It is on every visitor's itinerary and, along with the mummies of Egypt, is the most popular object in the British Museum. Why? To look at, it is decidedly dull - it is a grey stone, about the size of one of those large suitcases you see people trundling around on wheels at airports, and the rough edges show that it's been broken from a larger stone, with the fractures cutting across the text that covers one side. And when you read that text, it's pretty dull too - it's mostly bureaucratic jargon about tax concessions. But, as so often in the British Museum, appearances are deceiving, because this dreary bit of broken granite has played a starring role in three fascinating and different stories: the story of the Greek kings who ruled in Alexandria after Alexander the Great conquered Egypt; the story of the French and British imperial competition across the Middle East after Napoleon invaded Egypt; and the extraordinary but peaceful scholarly contest that led to the most famous decipher in history - the cracking of hieroglyphics. Found in Rashid by Captain Bouchard, this, along with many other discoveries by French scientists in Egypt, was made possible by the push of Napoleon Bonaparte to learn and, thus, be remembered. He proclaimed, "Soldiers, from the summit of yonder pyramids forty centuries look down upon you." And so, the scientists searched for knowledge.
Directiore, in May 1798, sent ambitious General Bonaparte and his army into Egypt in order that they cut a road between India and the English. The Expédition d'Égypte, as the French persist in calling the operation to this day, was supposed to cripple the British Empire without the risk of a frontal assault. There were also French schemes for turning Egypt into a vast sugar plantation and for digging the Suez Canal. Most of all, for Napoleon, who modeled himself on classical conquerors ("I saw myself on the road to Asia, riding on an elephant, a turban on my head"), Egypt was the first step in a grand dream of a Pan-Asian empire.