It also was during the French occupation that the Rosetta
Stone was discovered in the Nile Delta. The black basalt stone
contained a single official document written in three languages,
one of which, Greek, was known to the French. (The other two
languages were Egyptian scripts, which up until then had not
been decipherable.) With the Rosetta Stone, French scholar Jean-
François Champollion was able to unlock the mysteries of the
ancient language. Suddenly the modern world could make sense
of the treasure trove of written documents and stone inscrip-
tions left by the ancients. Another important legacy of the short
French occupation of Egypt was the adoption of French as a sec-
ond language among educated Egyptians. Even today, the most
educated Egyptians learn Arabic, English, and French.
British and Ottoman forces drove the French out of Egypt
in 1801. For about the next 75 years, Egypt had some degree
of independence from outside powers. A strong ruler named
Muhammad Ali, while actually a non-Egyptian (Albanian),
struggled to distance the country from its Ottoman Turkish
orientation. He wanted to make Egypt an important economic
and political power in its own right. A cornerstone of his effort
was to make Egypt a leading producer of cotton, which was an
important global commodity and therefore could help make
Egypt wealthy. His agricultural experts and engineers brought
Sudanese long staple cotton to Egypt—the same type that is
now famous around the world as Egyptian cotton. They began
building barrages that would allow this crop to be irrigated in
the Nile Delta during the summer.
In the decades following Muhammad Ali’s death in 1849,
his grandson and successor, Ismail, tried to make Egypt a more
industrialized country. For example, Egyptians built paper
processing mills, railways, and modern public works. He also
worked with French experts to undertake the building of one of
the world’s most important waterways, the Suez Canal, which
opened for traffic in 1869. Unfortunately, Ismail inherited a
burden of debt to European lenders that he paid off in large
Stone was discovered in the Nile Delta. The black basalt stone
contained a single official document written in three languages,
one of which, Greek, was known to the French. (The other two
languages were Egyptian scripts, which up until then had not
been decipherable.) With the Rosetta Stone, French scholar Jean-
François Champollion was able to unlock the mysteries of the
ancient language. Suddenly the modern world could make sense
of the treasure trove of written documents and stone inscrip-
tions left by the ancients. Another important legacy of the short
French occupation of Egypt was the adoption of French as a sec-
ond language among educated Egyptians. Even today, the most
educated Egyptians learn Arabic, English, and French.
British and Ottoman forces drove the French out of Egypt
in 1801. For about the next 75 years, Egypt had some degree
of independence from outside powers. A strong ruler named
Muhammad Ali, while actually a non-Egyptian (Albanian),
struggled to distance the country from its Ottoman Turkish
orientation. He wanted to make Egypt an important economic
and political power in its own right. A cornerstone of his effort
was to make Egypt a leading producer of cotton, which was an
important global commodity and therefore could help make
Egypt wealthy. His agricultural experts and engineers brought
Sudanese long staple cotton to Egypt—the same type that is
now famous around the world as Egyptian cotton. They began
building barrages that would allow this crop to be irrigated in
the Nile Delta during the summer.
In the decades following Muhammad Ali’s death in 1849,
his grandson and successor, Ismail, tried to make Egypt a more
industrialized country. For example, Egyptians built paper
processing mills, railways, and modern public works. He also
worked with French experts to undertake the building of one of
the world’s most important waterways, the Suez Canal, which
opened for traffic in 1869. Unfortunately, Ismail inherited a
burden of debt to European lenders that he paid off in large
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