Indeed, 'ownership' of ancient things is never so simple. The stone was carved ~196 BC (Hellenistic period) Circa 1470 AD the stone was taken (probably from t

Indeed, 'ownership' of ancient things is never so simple. The stone was carved ~196 BC (Hellenistic period) Circa 1470 AD the stone was taken (probably from the town of Sais) by slaves of Egyptian/Syrian Sultan Quaitbay for use as raw building material for a military Fort (Fort Jullien aka Fort of Qaitbey) The French discovered it during Napoleon's Egypt/Syria campeign in 1799 AD The British defeated the French and took the stone to London under the Capitulation of Alexandria in 1801 AD > The Rosetta Stone is a fragment of a larger stele. No additional fragments were found in later searches of the Rosetta site. Owing to its damaged state, none of the three texts is absolutely complete. The top register, composed of Egyptian hieroglyphs, suffered the most damage. Only the last 14 lines of the hieroglyphic text can be seen; all of them are broken on the right side, and 12 of them on the left. wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone