Jean Champollion and The Rosetta Stone

The above is a National Geographics clip discussing how Jean Champollion, the man who transliterated the Egyptian hieroglyphs, was able to decipher it.  The video briefly describes what languages are on the stone, and what was written upon it - commemorating the coronation of Ptolemy V (Ptolemes in Greek) in 196 BCE, and the later half discusses how the Philae obelisk was used to help decipher the Egyptian hieroglyphs through comparisons of the symbols in the names Ptolemy, and Cleopatra.  This led to the realization that, while some hieroglyphs were ideograms and pictograms, the hieroglyphs essentially represented letters and syllables.

The clip, which is part of a larger documentary, outlines the significance behind the Rosetta Stone in the study of Egyptian culture, and how it was significant in helping archaeologists to decipher the Egyptian hieroglyphs that had previously eluded scholars.