ABSTRACT
The era of modern scientific exploration for historical material in Egypt began with Napoleon’s invasion, the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, its acquisition by Britons for transfer to London, and its decipherment by Jean Francois Champollion. Most of the important historical societies in America bear the names of States or cities. The first, the Massachusetts Historical Society, was modeled upon the London Society of Antiquaries. For centuries the world’s principal storehouse of written materials, historical, literary, and scientific, its great nursery of learning, was the Byzantine Empire. Among modern governments Great Britain’s has shown the most enterprise in collecting, arranging, and throwing open to search its official records. As the civilizations of the Mediterranean basin developed, papyrus makers, clerks, authors, and libraries increased in number, until long before the Christian Era the written materials for literature and history had become fairly abundant.
