Napoleon’s Invasion of Egypt -Finding the Rosetta Stone

In 1798, Napoleon led the French army into Egypt, swiftly conquering Alexandria and Cairo. Despite these early victories, the British destroyed the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile, leaving the French army stranded in Egypt. By the end of 1798, discontent against the French led to an uprising by the people of Cairo.

Napoleon’s Egyptian expedition included 167 scientists, and in July 1799 they discovered a dark stone with the same text in three languages – Demotic, Hieroglyphic, and Greek. The stone was found in Rosetta (modern el Rashid), located on a tributary of the Nile near the Mediterranean.

In The Hesperus Prophecies, this isn’t the only stone of great importance discovered in Rosetta. While the Rosetta Stone is the key to translating Hieroglyphics, the other stone leads Napoleon’s men to an Axyn Kirox, and possibly an Epistolith, in Egyptian known as an Akhet Ra.