Rosetta Stone of Champollion was smaller than one of Young on an adjacent information panel; English visitors complained that the opposite was true. The portraits were in fact the same size. Egypt first requested the return of the Rosetta Stone in July 2003, on the British Museum's 250th anniversary. Zahi Hawass, the chief of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, asked that the stele be repatriated to Egypt, commenting that it was the "icon of our Egyptian identity". He repeated the proposal two years later in Paris, listing the stone as one of several key items belonging to Egypt's cultural heritage, a list
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