How did scholars begin to decipher ancient scripts like the hieroglyphs? Subscribe for regular science videos: http://bit.ly/RiSubscRibe Buy Andrew's biography of Jean-François Champollion "Cracking the Egyptian Code": https://geni.us/WQwD Very soon after the birth of the first written language - cuneiform - ancient Egypt developed its own writing: the hieroglyphic script, immortalised in the Rosetta Stone kept in the British Museum, which consists of a single royal edict, dated 196 BC, written in the hieroglyphic, demotic and Greek alphabetic scripts. Andrew Robinson is the author of more than twenty-five books, issued by leading general and academic publishers. In addition to "Cracking the Egyptian Code", they include "The Last Man Who Knew Everything" (a biography of Thomas Young): https://geni.us/XIBXvR , and "Lost Languages: The Enigma of the World’s Undeciphered Scripts": https://geni.us/iqP0Q. A former literary editor of The Times Higher Education Supplement, he also writes reviews and features for newspapers, magazines and journals, in both the arts and sciences. This talk was filmed in the Ri on 18 January 2019. Watch the second talk on ancient codes, all about the cuneiform language by Irving Finkel: https://youtu.be/PfYYraMgiBA --- A very special thank you to our Patreon supporters who help make these videos happen, especially: Dave Ostler, David Lindo, David Schick, Erik Shepherd, Greg Nagel, Ivan Korolev, Joe Godenzi, Julia Stone, Lasse T. Stendan, Lester Su, Osian Gwyn Williams, Paul Brown, Radu Tizu, Rebecca Pan, Robert Hillier, and Roger Baker. --- Subscribe for regular science videos: http://bit.ly/RiSubscRibe The Ri is on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution and Twitter: http://twitter.com/ri_science and Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/royalinstitution and Tumblr: http://ri-science.tumblr.com/ Our editorial policy: http://www.rigb.org/home/editorial-policy Subscribe for the latest science videos: