Mohan Li

They say that history is made by people. That the future, ever fluid and shifting, is conceived of by brilliant minds, won with hard, callused hands and molded through gruel and labor. That the struggle and toil of our generation will be forever etched into history. But we are mere humans. Mortals of flesh and bone. In the grand scheme of things, our people, and the little societies we prop up are but specks upon the incomprehensible immensity of time. Like all others, the unyielding river of time will eventually claim us.  And when we are devoured by time, what will remain of the great minds that dreamed this world? What of the hard, callused hands that won this world, of the struggle and toil through which this world was born? When flesh crumbles and empires fall, all that will remain are objects. It is depressing to imagine an artifact as the culmination of one’s life. To think of a lifetime of toil entombed within a rusted sword. But objects are sly, keeping many a secret wrapped deep within a rusted embrace. Buried deep beneath the grime, sheathed in rust is the sparkling splendor of enlightenment. For simple objects have shaped our past and continue to shape our future. This essay will be analyzing three of the most important objects from our history. These will be the Rosetta Stone, the Sutton Hoo Helmet and the Elgin Marbles. This essay will look at the history of these objects and the significance of these objects towards our understanding of the past. Additionally, the essay will be analyzing these objects as cultural artifacts before finishing with a conclusion. The first object this essay will be looking at is the Rosetta Stone. The Rosetta Stone is a granodiorite stone stele from Ancient Egypt, upon which a decree is inscribed. The decree was from the reign of King Ptolemy V, issued by a council of priests to reaffirm their support of the King. It also talks of King Ptolemy’s contributions towards the temples of the priests. From the Rosetta Stone, we can see that religion continued to play an important part in the administration of Egypt. The King’s contributions towards the temple of the priests shows how far the King would go to keep the favor of the priests, and the power of religion in the courts of Ancient Egypt. The decree itself was translated into Hieroglyphs, Demotic and Ancient Greek. The Hieroglyphs was a system of pictorial writing, an enigmatic way of writing few Egyptians understood. In Ancient Egypt, Hieroglyphs were commonly associated with religion and were mainly used by priests. Demotic was another Egyptian system of writing, an early descendent of Coptic, the official Egyptian language today. Demotic was far clearer to write and learn, compared to the symbols and pictures of the Hieroglyphs. Demotic was mainly used among the general populace, giving it the name Demotic, “The Language of the People.” Ancient Greek was a language developed from the Greek City States. However, Alexander the Great’s conquests sowed the seeds of Greek culture far and wide. After Alexander’s death, his Empire was carved apart by his generals. One of these generals was Ptolemy Soter, known to us as Ptolemy I. He seized control of Egypt and brought with him Greek traditions and customs. One of these customs would have been language. Under his descendants, Ancient Greek became the language of royalty. As a result of this, Ancient Greek became the language of royalty in Ancient Egypt. With the rise of Christianity, and the closing of many Pagan temples, knowledge of the already obscure Hieroglyphs was lost. Along with this, large portions of Ancient Egyptian History and the Religion had been recorded in Hieroglyphs. For centuries, scholars had been attempting to decipher the Hieroglyphics, to no avail. However, Ancient Greek remained an important part of history, establishing itself as a cornerstone of Western culture. Ancient Greek was the language of knowledge, the language of Homer, Aristotle, Pythagoras and countless others. Thus, the language was preserved in the form of philosophy, history and entertainment. For more than a millennium, Hieroglyphics had been a lost language. So when the Rosetta Stone was first chanced upon by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1799, during his expedition into Egypt, scholars recognized the importance of this artifact. Finally, they had a bridge to the translation of the cryptic Hieroglyphics through the already known language of Ancient Greece. However, these efforts were interrupted by Napoleon’s defeat, where the Rosetta Stone, along with many other artifacts were ceded to Britain under the Treaty of Alexandria. After the Rosetta Stone arrived in England, efforts to decipher the Hieroglyphics commenced. However, it was only until 1822, when the French scholar Jean-François Champollion realized Hieroglyphs represented sounds. This discovery was only solidified when he pieced together the name of foreign rulers using Hieroglyphics. Along with his knowledge of the Coptic language, which is closely related to the Demotic text found upon the Rosetta Stone, he was able to decipher the enigma of Hieroglyphs that had eluded scholars for centuries. Through the Rosetta Stone and our newly acquired understanding of Hieroglyphics, we were able to decipher centuries of lost Egyptian history and religion. I chose the Rosetta Stone because of the significance it has had to Egyptology, the key to centuries of history and religion long forgotten. Additionally, the Rosetta Stone increased our understanding of Demotic. This allowed us to look into the daily lives of Ancient Egypt’s general populace, cementing our understanding and providing new angles towards Ancient Egypt’s culture, history and religion. The Rosetta Stone is the basis of the complete picture of Ancient Egypt we are presented with today, rather than the fragments of one history’s most magnificent civilizations. The second artifact is the Sutton Hoo helmet. The Sutton Hoo helmet was a lavish helmet from the Anglo-Saxon times.  It depicts eyebrows, a nose and a mustache. The helmet itself would have been made from iron, coated in a sheets of bronze