Rosetta Stone a permanent return. In December 2009, he proposed to drop his claim for the permanent return of the Rosetta Stone if the British Museum lent the stone to Egypt for three months for the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum at Giza in 2013. These requests were refused. As John Ray has observed, "the day may come when the stone has spent longer in the British Museum than it ever did in Rosetta." There is strong opposition among national museums to the repatriation of objects of international cultural significance such as the Rosetta Stone. In response to repeated Greek requests
Rosetta (spacecraft) on the Rosetta Stone catalysed the deciphering of the Egyptian writing system. Similarly, it was hoped that these spacecraft would result in better understanding of comets and the early Solar System. In a more direct analogy to its namesake, the "Rosetta" spacecraft also carried a micro-etched pure nickel prototype of the Rosetta disc donated by the Long Now Foundation. The disc was inscribed with 6,500 pages of language translations. The "Rosetta" mission achieved many historic firsts. On its way to comet 67P, "Rosetta" passed through the main asteroid belt, and made the first European close encounter with several of these