These ancient Egyptian writings, both the hieroglyphic and the demotic, were, alike, a sealed literature until the discovery (in 1799) of the Rosetta Stone--and its subsequent decipherment by Champollion and Young. The inscription of this most important "find" is cut into a basalt slab, three feet two inches long and two feet five inches wide. On this slab is carved a tri-lingual decree of Ptolemy Epiphanes in _hieroglyphic_ or the earliest form of picture-writing, in _demotic_ or the later writing of the people as distinguished from that of the priests, and in _Greek_ or the language resulting from Alexander's domination of the world--the common tongue at the beginning of the Christian Era. The former two inscriptions, though in forms of the Egyptian language long "dead" and undecipherable, were given a material resurrection through their Greek consort. The Greek language, therefore, was the key to unlock, not the inscription of the Rosetta Stone alone but also the vast treasure house of the ancient Egyptian literature. By means of the "golden guess" or the hypothesis of Dr. Young that each part of the tri-lingual inscription on the Rosetta Stone referred to or contained the same subject-matter though in different writings; through the ascertainable meaning of the Greek part of the inscription (including the proper names of Ptolemy and Cleopatra); and through the untiring patience of these early Egyptologists, the hitherto unknown meaning, not only of the Rosetta Stone but of the entire Egyptian hieroglyphs, has been opened up to the world's view.