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Egyptology investigates the range of Ancient Egyptian culture ( language, literature, history, religion, art, economics, and ethics) from the 5th millennium BC up to the end of Roman rule in the 4th century AD.
Modern Egyptology (as opposed to an antiquarian interest in the land of Egypt) is generally perceived as beginning in the year 1822, when Jean-François Champollion announced his general decipherement of the system of Egyptian hieroglyphics for the first time, employing the Rosetta StoneThe Rosetta Stone is a dark granite stone (often incorrectly identified as " basalt") which provided modern researchers with translations of ancient text in Egyptian demotic script, Greek, and Egyptian hieroglyphics. Because Greek was well known, the ston as his primary aid. With subsequently ever-increasing knowledge of Egyptian writing and language, the study of Ancient Egyptian civilisation was able to proceed with greater academic rigour and with all the added impetus that comprehension of the written sources was able to engender.