Archaeologists working in Egypt’s eastern Delta uncovered a sandstone stele bearing a complete hieroglyphic version of the Canopus Decree at Tell El-Fara’in in El-Husseiniya, the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced.
The slab stands about 1.27 meters high, 83 centimeters wide, and 48 centimeters thick, with a curved top crowned by a winged sun disk and two royal cobras wearing the white and red crowns. Between the serpents the inscription Di Ankh, meaning “To him life,” appears, and thirty lines of hieroglyphs fill the central field. Scholars said the signs remained in perfect condition, allowing a meticulous reading.
The stele “is expected to provide valuable insights and enrich existing interpretations of the Rosetta Stone,” reported Focus Online. Experts called the object “the find of the century,” noting that no complete copy of the decree had surfaced in more than 150 years. Earlier discoveries yielded six fragmented examples from Kom al-Hisn, San al-Hagar, and Tell Basta, all bilingual or trilingual; the El-Husseiniya stone carried only hieroglyphs, a choice researchers said strengthened the Greek king’s claim to pharaonic legitimacy.
The decree, issued by priests in 238 BCE in honor of Pharaoh Ptolemy III Euergetes and Queen Berenice, addressed military affairs, rebellions, grain imports during drought, tax relief when the Nile ran low, and instituted an annual festival linked to the heliacal rising of Sirius. It also proposed adding an extra day every four years, foreshadowing the Julian calendar. One clause ordered that copies be inscribed in hieroglyphic, Demotic, and Greek and displayed in major temples; the newly unearthed slab answered that requirement in hieroglyphs.
Researchers said the complete text would allow a line-by-line comparison with fragmented versions, revealing local variations in religious practice and illuminating how Egyptians of the Hellenistic period conceived power, astronomy, and ritual. The Canopus Decree contributed to the nineteenth-century decipherment of hieroglyphs and, along with the Rosetta Stone, remains central to the study of the ancient language. Ministry officials said the fresh evidence “opens new horizons for understanding the ancient Egyptian language.”
While conservators prepared the monument for transport, epigraphers organized an international collaboration to compare every newly legible sign with museum holdings worldwide, aiming to let the decree speak again without gaps and in the script that once carried Ptolemy III’s voice across the Two Lands.
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