Name: Date: Period:

Ch 1.6 Rosetta Stone Worksheet

Directions: Read the story in the left column. Answer the questions on the right.

The Sphinx

The sphinx is a mythological cteature thatoriginates in ancient Egypt. There are manydescriptions of sphinxes. Sonre have thebody of a lion with the head of a human.Some have the body of a lion rvith the headof a ram. And some lrave the body of a lionwith the head of a hawk or falcou.

There are many statues of sphiru<es inEgypt standing guard. The most famous oftlrese is the Great Sphinx of Giza, u'hichwas built around 2500 BC.

The Greeks imported the sphinx into theirrnythology as well. [n Greek m14hs, theSphinx was a nasty winged lion with thehead of a woman. The sphinx was a demonof bad luck and destruction.

In one Greek story, the sphinx besieged thecity of Thebes. The sphinx stopped alltravelers going into the city aud asked therna riddle. If the traveler couldn't answer theriddle then she devoured them.

(1) Where did the sphinx originate?

(2) What arc three descriptions of a sphinx?

(a)

(b)

(c)

(3) What do sphinx statues do?

(4) What is the most famous sphinx?

(5) When was it built?

(6) What was a sphinx in Greek rnythology?

(7) What kind of dernon lvas the sphinx?

(8) What city did the sphinx besiege?

(9) What did the sphinx do to travelers?.

(10) What did the sphinx do if the travelercouldn't answer the riddle?

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[i HHt.g ffiiU:bH[iil,d S['#HilHThe Rosetta Stone is an ancient Egyptian stone that is inscribed with adecree that was issued on behalf of an ancient Greek king. The RosettaStone was the key to understanding Egyptian hieroglyphics. Since thedecree was written in three different languages -- ancient Egyptianhieroglyphics, Demotic script, and ancient Greek -- scholars were able tocompare them and translate the hieroglyphics based on their knowledge ofancient Greek.

Thomas Young, an English physicist, was the first to show that some of thehieroglyphics on the Rosetta Stone wrote out the sounds of an EgyptianKing. The French scholar Jean-Frangois Champollion then realized that

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hieroglyphics recorded the sound of theEgyptian language and set up thefoundations of our knowledge of ancientEgyptian language.

Hieroglyphics were sacred characters reserved for religious orgovernmental mandates. The language was used to inscribetombs, temples and other monuments. Because hieroglyphicswere such an intricate and sacred language, the Egyptiansdeveloped hierativ, which was an abbreviated version ofhieroglyphics. Hieratic was used to record some governmentaldecrees and business transactions, but it wasn't used for sacredpurposes. By the Ptolemaic period, when the Rosetta Stone wasinscribed, Egyptians had turned to Demotic -- an even moresimplifi ed version of hieroglyphics.

@Trustees of the British Museum

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