- The Rosetta Stone was discovered by French soldiers in Egypt in 1799 and helped French scholars begin to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs. - When the British defeated the French in Egypt in 1801, the Rosetta Stone was transferred to British possession per the Treaty of Capitulation and sent to the British Museum in London. - Jean-François Champollion was able to decipher the hieroglyphs by comparing the Greek and Egyptian scripts on the Rosetta Stone, making him the father of Egyptology.