Rosetta Deep Field

Mia Rosenthal's meticulous drawing is on a piece of paper shaped to mimic the silhouette of the object it represents: the Rosetta Stone. This object is a stone slab dating from 196 BCE bearing a decree (a message) issued in Egypt about King Ptolemy V. It bears three sections of language, inscribed on the surface: Egyptian hieroglyphs (for temple priests), Demotic (cursive used for daily purposes by the people), and Ancient Greek (the language of the Greco-Macedonian rulers at the time). When the stone was located in 1799 hieroglyphics had not been translatable into other languages. The stone provided a key to their meaning by showing an example of translation in its form. Rosenthal, who is fascinated by deep history, carefully drew the stone and its intricate surface after seeing it in person by working from a reproduction on a souvenir tea towel from the British Museum gift shop.