The Guardian, Saturday 13 November 2010
This lump of granite from Egypt, "about the size of one of those large suitcases you see people trundling around on wheels at airports", is, as he frankly admits, "decidedly dull to look at".
It earns its place in A History of the World in 100 Objects because in the 19th century the equally dull text – on tax breaks for priests, inscribed upon it, in three different languages (Greek, demotic Egyptian and hieroglyphs) – became the key to decoding the hieroglyphic script of the ancient pharaohs.
But, more than that, the stone also has a powerful modern history of its own. It was fought over by French and British troops at the end of the Napoleonic wars, and finally taken to London. MacGregor is one of the few to point out that it is actually inscribed in four, not three, languages: on its side, we can still read, in English, "Captured in Egypt by the British Army in 1801."
Ironically, given the British possession of the stone, it was a Frenchman, Jean-François Champollion, who finally deciphered the hieroglyphs. What MacGregor does not mention is that this unphotogenic object has for years and years been the bestselling postcard in the British Museum, easily outstripping more elegant objects, such as the Elgin marbles, or more instantly appealing icons, such as the Lewis chessmen. Indeed, until it was put in a glass case a few years ago, the Rosetta stone was the object of a kind of veneration. I used to see many museum visitors lean over the low railings round it and steal a quick touch, while the warders kindly turned a blind eye.
Why the fascination? Presumably those who touched it, or bought the postcard and stuck it on their wall or sent it to friends, already shared MacGregor's sense that "things" (as he repeatedly calls his star objects) open up our world and our history to us. We decode our past through objects as much as texts – and never more dramatically than with this lump of granite.
Full story at The Guardian.
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