Young's Rosetta Stone research. Page of notes made in the 1810s by British physicist and Egyptologist Thomas Young (1773-1829) as he attempted to decipher the Rosetta Stone. Discovered by Napoleon's army in 1799 in Rashid (Rosetta) in Egypt, this stone's inscription was written in three parallel languages: everyday script, the official language (Greek), and hieroglyphics. This allowed subsequent researchers (primarily Jean-Francois Champollion in the 1820s) to decode the hieroglyphics. This early work by Young was crucial to Champollion's later work. The Rosetta Stone has been displayed in the British Museum since 1802.