, document writing, and Greek writing, and it should be set up in the first-class temples, the second-class temples and the third-class temples, next to the statue of the King, living forever.”

Periplus of the Erythraean Sea

15. After two courses of a day and night along the Ausanitic coast [coast of modern Zanzibar], is the island Menuthias, about three hundred stadia from the mainland, low and wooded, in which there are rivers and many kinds of birds and the mountain-tortoise. There are no wild beasts except the crocodiles; but there they do not attack men. In this place there are sewed boats, and canoes hollowed from single logs, which they use for fishing and catching tortoise. In this island they also catch them in a peculiar way, in wicker baskets, which they fasten across the channel-opening between the breakers.

16. Two days’ sail beyond, there lies the very last market-town of the continent of Azania, which is called Rhapta. . . . Along this coast live men of piratical habits, very great in stature, and under separate chiefs for each place. The . . . chief governs it under some ancient right that subjects it to the sovereignty of the state that is become first in Arabia. And the people of Muza now hold it under his authority and send thither many large ships; using Arab captains and agents, who are familiar with the natives and intermarry with them, and who know the whole coast and understand the language.

17. There are imported into these markets the lances made at Muza especially for this trade, and hatchets and daggers and awls, and various kinds of glass; and at some places a little wine, and wheat, not for trade, but to serve for getting the good-will of the savages. There are exported from these places a great quantity of ivory, but inferior to that of Adulis, and rhinoceros-horn and tortoise-shell (which is in best demand after that from India), and a little palm-oil.

Sources: Richard Parkinson, Cracking Codes: The Rosetta Stone and Decipherment (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), pp. 199–200; W. H. Schoff, trans. and ed., The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea: Travel and Trade in the Indian Ocean by a Merchant of the First Century (London, 1912), pp. 27–29.

QUESTIONS FOR ANALYSIS