Rosetta-style engraving lauding Cleopatra I and two Ptolemaic Pharaohs unearthed in Egypt

A 2,200-year-old Rosetta-style limestone stele has been found at an ancient site near the Mediterranean Sea and the city of Alexandria in Egypt. Though archaeologists and Egyptologists haven’t deciphered the entire meaning yet, they say that, like the Rosetta stone, the stele commemorates ancient Egyptian royalty, in this case two Ptolemaic pharaohs and Cleopatra I.

This finding dates to the reign of Ptolemy V Epiphanes, 204 B.C. to 180 B.C. of the Ptolemaic Dynasty, 332 B.C. – 30 B.C. The Ptolemys ruled Egypt after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C.

Antiquties Minister Mamdouh el-Damaty said on Facebook that the importance of this discovery lies in the different scripts it was inscribed in. The stele has hieroglyphs and an apparent translation into demotic script. Demotic was a language used by the common people, while royals and the upper class used hieroglyphics.

The stele resembles the Rosetta Stone, which was inscribed in the ninth year of king Ptolemy V’s reign. That is two years after the Taposiris Magna stele was inscribed. The find is an exact copy of a stele from the Philae Temple near Aswan, which also dates to Ptolemy V’s reign. In it the pharaoh offered a large area of Nubia to the goddess Isis and her priests.

The world famous Rosetta Stone (Wikimedia Commons)