An International Intrigue

In July 1799, a French officer serving in Napoleon's Egyptian expedition unearthed a granite block bearing text in three different scripts — Greek, demotic Egyptian, and hieroglyphics. Following the discovery, a remarkable competition ensued for possession of the stone as well as for decoding its inscription. Using all the elements of a detective thriller, the authors, a well-known novelist, and a leading Egyptologist tell the story of international intrigue surrounding the intellectual quest to crack the stone's code — the key to reading ancient Egyptian texts for the first time.