Some discoveries are so profound, their influence can impact culture on more levels than one. The discovery of the Rosetta Stone on July 19, 1799 decoded the Egyptian hieroglyphics — a written language that had been dead for 20 centuries. “Rosetta stone” also became a universal phrase used to describe the final, indispensable clue that might unlock any mystery. Part of the impact of the stone and the phrase was due to the mesmerizing effect Napoleon’s Egyptian discoveries had in Europe where the pyramids, the mummies and the strange, ancient writings captured the imagination of the continent. Here’s a bit of background…

On this day in 1799, during Napoleon Bonaparte’s Egyptian campaign, a French soldier discovers a black basalt slab inscribed with ancient writing near the town of Rosetta, about 35 miles north of Alexandria. The irregularly shaped stone contained fragments of passages written in three different scripts: Greek, Egyptian hieroglyphics and Egyptian demotic. The ancient Greek on the Rosetta Stone told archaeologists that it was inscribed by priests honoring the king of Egypt, Ptolemy V, in the second century B.C. More startlingly, the Greek passage announced that the three scripts were all of identical meaning. The artifact thus held the key to solving the riddle of hieroglyphics, a written language that had been “dead” for nearly 2,000 years.

When Napoleon, an emperor known for his enlightened view of education, art and culture, invaded Egypt in 1798, he took along a group of scholars and told them to seize all important cultural artifacts for France. Pierre Bouchard, one of Napoleon’s soldiers, was aware of this order when he found the basalt stone, which was almost four feet long and two-and-a-half feet wide, at a fort near Rosetta. When the British defeated Napoleon in 1801, they took possession of the Rosetta Stone.

Several scholars, including Englishman Thomas Young made progress with the initial hieroglyphics analysis of the Rosetta Stone. French Egyptologist Jean-Francois Champollion (1790-1832), who had taught himself ancient languages, ultimately cracked the code and deciphered the hieroglyphics using his knowledge of Greek as a guide. Hieroglyphics used pictures to represent objects, sounds and groups of sounds. Once the Rosetta Stone inscriptions were translated, the language and culture of ancient Egypt was suddenly open to scientists as never before.

Here’s a documentary about the stone, its discovery, and the global rivalries laying claim to the breaking of its code and to its rightful ownership…

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Google Maps has just released a street view that invites you to virtually explore The Great Pyramids of Giza and The Great Sphinx on digital foot among blurry-faced tourists who seem as curious about you (the Google eye) as they are about the presumably man-made wonders. Technology has elevated the experience of vicarious, imaginative tourism from illustrations to photographs to film, and now it’s possible to basically simulate astral projection among the pyramids of Egypt. We recommend listening to Sun Ra & His Arkestra Live in Egypt as you embark upon your journey to Planet Google Earth.

Street View Treks: Egypt by Google Maps

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Tracing the roots of the opium poppy all the way back to its likely origins in Mesopotamia in 4000 BC, this episode of Addicted to Pleasure takes a look at the plant, it’s pharmaceutical derivatives and society’s ambivalent relationship with the substance.

In its pure form, the milky sap of an opium poppy has been used for centuries as a relaxant — brewed into a tea it helps the nervous sleep; in ancient Egypt it was smeared on the nipples of nursing mothers to calm colicky babies. However, when opium is intensified by the hand of man, it can become a miracle pain reliever, a doorway into the nightmare of addiction or both.

This is an entertaining history of opium — its ancient past and its troublesome present. It’s also a great primer on the tragic rise of the British East India Company which became “the largest and most disgraceful drug smuggling operation in history.”

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