The Rosetta Stone is one of the most famous archaeological finds in the world. At the time of its discovery in 1799, the significance this stone would have was unimaginable. Before the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, little was known about Egyptian hieroglyphs or what they represented. The Rosetta Stone was fundamental to understanding Egyptian hieroglyphics and allowed us to better understand the culture of ancient Egypt. The Rosetta Stone was discovered in July 1799 in Rosetta (now el-Rashid) in Egypt (Cracking Codes 20). Pierre Francois Xavier Bouchard, a soldier in Napoleon's army, discovered the stone while digging the foundations of an addition to a fort (Cracking Codes 20). He recognized the stone as part of a stele, or slab marking government or territorial notices (Cracking Codes 20). Bouchard reported the discovery to a French general, Jacques-Francois Menou, who had the stone excavated and cleaned (Cracking Codes 21). News of the discovery spread quickly, but no one immediately managed to decipher the writings (Cracking Codes 21). After Napoleon's defeat, the stone became the property of the English under the terms of the Treaty of Alexandria of 1801 (Cracking Codes 22). Rosetta Stone is composed of black granite rock and quartz (Bierbrier 113) but is commonly mistaken for black basalt because it has been treated with carnauba wax for protection and white chalk has been used to emphasize the writing (Cracking Codes 23). The Rosetta Stone is currently 112.3 centimeters long, 75.7 centimeters wide, 28.4 centimeters thick and weighs approximately 1680 pounds (The British Museum Collection Online). On it, a decree on behalf of King Ptolemy V appears in three writings: the upper text consists of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the central text... in the center of the card... deposited in the British Museum since 1802 ( Cracking Codes 8). In July 2003, Egypt requested that the Rosetta Stone be returned to Cairo (Edwardes and Milner 2003). The director of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Cairo said: “If the English want to be remembered, if they want to restore their reputation, they should volunteer to return the Rosetta Stone because it is the icon of our Egyptian identity.” (Edwardes and Milner 2003). In 2009, the British and Egyptians were in negotiations to lend the Rosetta Stone to the Great Museum of Egypt for a short period of time (al-Atrush 2009). The term "Rosetta Stone" is now used idiomatically to represent crucial information when decoding language. This colloquial usage is certainly accurate; The Rosetta Stone played a key role in our understanding of hieroglyphics, and without it we could never understand ancient Egyptian culture.