Influences on Ideas in The Riddle of the Rosetta Stone

Question 1 • DAEP-English 7 A(20 Day Term)

Which scenario shows the most logical reasoning?

Answer

The German priest Athanasius Kircher looked at a group of symbols and, without any evidence, decided that the hieroglyphs were instructions for secret ceremonies to gain the blessings of the god Osiris.

The Greek writer Horapollo said that the image of a rabbit in Egyptian hieroglyphs meant “open” because a rabbit’s eyes never close.

Young noticed that each time the demotic characters appeared, they were set off at both ends by lines like parentheses. He guessed that the lines were a simplified version of the oval cartouches that surrounded royal names in the hieroglyphs.

Explanation

C shows the most logical reasoning because Young noticed a repeated pattern in the demotic writing and compared it with a known feature of hieroglyphs: cartouches surrounding royal names. He then formed a testable explanation that the parentheses-like lines might have come from those cartouches. A is based on no evidence, while B relies on an unsupported guess about rabbits’ eyes.

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Reasoning and Logic in The Riddle of the Rosetta Stone