So, what do we know about the Rosetta Stone? Well, it was unearthed in Egypt, in the late 1700's during the time of the French occupation. It's made of black granite and has parallel inscriptions in three languages: Ancient Greek, Egyptian demotic, and Egyptian hieroglyphics. Scholars in the nineteenth century studied the inscriptions and, because they could read the Ancient Greek text, they were able to decode the meaning of the Egyptian hieroglyphics for the first time. So, although to us—as a translation tool—the stone's importance is huge, it was not very significant for the people writing at the time. The text of the Rosetta Stone is a reproduction of an administrative law passed in 196 BCE. At the time the king was Ptolemy, and the law was introduced by a council of Egyptian priests to commemorate the anniversary of his coronation. It includes lists of the king's achievements, such as the restoration of peace and the reduction of taxes. It's highly likely that what we call the Rosetta Stone was just one of hundreds of copies of the same message that were put on show all over Egypt.