Round 12: Tossup 2

Note to moderator: Read answerline carefully. Note to Players: Description Required. A work detailing Horapollo’s 5th century attempt to perform this task was rediscovered by Cristoforo Buondelmonti in 1419. Athanasius Kircher’s (“KEER-kurs”) largely guess-based attempts at this task were expanded upon by physicist Thomas Young’s study of a cartouche (“kar-TOOSH”). A group of “Savants” attempted to perform this task utilizing (*) Pierre-Francois (10[1])Bouchard’s discovery at Philae during the Napoleonic Expedition. Jean-Francois Champollion (“shawm-poll-YAWN”) is largely credited with accomplishing this task after the discovery of an object that contained inscriptions in Ancient Greek and Demotic. For 10 points, what task was achieved after the Rosetta Stone was decoded? ■END■

ANSWER: deciphering hieroglyphics [accept descriptions of decrypting or translating hieroglyphics; accept the Egyptian writing system or Egyptian hieratic or Egyptian demotic before mention or in place of “Hieroglyphics”; prompt on descriptions of generally deciphering or decrypting or translating with “What was deciphered?”; prompt on descriptions of deciphering the Rosetta Stone with “what broader system was decoded?”]
<History - Other, Charan Shreekumar> | VAULT II Packet 13 (Finals 1)
= Average correct buzzpoint

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Buzzes

PlayerTeamOpponentBuzzpointValue
Matt BoothArmand duplantis fan clubNot Just Biking5810

Summary

TournamentEditionMatchHeardConv. %Power %Neg %Avg. Buzz
VAULT II at UCSB2026-03-131100%100%0%51.00
VAULT II Northern UK2026-04-241100%0%0%77.00
VAULT II at Harvard2026-04-30475%25%25%73.00
VAULT II Stanford Online2026-07-171100%0%0%58.00