You have probably seen these in museums you have visited or plastered across textbooks:

 

 

It is certainly fascinating to look at. It reminds us, once again, of the rich history of ancient human civilizations before us. This particular set of glyphs comes from Ancient Egypt, one of the earliest civilizations in the Mediterranean world. This same civilization created construction techniques for pyramids, temples, obelisks, a system of mathematics and medicine, irrigation systems, and many more. Much of these would have remained unknown to us had the language not been decrypted from their stone tablets. 

 

For centuries after traditional Egyptian hieroglyphs faded into obscurity, scientists and scholars had difficulty deciphering the meaning. Eventually, with the discovery of the Rosetta stone in the 19th century, the code was finally cracked. The Rosetta stone was a decree by Ptolemy V, written in three different ways – with hieroglyphs (mostly used by priests), ancient Egyptian demotic (for everyday use), and in ancient Greek. Luckily, epigraphy scholars already knew how to read the language of ancient Greece, facilitating the discovery of how the ancient Egyptian language worked.

 

I was fascinated by this language, and took it upon myself to explore it, scouring the internet for free PDFs. 

 

To start off, the definition of hieroglyphs are pictures of objects which are put together for use in writing. Here are some examples of the writing and their associated object:

 

In general, there are three main types of hieroglyphs. Hieroglyphs which mean their symbol, such as the “Mouth” (which means . . mouth), are called ideograms. For a comparison, take the Chinese language. Each “character” in Chinese writing represents a certain object or idea, hence why there are over 50,000 characters in the language. However, most hieroglyphs or groupings of hieroglyphs represent a phonetic value, called phonograms. Each symbol stands for a certain sound. It is like if the English language wrote the word believe as “🐝🍃” (bee – leaf). A determinative is the third main type of hieroglyph, which does not have a phonetic value itself, but when paired with other hieroglyphs, it clarifies, or specifies, the meaning it is trying to convey. 

 

The system to translate the sounds corresponding with the hieroglyphic writing into alphabetic letters is called transliteration. You may see even more unrecognizable symbols in the transliterations, this is because the transliterations are derived from Coptic, the latest stage of the Egyptian language. Below is a chart of some 1-consonant signs, the associated transliteration, and how it is pronounced.

 

 

As for the overall structure, the flexible language can be organized freely around pictures, easily fitting in with the accompanying art. If some hieroglyphs are grouped and stacked together, always read the group from top to bottom. To determine whether to read it right-to-left or left-to-right, find a figure with a “head”, and the direction the head is facing is usually opposite the direction that the script is written in (today, however, most Egyptian writing has been normalized to be read from left-to-right). Take a look at the following, which depicts hieroglyphic writing for the name of Senbi from the Tomb of Senbi at Meir. Notice that the hieroglyph as it was initially written (the larger grouping) is backwards of the way ancient Egyptian script is normalized today.

 

 

To interpret the grouping’s meaning, start with the leading hieroglyph, usually the tallest one accompanying the grouping. In this case, it is the cane, which represents the sound s. Left of the cane, start reading the script from top to bottom, so the next hieroglyph is the “wave”, a sign for the sound n. Below, it is read from right-to-left, which will first be the leg (the sound b) followed by the last block (i). Together, the grouping forms the name snbi, pronounced, approximately, as “Senbi”. 

 

For several centuries, the ancient Egyptians used this system of writing to convey and pass on their ideas. It is pretty obvious from looking at it how advanced the civilization was for its time. Before, hieroglyphs had always seemed like an esoteric form of knowledge to be admired, but not understood, by museum-goers behind protected glass panes. It was the intrigue and the mystery of the hieroglyphs that drew me in, and I was surprised how such an old form of writing can still be interpreted in our modern English language. The past, at times, can seem like another world altogether when you consider how much has changed over the course of 5,000 years. It is because of this wide gap between the past and the present that I sought to bridge it with even a little understanding of one of the oldest civilizations in our known history.

 

 

 

Works Cited

 

Kelly, B., & Ballsun-Stanton, B. (n.d.). Decoding Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs – Google Arts & Culture. Retrieved October 23, 2020, from https://artsandculture.google.com/story/decoding-ancient-egyptian-hieroglyphs-macquarie-university/3AWRthyomDRf2w?hl=en 

 

Lesson 1 – Reading Hieroglyphs, Transliteration, Phonograms, Ideograms, Determinatives, Alphabet, and Pronunciation. (n.d.). Retrieved October 23, 2020, from http://www.egyptianhieroglyphs.net/egyptian-hieroglyphs/lesson-1/ 

 

Nix, E. (2015, April 01). What Is the Rosetta Stone? Retrieved October 23, 2020, from https://www.history.com/news/what-is-the-rosetta-stone 

 

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An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary, click with caution → https://www.um.es/cepoat/egipcio/wp-content/uploads/egyptianhierogly.pdf