French soldiers found the Rosetta Stone in 1799, General Menou claimed it as his own, and Britain took it under the 1801 surrender

The stone carries a decree issued at Memphis on 27 March 196 BC by priests honouring the boy king Ptolemy V, written in hieroglyphs, Demotic and Greek. In July 1799 Lieutenant Pierre-François Bouchard found it at Rashid during work on Fort Julien. It passed to General Menou, who took command of the French army after General Kléber was assassinated on 14 June 1800, and he kept it at his house in Alexandria. British and Ottoman forces landed in March 1801, and Menou surrendered in September. Article 16 of the Capitulation of Alexandria made the collections gathered for the French Republic public property at the disposal of the allied generals. Menou said the stone was his private property and outside the treaty. Colonel Tomkyns Hilgrove Turner took it from Menou's house and sailed with it on the frigate Egyptienne, which reached Portsmouth in February 1802. Its left edge is painted "Captured in Egypt by the British Army in 1801" and its right edge "Presented by King George III." It has been on display in the British Museum almost continuously since June 1802 and is its most visited object. Zahi Hawass called for its return in 2003. In November 2022 his petition had more than 100,000 signatures. The British Museum says the 1801 treaty carries the signature of an Ottoman admiral representing Egypt and that Egypt's government has never formally requested it. It is in London.