Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics
Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics
What are Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics? Definition of Ancient Egyptian
Hieroglyphics: Hieroglyphics a system of picture writing which used
symbols (hieroglyphs) instead of letters or words. Hieroglyphics use a
combination of logographic, syllabic, and alphabetic elements. The word
Hieroglyphics is derived from the Greek word meaning 'sacred writings.'
Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics
and the Rosetta Stone
The Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics
were a total mystery for many hundreds of years - people were completely
unable to decipher them. In 1798 Napoleon Bonaparte led a military
expedition in Egypt and during this period Egyptian antiquities were
transferred to Paris. In 1799 one of the French officers discovered a
black stone, which dated back to 196 BC, which was inscribed with
text from three different languages:
The black
stone, containing text in the Greek and Egyptian
languages, was found near Rosetta in the Nile Delta and
from this it was given the name of the Rosetta Stone.
Scholars were able to read and understand the Greek
script and the process of deciphering and translating
the Demotic script and the Ancient Egyptian
hieroglyphics began by comparing the Greek and the
Egyptian words. The Demotic script was the first to be
deciphered and much of this pioneering work is credited
to Silvestre de Sacy, a French linguist. One of the
students of Silvestre de Sacy was Jean-Francois
Champollion. In 1814, the British linguist, Thomas Young
finished translating the demotic text and began work on
translating the hieroglyphic alphabet. Jean-Francois
Champollion following in the footsteps of his tutor,
Silvestre de Sacy, greatly expanded on the work of
Thomas Young. Jean-Francois Champollion is known as the
translator of the Rosetta Stone.
Use of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs
in Documents and on Monuments
The Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs were the written language which was
used by scribes on the whole range of documents used in Ancient Egypt.
Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs were therefore found on many papyrus
documents but are most famous for their use when hieroglyphics were
carved into stone on great monuments or painted on the walls of tombs.
Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics were used for making up a cartouche, or
personal seal, which could be used as we would use a signature.
Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics
- a Phonetic Alphabet
The Ancient Egyptians initially used Hieroglyphics as opposed to a
conventional alphabet. The original hieroglyphs represented sounds.
There are over 700 hieroglyphs which can used in numerous combinations
to give specific meanings. Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics also
represented groups of 2 or 3 consonants. A person training to be a
scribe would have to learn a massive phonetic alphabet of over 700
symbols.
Deciphering Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics
Deciphering Ancient Egyptian
Hieroglyphics is at times is very simple. Hieroglyphs are written from
right to left, from left to right, or occasionally from top to bottom. A
simple picture was used to represent exactly what it resembled. For
example a picture of a bee was perfectly recognizable. The doubling of a
symbol indicates its dual and the tripling of a symbol indicates its
plural. However, even the simplest hieroglyphic becomes more complicated
when the way a picture faces also determines the meaning. The
complexity of hieroglyphics is predominantly due to a hieroglyph
representing a single consonant which is completely unrelated to the
picture that is depicted. For example
-
the picture of a horned
viper could also represent the sound of an f
-
the picture of a snake
could also represent the sound of dj
-
the picture of a lion
could also represent the sound of an l
-
the picture of an owl
could also represent the sound of an m
Occasionally one hieroglyph
could stand for two or three sounds in combination. Further complexity
arises as the Ancient Egyptians only used consonants in the
hieroglyphics - vowels (a,e,i,o,u) were non existent. Because of the
total lack of the use of vowels in Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics
reading a sentence in English, such as 'make the wine' would be read in
hieroglyphics as 'mk th wn'. There were 24 such phonograms in the
Ancient Egyptian alphabet.
Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics -
Hieratic Version
The use of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics
made writing complex and was extremely difficult to learn as opposed to
an alphabet. A simplified version of hieroglyphics was devised known as
'hieratic' which lost the pictorial aspect of hieroglyphs. The hieratic
version or style of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics was used from the Old
Kingdom up to the 8th century BC to speed up the process of creating
documents. The hieratic version became even more stylized and speedier
resulting in the demotic script.
Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics
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