Hieroglyphics

Hieroglyphics is a system of writing which uses logograms (single characters which may represent an idea, a subject, or a word) rather than an alphabet, to record a language.

Numerous examples of hieroglyphics survive on the walls of tombs, in scrolls, and on well preserved paper artifacts and stone tablets. Once ancient hieroglyphics were translated, they provided valuable clues into the lives of the people living in those cultures.

Egyptian hieroglyphics are probably the most well known Ancient example of this writing technique, and were used for several thousand years before being supplanted by other writing systems and languages.

Champollion & Hieroglyphs

Ancient Egyptian history covers a continuous period of over three thousand years. To put this in perspective - most modern countries count their histories in hundreds of years. Only modern China can come anywhere near this in terms of historical continuity. 

Egyptian culture declined and disappeared nearly two thousand years ago. The last vestiges of the living culture ceased to exist in AD 391 when the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius I closed all pagan temples throughout the Roman Empire. 

It was not until Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798 that the wonderful artefacts of the Egyptians were seen in Europe and their ancient culture began to awaken from its long slumber. In 1799 a French captain named Pierre Bouchard discovered the Rosetta Stone which was carved with the same text in two languages, Egyptian and Greek, and three writing systems, hieroglyphic, demotic, and the Greek alphabet. 

This was a tremendous piece of luck because it enabled scholars to unlock the hieroglyphic code and without the stone, we would know nothing of the ancient Egyptians, and the details of their three thousand years of history would remain a mystery. 

The man who did more than any other to recover the words of the ancient Egyptians was Jean-François Champollion. He was an historian and brilliant linguist and by the age of sixteen had mastered not only Latin and Greek but six ancient Oriental languages, including Coptic, which was the late form of ancient Egyptian. 

Champollion had a unique advantage over others in the task of cracking the hieroglyphic code. Because he understood Coptic, he was able to translate the meanings of the ancient Egyptian words. 

In the 1820s, Champollion established an entire list of Egyptian symbols with their Greek equivalents and was the first Egyptologist to realise that the symbols were not only alphabetic but syllabic, and in some cases determinative, meaning that they depicted the meaning of the word itself.

How did Hieroglyphs work?

Hieroglyphs were called “The words of God" by the Egyptians, and were used mainly by the priests.

These painstakingly drawn symbols were great for decorating the walls of temples but for conducting day to day business there was another script, known as hieratic. This was a handwriting in which the picture signs were abbreviated to the point of abstraction. 

Hieroglyphs are written in rows or columns and can be read from left to right or from right to left. You can distinguish the direction in which the text is to be read because the human or animal figures always face towards the beginning of the line. Also the upper symbols are read before the lower. 

Hieroglyphic signs are divided into four categories: 

1. Alphabetic signs represent a single sound. Unfortunately the Egyptians took most vowels for granted and did not represent such sounds as 'e' or 'v‘, so we may never know how the words were formed. 

2. Syllabic signs represent a combination of two or three consonants. 

3. Word-signs are pictures of objects used as the words for those objects. They are followed by an upright stroke, to indicate that the word is complete in one sign. 

4. A determinative is a picture of an object which helps the reader. For example; if a word expressed an abstract idea, a picture of a roll of papyrus tied up and sealed was included to show that the meaning of the word could be expressed in writing although not pictorially. 

How many words can you make using the letters from the word

hieroglyphics?

Activity 1

You have 5 minutes!

Can you ‘write’ your name using hieroglyphs?

Activity 2

Can you translate the following?

English is great!

Activity 3

Hieroglyph Soduko• Hieroglyphs could be read either vertically or horizontally.

• Fill in the boxes using the different hieroglyphs.

• Each picture must appear only ONCE in each row going across, ONCE in each column going up and down, and ONCE in each group of four boxes created by the darker lines.

Activity 4

Hieroglyph Soduko

Answer

Activity 4