The British Museum

This guide to the British Museum starts with the Rosetta Stone, unearthed by French soldiers near Rosetta, Egypt in 1799 and seized by Britain three years later under the Treaty of Alexandria. It follows the rivalry that grew around its three scripts, especially British polymath Thomas Young, who identified the royal name Ptolemy among the hieroglyphs but got no further. Listen for how a rival across the Channel entered the race to crack a code unread for two thousand years.