The Riddle of the Rosetta Stone

"The Riddle of the Rosetta Stone" is accessible to our 9-year-old would-be Egyptologist with just a bit of vocabulary help from adults, yet is not the least insulting to her parents. This small book, with fewer than 100 pages, largeish type, and many clear illustrations, gives a readable and straightforward account of how the Rosetta stone allowed scholars to understand and even find the pronunciation of a language long after its last speaker was long dead. We learn, for example, that to the ancients, she was "Cleopadra" and not "Cleopatra".There is enough detail to help understand the process, and to convince the reader that the reconstructions are sound. The stone and its translation is put into its historical context, both ancient and modern.This is an admirable, brief, and inexpensive introduction to the subject, and is well-written. The professional will look elsewhere, and the complete greek, demotic, and heiroglyphic texts are available in the inexpensive Dover reprint of E.A. Wallis Budge's "The Rosetta Stone", which I review separately.