The Rosetta Stone is one of the most important treasures of Ancient Egypt, despite its mundane appearance. He became the key to deciphering the Egyptian script and allowed scientists to make a breakthrough in the study of this civilization.

Rosetta stone - what is it?

Compared to other ancient Egyptian artifacts, this find from 1799 is not so interesting in appearance. The stone is a granodiorite slab weighing 760 kg, with parameters 112.3*75.7*28.4 cm. The front part of the slab was polished, as it contains hieroglyphs, and the back part is rough. For a long time it was believed that the stone was made of granite, and only in 1999 it was possible to establish that it was granodiorite.

Of particular value is the inscription on the stone - the same text written in three different languages. One is inscribed in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, another in demotic writing, and the third in ancient Greek. It is known that this slab is only a part of a large stele, since not a single text has been preserved in a full-fledged version.

Discovery history

The Rosetta Stone was discovered by accident during the construction of Fort Saint-Julien near the small town of Rosetta in the Nile Delta. At the end of the 18th century, French troops occupied most of Egypt in order to expand their influence to India and defeat England. Many scientists arrived in Cairo with Napoleon's army, and in 1798 the French opened the Institute of Egypt. During the three years of occupation, many rare finds were made that helped in studying the history of this civilization.

That is why Captain Pierre-Francois Bouchard immediately realized the value of the found plate and sent it to Cairo, where the Institute of Egypt was located. However, the French army did not dominate Egypt for long - in 1801 they were defeated by England. Together with the rest of the values, the Rosetta Stone came to the British and to this day it is in the British Museum (London). Since then, Egypt has repeatedly expressed its claims to the stone, but the British Museum refused to return the artifact to its native country.

Rosetta stone text

On the stone, which is part of a one and a half meter stele, three identical texts are written in three languages. A thank you inscription addressed to the king of Egypt, Ptolemy V Epiphanes, is carved on the slab. It is dated 196 BC. e., then Egypt belonged to the Ptolemaic dynasty.

The work on deciphering the texts was long and difficult - despite the presence of three translations, they were only deciphered in 1822.

First, the Greek text was translated as a result of the joint work of the French librarians Gabriel de La Porte du Theil and Hubert Pascal Ameylon. In 1803, a translation of the Greek passage into Latin and French was issued.

Next, it was possible to decipher the demotic text with the help of the existing developments of the Swedish scientist David Åkerblad. The Frenchman Sylvester de Sacy helped finish his work, and in 1802 Åkerblad formed an alphabet of 29 letters.

Hieroglyphs were the most difficult task - in those years, scientists knew nothing about the writing of Ancient Egypt. The French scientist Jean-Francois Champollion spent years studying this plate, and in 1822 revealed to the world a translation of the ancient Egyptian text. Champollion was recognized as the founder of Egyptology - thanks to his decipherment, a huge breakthrough was made in the study of this civilization, and the key to understanding Egyptian writing as a whole was discovered.

Significance for science

Surprisingly, the Rosetta Stone played a crucial role in the birth and subsequent development of such a science as Egyptology. It became the key to deciphering many artifacts, because until 1822 the heritage of Ancient Egypt was not available to the rest of the world. Before the appearance of the stone, linguists did not even imagine how to approach the solution of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.

This unique find helped scientists learn all the secrets of Ancient Egypt - who built the pyramids, what gods the Egyptians worshiped and why they made mummies. Undoubtedly, the Rosetta Stone is the most important artifact for Egyptology.

Photo: @britishmuseum.org , @ancient.eu

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The beginning of the text: "To the new king who received the kingdom from his father" ... In the Hellenistic period, many such documents within the Greek ecumene were distributed in the form of bi- or trilinguistic texts, which subsequently served linguists in good stead.

In the middle of the 19th century, the stone was assigned the inventory number "EA 24", where "EA" is an abbreviation for English. "Egyptian Antiquities". According to the museum, the Rosetta Stone is the most visited single object, and for several decades postcards featuring it were the best-selling ones.

original stele

Estimated reconstruction of the original stele

The stone is a fragment of a large stele. Subsequent searches did not find any additional fragments. Due to damage, none of the three texts is absolutely complete. The Greek text contains 54 lines, of which the first 27 are preserved in their entirety, while the rest are partially lost due to a diagonal spall in the lower right corner of the stone. The demotic text is better preserved than the rest: it is 32 lines, of which the first 14 have the right side slightly damaged. The hieroglyphic text suffered the most. Only the last 14 lines of the hieroglyphic text have survived, all of them are broken off on the right side, 12 on the left. The total length of the hieroglyphic text and the overall size of the original stele, of which the Rosetta Stone is a fragment, can be estimated from comparison with stelae that have survived. Comparisons suggest that the additional 14 or 15 lines of hieroglyphic inscriptions missing from the top of the Rosetta Stone were another 30 centimeters. In addition to the inscription, there was probably a scene depicting the king being presented to the gods, crowned with a winged disc. The original height of the stele was probably about 149 centimeters.

Text interpretation

Before the discovery of the Rosetta Stone and its subsequent deciphering, linguists had no understanding of the ancient Egyptian language and script. During the late period of the pharaonic period, the use of hieroglyphic writing became increasingly specialized; in the 4th century AD, few Egyptians were able to read hieroglyphs. The monumental use of hieroglyphs ceased after the closure of all non-Christian temples in 391 by order of the Roman emperor Theodosius I; the last known inscription found at Philae is dated 24 August 396.

The French orientalist Sylvester de Sacy, the Swedish diplomat David Åkerblad, the English scientist Thomas Jung and the French researcher Jean-Francois Champollion were simultaneously engaged in deciphering Egyptian texts on stone.

see also

• Rosetta Stone (program) - software that helps to learn a foreign language
• Rosetta dynamic translator, designed to run Power PC on Apple computers
• International Association of Linguists and Native Speakers Rosetta Project
• Distributed Computing Project [email protected]

Notes

	Portal "Ancient Egypt"
	rosetta stone at Wikimedia Commons

This article lacks links to sources of information.

A unique plate, covered with unknown embossed symbols, was found by the French during the wars of the Great Commander Napoleon. It was easy to guess that these were some kind of letters. All hieroglyphs and signs were arranged in even rows. It was clear that the inscriptions are different written languages. They called the find the Rosetta Stone. Many works are devoted to its study: linguists, physicists, historians, geographers and other areas studying the past of the Earth.

The discovered slab is granodiorite. Found in Egypt in 1799. Several texts are located on the stone. The Rosetta stone of ancient Egypt is processed in different ways: the front part is polished, and the back part is rough, unpolished. The plate is included in the catalog of things found by the French during the Napoleonic military landings in different countries. The first description of the find is "a black granite stone with three inscriptions in hieroglyphs, Egyptian and Greek, found at Rosetta." Later, the opinion of scientists changed: the slab became a rock of black basalt. In 1999, they analyzed the natural material and determined that the Rosetta Egyptian stone has a slightly different structural composition. This is granodiorite - a rock of igneous origin. In composition, it is close to granite and diorite.

The main characteristics of the Rosetta plate:

• height - 1 m, 14 cm and 4 mm;
• width - 72 cm and 3 mm;
• thickness - 27 cm and 9 mm;
• weight - 760 kg.

After examining the chipped slab, scientists came to the conclusion that the piece is part of a whole wall. The damage does not allow to fully restore the inscription, as the last lines are chipped. There are 3 texts on the plate:

1. The Greek text is 54 character strips. 27 are fully readable. Next comes the diagonal split.
2. Hieroglyphic - 28 rows of characters. All lines are broken and damaged.
3. Additional text - another 14 or 15 lines.

Scientists suggest that a piece of about 30 cm was repulsed and lost. The total piece-slab was probably higher - 149 cm.

The find was discovered by a member of the French campaign, Bouchard. Warriors built fortifications, dug trenches. From the ground they raised a huge slab. It was torn off at the edges. Even soldiers ignorant of writing understood that they had discovered something unique. Egyptian hieroglyphs were arranged in even rows and evoked respect for the ancestors, even if they were from a foreign country. The letters were arranged in different directions. The Egyptians had the ability to write in two ways: from right to left and vice versa. Herodotus was surprised by this ability. One method was considered sacred, the other - folk.

The value of a priceless find

In Europe, little was known about the life and culture of Egypt. The country attracted many myths and legends. Scientists from almost all known areas went with Napoleon: linguists, botanists, geologists, meteorologists, geographers. The collection of finds grew and surprised. The Rosetta Ancient Egyptian Stone connected several eras. One of the inscriptions refers to 196 BC - the reign of Ptolemy. Scientists have never gone that far. Other symbols belonged to the era of cursive writing - demotic writing. The third text had Greek characters. Scientists assumed that there was one chronicle on the stone in different languages, they wanted to unravel, decipher the ancient Greek hieroglyphs.

The Rosetta stone has become a key, a clue, an assistant to multiple writings, historical facts lying in museums without explaining their content.

The most interesting were the inscriptions. To understand their content, the inscriptions were painted with white chalk. The rest of the surface was covered with wax. They tried to protect the stove not only from environmental influences, but also from humans. After each touch to the inscription left fingerprints. The Rosetta Stone has become darker from the wax. Because of this, it was recognized as black basalt. After cleaning, a dark gray shade appeared. The rock began to shine, streaks of a pink hue came to light. To work on deciphering the inscriptions, scientists made plaster casts.

They were transferred to universities in various cities:

• Oxford;
• Cambridge;
• Edinburgh;
• Dublin.

The prints of the casts were distributed to European universities.

Read also:

Jean-Francois Champollion's contribution to the deciphering of symbols

Jean-Francois Champollion is considered among scholars as the "father of Egyptology". He managed to understand the written monuments of ancient Egypt and discovered the secrets of peoples who had gone into the distant past, laid the foundation for Egyptology as a science. His painstaking work lasted for many decades. The Rosetta stone of ancient Egypt helped to prove the falsity of the conclusions of the scientific world of that time. Jean-Francois studied many works on hieroglyphs, penetrated into their secret.

Demotic writing consisted, according to linguists, of 25 characters. Most believed that Egyptian signs do not express sounds, they are whole words and concepts, that is, hieroglyphs are a pictorial transmission of events. Champollion deciphered the names Ptolemy and Cleopatra on the slab. The names of the kings became the starting point for reading all the saved words. A linguist proved that Greek letters are not drawings. He searched for the truth in papyri, comparing the found inscriptions with the inscriptions on the slab.

The signs on the stone were repeated. For one word, sometimes only 3 hieroglyphs were required. The linguist identified 166 different inscriptions on the stone. The names of rulers, kings were surrounded by a special sign - an oval-shaped frame. Its name is cartouche. Francois Champollion came to the conclusion that writing is a sound-syllabary.

A French researcher of ancient languages ​​created a dictionary and the first textbook on the grammar of ancient Egyptian writing. But his deciphering was not completed.

There are three types of text chronicles on the stele:

• Greek;
• demotic;
• hieroglyphic.

There are also new styles on both sides:

• on the left side: "Captured in Egypt by the British Army in 1801";
• on the right side: "Donated by King George III".

The museum exhibit is considered the most visited among tourists.

Interpretation of the inscriptions on the Rosetta plate

The deciphering of the symbolic writings of antiquity has gone through a complicated history. Before the discovery of the plate, linguists did not understand the ancient Egyptian symbolism. The lines are the whole history of the country, a legend or a description of a certain period of Egypt. Each line was translated by scientists into their own language, but linguists tried to preserve the era of a mysterious and great power.

The text is a historical document. It is called differently:

• resolution;
• decree;
• agreement;
• decree;
• tradition.

The plate was created on the anniversary of the coronation. She already represented a monument of history. Egyptian hieroglyphs are a gift from the priests.

Secrets from the past

“Epiphanes was crowned, he received the throne of a great country already in an era of prosperity. He needed to manage it with the help of a strong religion. The agreement between him and the priests needed to be perpetuated. The slab became the place where an important decree was fixed. On it, the ministers of religion were exempted from taxes, but promised constant support to the young pharaoh.

The historical information obtained during the translation made it possible to piece together the knowledge about the past lost in time. Each line is an honor to the king. As a result, it was decided to write down the decree in different languages, to place steles in each temple in front of the image of the king, great and eternally alive. Wikipedia provides a translation of the first line into Russian: "To the new king, who received the kingdom from his father."

You can try to recreate the text of the ancient rock art, such a figurative recreation of events:

“The young prince inherited part of his father's kingdom. The glorious father increased his power and, like God, became a great ruler, strong as an Ox, bright as the Sun. The prince turned all the peoples of Egypt upside down when he went to war down the country. The troops were greeted like a holiday. One day the prince went into his father's possessions, he was seized.

King Ptolemy did a lot of good, kind and valuable things for the people of Egypt. He sought to create a new state, perfect and just. Seeing the son of the gods Isis and Osiris, Horus, he realized that he needed to pray for shelter for his subjects. He fed, loved and led everyone to the sea. The king went to bathe and showed an example of how to remove the heaviness from the skin, charred under the hot sun. Further years of new wars and suffering. King Ptolemy was the first who believed in the power of God, gave himself to the service of religion. There were beautiful temples. The whole country was divided into three kingdoms, distributing power to the sons. The priests sang songs praising the great king.”

The literal translation of scientists proves that the biography of Ptolemy is written on the plate.

Hieroglyphic inscription - decree, excerpts from the king's speech. The priests carved on stone the promises of the ruler to change life, to bring the country out of debt, internecine wars and decline.

The Rosetta Egyptian stone came to Europe and became the property of the Museum of England. Visitors can see it, appreciate the greatness of a power that has gone down in history. The inscription helps to feel how strong the desire of a person to pass on his knowledge to the heirs, how the masters wanted to perpetuate certain milestones of life. They did not understand the full significance of their work, but believed in the need to create such products. The Rosetta Stone is the key to the mysteries of the past.

How the Napoleonic Wars influenced the development of Egyptology and how one of the most important mysteries of ancient history was solved, read in the History of Science section.

September 27, 1822 is considered the birth date of the science that was later called Egyptology. On this day in Paris, Jean-Francois Champollion, a young professor and corresponding member of the Academy of inscriptions and belles-lettres (then an academic meeting that united the humanities involved in history, archeology and linguistics), made a report at the academy, in which he stated that he had succeeded in read the hieroglyphs carved on the famous Rosetta stone.

The Egyptologist finally understood how the Egyptian hieroglyphs are arranged, just a week earlier, on September 14th. On the morning of that day, he received a letter from a friend depicting a hieroglyphic inscription found in Abu Simbel. Comparing what he managed to find out about the inscriptions carved on the Rosetta Stone, he realized that the hieroglyphs could be read. And most importantly, I understood how.

rosetta stone

Hans Hillewaert/Wikimedia Commons

Recall that the Rosetta Stone is a monolithic slab of black basalt, on which the Egyptian priests knocked out three texts identical in meaning, but in different scripts - one was ancient Greek, the other two were written in hieroglyphic writing and the so-called demotic, a simplified version of hieroglyphic writing. The plate was accidentally found near the town of Rosetta (now Rashid) by Napoleon's soldiers during the Egyptian campaign in 1799. And if the demotic letter could still be deciphered someday, then no one had such hope about the hieroglyphic text - it was believed that Egyptian hieroglyphs are signs-symbols, the meaning of which has long been lost and, therefore, they can never be read.

Champollion thought otherwise. From early childhood, he showed extraordinary abilities for languages, and since his older brother, Jacques-Joseph, was fond of the history of ancient Egypt and its writing, this passion passed to his younger brother.

Portrait of Champollion by Léon Cognier

Jean-Francois learned about the discovery of the Rosetta Stone at the same time that it was discovered. As the scientist recalled, he read about the find in a magazine at the age of nine. And even then, having heard that deciphering his hieroglyphs was impossible, he publicly announced at school that he would definitely read them. He began to really deal with the artifact about ten years later - in any case, it was then that he began to discuss the Rosetta Stone in correspondence with his brother.

The beginning of Champollion's adult life proceeded quite rapidly, since it was the time of the Napoleonic Wars and the subsequent Restoration. Champollion was, like his brother, a convinced Bonapartist, therefore he experienced both success and hardship - after the overthrow of Bonaparte, he was deprived of his professorship and exiled to Grenoble without a livelihood. However, no matter what happened to him, Jean-Francois was always absorbed in the study of Egyptian hieroglyphs.

The first thing that was found out during the analysis of the inscriptions on the Rosetta Stone is that some signs of the Demotic script resemble those of the Coptic alphabet. He then proved that these coincidences were not accidental. However, the hieroglyphs did not yield to the researcher for a long time. At first he mistakenly believed that they stood for words and not letters, but it was a dead end. Subsequently, Champollion realized that Egyptian hieroglyphic writing is a mixture of signs-symbols and signs-letters.

On September 14, when Champollion made his discovery, he saw in the sketches sent to him hieroglyphs in a cartouche, that is, circled in an oblong outline with a horizontal line at the bottom. And in ancient Egypt, as it has already been established, the Egyptians circled the name of the pharaoh with a cartouche.

Cartouche in the Temple of Horus (Edfu). Inside the cartouche - the name "Cleopatra"

Ad Meskens/Wikimedia Commons

Champollion was the first to figure out the name of Pharaoh Ramses. The word in the cartouche began with the image of the Sun, which he considered the letter "r", since in Coptic the word for "sun" sounds like "re". The word ended with an image deciphered earlier and displaying the mms sound. The researcher remembered the inscription in another cartouche, the Rosetta one. Starting to examine it, Champollion saw that the hieroglyph mms was also at the end of the word, and it began with an unresolved image of an ibis. But ibis in Coptic sounds like "that." And this means that the name of the pharaoh here is Thutmose.

In the short time remaining before the report at the Academy of Inscriptions, Champollion managed to analyze the rest of the hieroglyphs of the Rosetta Stone, since he knew them almost by heart. Ultimately, he found that most hieroglyphs for the most part consist of almost alphabetic characters.

The following years, Champollion did his best to read all the available ancient Egyptian inscriptions. In search of new hieroglyphic texts, he visited Italy, where, in particular, he discovered in one of the collections an inscription similar to the Rosetta one - with Greek, demotic and hieroglyphic texts. In this inscription, he was able to read two names - Cleopatra and Caesarion, her son from Julius Caesar.

He became, without exaggeration, a celebrity, everywhere he was met with honor, a street in Champollion's hometown of Figeac was renamed in his honor. He had everything except health. At the age of forty, the famous explorer died from a whole bunch of diseases.

No. 145. ROSETTA DECREE

(Ditt., Or. Gr. 90)

The famous trilingual Rosetta inscription was found in 1799 during Napoleon Bonaparte's campaign in Egypt. Based on her study, François Champollion began the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs. The inscription refers to 196 BC. e. and is dedicated to King Ptolemy V Epiphanes (1). It is a solemn decree of the assembly of Egyptian priests on the occasion of the victory of the king over the rebellious Egyptians. The inscription contains important data on the economic and political situation in Egypt at the beginning of the 2nd century BC. Don. e., reflects the beginning of the economic decline of the country, reports on the fierce struggle of the oppressed population against the Ptolemies and the solidarity with the last of the Egyptian priests.
The main text of the inscription was made in Egyptian (the Greek text is a copy).

In the reign of the young (king) and heir of the father in the kingdom, the glorious owner of the crowns; who established order in Egypt; pious towards the gods; winner over enemies; who improved the lives of people, the high priests, soothsayers, priests who gathered from the temples of the country in Memphis in front of the king for the celebration of accepting the crown of the ever-living Ptolemy, beloved Pt (2), the god Epiphanes the Eucharist (3), which he received from his father, [all these priests], having gathered in the temple of Memphis on this very day, decided:
Since the ever-living king Ptolemy, beloved of Pt, the god Epiphanes Eucharist, born of king Ptolemy and queen Arsinoe, the gods Philopators (4), rendered many blessings to the temples and those who are in them, and to all who are under his royal authority; and since he is a god, descended from a god and goddess (like Horus, the son of Isis and Osiris, who avenged his father Osiris (5)), and being generous to the gods, he donated to the temples income in the form of money and food and incurred great expenses in order to bring Egypt to a calm state and erect temples;
and he, to the best of his ability, showed philanthropic aspirations, and of the revenues and taxes received in Egypt, he completely abolished some, and facilitated others, so that the people and all others during his reign would be in prosperity;
and the debts to the royal treasury, which lay on the Egyptians and on the population of other parts of his kingdom, and which were very large, he forgave;
as for the prisoners in prisons and those people against whom trials had long been begun, he released them from all charges;
and as he commanded, moreover, that the revenues of the temples, and the donations that are brought to them every year in the form of food and money, and likewise the gifts due to the gods from the vineyards, orchards, and other lands that belonged to the gods in the reign of his father, remained on the same basis;
and as he ordered also concerning the priests, that they should not pay more at their initiation than what had to be paid before the first year of his father's reign; and he freed the people of the sacred colleges from the yearly voyage to Alexandria; then he ordered no more collection for the fleet, and he reduced the number of linen fabrics surrendered by temples to the royal treasury by two-thirds;
and as everything that had previously been neglected, he brought into proper order, desiring that what is usually done for the gods should be properly arranged;
at the same time, he gave justice to everyone, like the twice great Hermes (6): he ordered that native soldiers and other persons returning to their homeland, who were hostile (toward the authorities) during the period of unrest, remained in owning your property;
and since he also took care that cavalry and foot forces and ships were sent against the enemies who were marching on Egypt by sea and land, and incurring great expenses in money and food, so that the temples and the whole population of the country would be safe ;
but coming to Lykopolis (7), located in the nome of Busiris, which was captured and fortified in order to withstand the siege, and a large amount of weapons and other equipment was delivered there, since the wicked, filled with a rebellious spirit, had gathered in this city, which caused much harm to the temples and the population of Egypt, the king surrounded this city, erecting around it amazing mounds and walls and digging ditches; and in view of the fact that the rise of the Nile in the eighth year was very high, and, as usual, the river threatened to flood the valley, the king held back the waters, closing the mouths of the channels in many places, spending a considerable amount of money on this; setting out horsemen and footmen for their (it is not clear: new dams or rebels) protection, he in a short time took the city by force and defeated all the wicked [who rose against the god-king] who were in it, just as before Hermes and Horus, the sons of Isis and Osiris , subjugated those who rebelled against them in the same area; as for the leaders of the rebels under his father, who ruined the country and did injustice to the temples, he, having appeared in Memphis and avenged his father and his crown, punished them, as they deserved, when the time came for the ceremonies accompanying the adoption crowns;
and since, further, he canceled the debts of the temples that had accumulated before the eighth year to the royal treasury in the form of a very significant amount of food and money; he acted in exactly the same way with respect to payment for linen fabrics not submitted to the royal treasury and with respect to checking those fabrics that were handed over before the same date; he also freed temples from the obligation to give artaba (8) [grains] from the arura (9) of the sacred land, and, likewise, a pot [of wine] from the arura of the vineyard;
and as he made many gifts to Apis (10) and Mnevis (11) and other sacred animals of Egypt, far more than former kings, taking care of everything that concerns these animals; he generously and dignifiedly gave the necessary for their burial, as well as funds for temples specially dedicated to them, along with the performance of sacrifices, the celebration of festivities and everything else that is due in such cases;
and as he kept the privileges of the temples and of Egypt intact and intact according to the laws, and adorned Apion (12) with magnificent structures, bringing into it a large amount of gold, silver, and precious stones, and erected temples, sanctuaries, and altars; those in need of restoration [the temples] he corrected, having in everything that concerns the deity, the zeal of a beneficent god; having found out about the most respected temples, he restored them, as befits his reign;
for this, the gods granted him health, victory, strength and all other blessings, as well as the lasting possession of the crown by him and his descendants for all eternity - in a good hour!
[As a result of all this] the priests of all the temples of the country decided:
To increase as much as possible the honors rendered at the present time to the ever-living king Ptolemy, the beloved of Pt, the god Epiphanes the Eucharist, and likewise the honors paid to his parents, the gods Philopatores and the ancestors, the gods Evergetes and the gods Adelphi and the gods Soter.
Place in the most conspicuous place in each temple an image in honor of the ever-living king Ptolemy, the god Epiphanes the Eucharist, which will bear the name of Ptolemy, the protector of Egypt, and which should take the place of the most important god in the temple, holding in his hands the weapon of victory, according to the customs accepted in Egypt .
The priests are to perform a religious service three times a day in front of these images and dress them in sacred clothes and perform all other ceremonies that rely in this country with the solemn honoring of all other gods ...
(Following are other honors that the college of priests decided to pay to the king.)
Write this decree on a stele of hard stone with sacred writings in the native and Hellenic languages ​​and put it in every temple of the first, second and third category in front of the image of the ever-living king http://www.detskiysad.ru/raznlit/drevniymir.html.



also

The Rosetta Stone: translation of the demotic text

The stone was happily found in 1799.

And what is surprising - the text does not add anything to what the Europeans knew about Egypt before its discovery - from Herodotus, Plutarch, etc.

Here are the names and titles:
Egypt, Ptolemy, Ptah, Ra, Amon, Alexander, Berenice, Diogenes, Arsinoe, Horus, Isis, Osiris, Thoth, Apis, Memphis, Nile, etc. (The mysterious Soter from the Russian translation is the Savior).

Everything is clear to anyone who read the textbook "History of the Ancient World" for the 5th grade of high school.