Rosetta of a Coptic toponym, "Trashit". "Rosetta" or "Rosette" was the name used by the French at the time of Napoleon Bonaparte's campaign in Egypt and thus became eponymous of the Rosetta Stone (), which was found by French soldiers at the nearby Fort Julien in 1799. The site of Rosetta was inhabited throughout the history of Ancient Egypt, then known as "", a hieratic word meaning "the populace", under Menes reign. In the Ptolemaic era, the town was renamed to "Bolbitine" ("Bolbitinum, Bolbitinon", the name of one of the seven mouths of the Nile in Herodotus). In Christian Egypt, the
Rosetta Stone almost certainly did not originate in the town of Rashid (Rosetta) where it was found, but more likely came from a temple site farther inland, possibly the royal town of Sais. The temple from which it originally came was probably closed around AD 392 when Eastern Roman emperor Theodosius I ordered the closing of all non-Christian temples of worship. The original stele broke at some point, its largest piece becoming what we now know as the Rosetta Stone. Ancient Egyptian temples were later used as quarries for new construction, and the Rosetta Stone probably was re-used in this manner. Later