What artifact helped decode Egyptian hieroglyphs?

The story behind the answer

Rosetta Stone is correct because it bears the same decree written in three scripts—hieroglyphic, Demotic, and ancient Greek. Since scholars already understood Greek, they used it to match words and sounds across the scripts, allowing Jean-François Champollion in 1822 to crack the hieroglyphic system for the first time. The other options aren’t decoding keys: “Sphinx Tablet” refers loosely to the Dream Stele, the Nile Codex isn’t a real artifact, and Coptic manuscripts, while helpful for vocabulary, weren’t the breakthrough.

Discovered in 1799 near Rashid (Rosetta) in Egypt, the stone dates to 196 BCE under Ptolemy V. Memory tip: “Rosetta” has become a synonym for a key to understanding—think of it as the linguistic Swiss Army knife that unlocked the voices of ancient Egypt.