ROSETTA

Arabic Rashid, town, northern al-Buhayrah muhafazah (governorate), in the northwestern Nile Delta, Lower Egypt. It lies on the left bank of the Rosetta (ancient Bolbitinic) Branch of the Nile River, 8 mi (13 km) southeast of its entrance into the Mediterranean and 35 mi northeast of Alexandria. The town was founded c. AD 800 by the caliph Harun ar-Rashid, whence its Arabic name. Although important until the 17th and 18th centuries as a trading centre, it declined with the growth of Alexandria. During prosperity it flourished as a cosmopolitan coastal port with a virtual monopoly on delta-grown rice. The town was guarded from sea attacks by two flanking forts. Many mosques, as well as Greek Orthodox and Coptic churches, were built there. Just north of Rosetta, in the vicinity of Fort-Saint-Julien, an officer of the French Napoleonic forces discovered (1799) the famed Rosetta Stone, which provided the French scholar Jean-Franois Champollion with the key to his successful decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphic writing (1822). A former port of the British East Indies trade, Rosetta still maintains a coastal trading function and has rice milling and fishing industries. It has highway and rail links with Alexandria and Damanhur. Pop. (1983 est.) 47,200.