Read the excerpt from The Riddle of the Rosetta Stone.

Before the Rosetta Stone was discovered in 1799, no one knew how to read Egyptian hieroglyphic writing. Its meaning had been lost for almost 1400 years. But countless visitors to Egypt over the centuries had tried to decipher the mysterious symbols. This is the story of their attempts, and of how the Rosetta Stone finally enabled scholars to unlock the Egyptian past.

The story begins in the seventh century A.D., when Greek scholars visiting Egypt first called the symbols "hieroglyphs." They gave them that name, which means "sacred carvings" in Greek, because they found so many of them on the walls of Egyptian tombs and temples.

Which phrase from this excerpt best supports the author’s view that the people who deciphered the Egyptian writing system played an important role in history?