After the decline of the Egyptian civilization, the hieroglyphs were forgotten. For centuries, no one could understand the mysterious writing carved on Egyptˇs monuments. In 1799, members of a French expedition found a stone in Rosetta, near the Egyptian city of Alexandria. On this stone, the same text had been transcribed in hieroglyphs, in demotic script (ancient Egyptian handwriting) and in Greek..Frenchman Jean-Franc?ois Champollion used his knowledge of languages to.decode the hieroglyphs and thus reveal the secrets of ancient Egypt.