In the Nile valley there had been found a few ancient inscriptions, carved upon stone in unknown characters, but no one could read them. The, about 1800 A.D., some soldiers of Napoleon in Egypt, while laying foundations for a fort, found a slab of black rock bearing three inscriptions. One of the inscriptions was in Greek, one was in the ancient hieroglyphics of the pyramids, and the third was in a later Egyptian writing, which had likewise been been forgotten. - West, 1904