Mr. Dolnick uses his years of Science Writing combined with his previously used skill in writing a true crime story of fake Vermiers to suck in the reader in this centuries-long mystery of ancient Egypt and our understanding of it. Really very interesting, especially for people who love a true-life tale of the unknown and how we as humans go about understanding the past.

Why is the ancient Egyptian word for goose also used for son? How is demotic related to ancient Egyptian, if at all? Why did the Egyptians use hieroglyphs, when alphabets were readily available? And why was some text written inside elongated ovals?

The discovery and translation of the Rosetta Stone is one of the great stories, not only of archaeology, but of world history. It is filled with adventurers and thieves, madmen and geniuses, spies and Pharaohs. It covers millennia of time and extends across continents, moving from desert sands to fine aristocratic estates to marbled museums and the halls of government. It is a fascinating, fantastic tale.

In The Writing of the Gods, Dolnick recounts this complex and sometimes wild story in an accessible and highly engaging style. While Dolnick lays out the discovery and eventual translation in a fairly straightforward, chronological order, he also dives into numerous side quests (as it were); all of these in some way relate to and expand upon the main topic. Because, yes, everything is connected. Dolnick discusses geology (the stone in which the text was carved); politics and diplomacy in the ancient Mediterranean; ancient Egyptian polytheism; World War II era cryptography and the work on Minoan Linear B; colonialism and the theft of antiquities and their transportation to Western capitals and museums; British anti-homosexuality laws; the obsession of intellectuals and mystics with ancient Egyptian writing (and how very wrong their guesses were over the centuries); and so much more. Dolnick weaves each new piece of information, each new insight, into a rich and colorful tapestry.

It’s been a long time since a work of nonfiction so completely captured my attention. I have the feeling that it will also be one of the few that I return to again and again.

Highly recommended to anyone with an interest in Egyptology, linguistics, cryptography, or ancient history, as well as fans of How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill, The Library Book by Susan Orlean, The Darkening Age by Catherine Nixey, The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt, and The Written World by Martin Puchner.

I was very lucky to have friends living in London several years back. Steve and Megan had moved there for a couple years with plans to move back to the States when they had kids. It was my opportunity to stay with them for a week and see the sights. Off they would go to work and I’d head out to a museum or two and then meet them at a pub in the evening. One of my first stops was The British Museum. I was very lucky to have the room holding The Rosetta Stone to myself for a good fifteen minutes. It’s an incredible artifact. I sat down and thought about all the people who used to speak those languages… and the Egyptian pharaohs, and linguists who finally deciphered the text.

After only reading the museum’s description and a tiny bit of my own research, The Writing of the Gods was a very welcomed and thorough explanation of the history of the stone. The book describes the discovery in Rosetta, the politics of the find, and the eventual translation. The history is told with humor and an ear towards helping a modern audience understand the world BC…

People who read my blog know that while I mostly read SFF, I also dabble in nonfiction reviews. A few select book on sports, history, and even a memoir or two a year, but I try to vet these books very carefully. When I saw this book, I knew it was something I would like, especially the section where the two scholars are trying to decode the sections of The Stone. Having a little knowledge of languages helps. My very limited knowledge of Spanish (two yrs in HS) gave me some insight into how the translation worked.

I would recommend The Writing of the Gods to anyone who has an interest in the ancient world, languages, or history in general. My imagination was definitely spurred on Dolnick’s writing. He gave the reader the stepping stones to follow into the sands of the ancient Egyptian world.

4.5 out of 5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley, Scribner, and the author for an advanced copy for review.

The decoding story of the Rosette Stone is surprisingly gripping. The author allows enough discursive rope to illustrate interesting points, but does not lose the main thread. There is even some evidence for hedgehog (Champollion) over fox (Young) thinking.

I appreciate the publisher allowing me to read this book. This is a fascinating read that is very well written anyone interested in the Rosetta stone should read this.

This book has so much going for it, it’s hard to say what I enjoyed most!

The story of the Egyptian civilization which lasted 30,000 years? How Bonaparte brought not only an army of warriors, but an army of savants to Egypt? How ancient Egypt spurred the imagination of Europeans, with collectors and amateur Egyptologists scrambling to discover and buy up ancient artifacts?

The story of the Rosetta stone with its three sections of ancient languages, and how brilliant, eccentric scholars vied to be the first to decode it?

The history of writing, from mercantile records to historic records to literature, and from symbols to the alphabet?

The history of decoding?


The Egyptian God Toth was the god of writing
The Writing of the Gods by Edward Dolnick covers it all, wrapped in an engaging and accessible book.

Ancient Egyptian was a dead language when the Rosetta stone was found. The writing on the stone included Egyptian hieroglyphics, Greek, and an unknown section which turned out to be an ancient Egyptian shorthand for the hieroglyphics.

Ancient Egypt had been a stable society with few changes. The hieroglyphics did not change, unlike, say English. I can’t pick up Beowulf (circa 1000 AD) and read it without translation. The Egyptians knew about the wheel, but were not inspired to create a cart. All those pyramids were built without wheels! They made ramps of sand and pushed those stones into place! Christianity and the Mamelukes and the bubonic plague came along, and Egypt became a has-been. By the time Bonaparte arrived, magnificent temples were used for garbage dumps and sand buried the Sphinx up to her chin.

Dolnick leads readers step by step to understand how the hieroglyphics were decoded. It had long been believed that they were symbols not representative of spoken language, but mysterious and esoteric messages from the gods. Two scholars with different backgrounds and approaches took up the challenge of decoding the stone. First, the cartouches were considered, believing they were the names of the pharaohs seen in the Greek section of the Rosetta stone. These pharaohs were Greek, for Greece had conquered Egypt. Perhaps the symbols stood for sounds of the Greek names. The symbols were connected to sounds; the lion symbol stood for the sound “l’ in Ptolemy and Cleopatra, for instance. One scholar believed that Coptic was born out of ancient Egyptian and he determined to learn it although it was nearly a dead language, only surviving in the Coptic Church. This aided in understanding how the letters were pronounced.

Cracking the names of the pharaohs in the cartouches was just the beginning of the long process of decoding hieroglyphics.

Utterly fascinating and always engaging, I much enjoyed this book.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.