HistoryGal
I have always been fascinated with ancient Egyptian history and their hieroglyphs tell their story. But how to read and understand them? Here I will attempt to give the Virily community a brief overview on how to read and decipher hieroglyphs. By all means, I do not pretend that I am an expert but after reading on the subject I have gathered some knowledge that I want to pass along.
First off, the basis of hieroglyphs was finally deciphered in the X1Xth century by Jean-François Champollion who managed to open up the secret of this ancient writing after Thomas Young deciphered a demotic section of a decree issued in Memphis in 196 B.C. (which included demotic, hieroglyphic and Greek writings) on the famous Rosetta Stone. After Thomas Young figured out the demotic writing, Champollion, with this information, discovered the code of the hieroglyphic text in 1822. And thus started the understanding of the Egyptian writing and hieroglyphs.
The term “hieroglyph” comes from the Greek language and literally means “sacred writing”. The Egyptians themselves called their writing “medou netjer” again meaning “divine word”. In fact, hieroglyphs are a figurative writing. In the English language, letters only represent themselves while the elements of egyptian writing, hieroglyphs, are figurative representing people, animals and objects of the universe of the pharaohs and of everyday life.
As such, to the uninitiated eye, anybody can identify from the first look, for example, the sun, a bird or a small boat. Hieroglyphs constitute then images, treated as the other pictures of the Egyptian pictorial. Thus, a sitting man is represented with his face in profile, his torso in front with his legs and his arms in profile mode etc. just like the above picture. But how is it possible to distinguish the Egyptian writing from simple representation because it is also an image? First by the density of its arrangement: while representations themselves are usually very large, hieroglyphs are disposed in a manner to occupy the most space allocated. They are distributed in “quadrants”, units dividing the drawn representations. There is also no space between words and sentences. Another differentiation is the orientation of hieroglyphs. They are aligned on a same line or column with all the signs oriented in the same direction which is the one at the starting point. Thus reading of hieroglyphs can be done from either right to left, left to right and also vertically from top to bottom. The starting point determines how to read hieroglyphs: for example, if a figure whether human or animal is pointing to the left, you read it left to right like the illustration below.
<a href="http://www.timetrips.co.uk/direction_read_hieros.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Source</a>
If it faces to the right you read it from right to left as the illustration below.
<a href="http://www.timetrips.co.uk/direction_read_hieros.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Source</a>
But what do those symbols represent or say, you ask? Hieroglyphic signs use in part ideograms which are signs that represent an idea or a concept. But the hieroglyphs you see right above are really letters that, yes, can be objects or animals as such but also a sound or a particular “phoneme”. You can see in the picture below all the Egyptian letters and their representations.
<a href="http://www.pbs.org/empires/egypt/special/popup/alphabet.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Source</a>
Since the Egyptian alphabet is made up of figures here is what these figures are: the letter A is a vulture, the letter B is a leg or a foot, the letter C is a folded cloth, the letter D is a hand, the letter E is a flower reed, F is a viper, G is a jar support, H is a reed shelter, I is also a flower reed, J is a cobra, K is a basket with a handle, L is a lying lion, M is an owl, N is water, O is a lasso, P is a stool, Q is the side of a hill, R is a mouth, S is again a folded cloth, T is a loaf of bread, U is a quail chick, V is again a viper, W is again a quail chick, X is a combination of a a basket with handle and a folded cloth, Y is two flower reeds, Z is a lock. But I have to warn you that there are several differences between internet sites and their presentation of the Egyptian alphabet. And this is not a complete list of Egyptian signs as there are apparently more than a thousand signs.
Egyptians were also numerically and mathematically minded and had a system of numerals which I present in the pictures below. Numbers were written with the highest number first.
<a href="http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Egyptian_numerals.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Source</a>
<a href="http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Egyptian_numerals.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Source</a>
Now here to finish my little presentation, I present you with my real name in hieroglyphs. Can you guess it? Sorry, you do not win a prize but you will receive my gratitude if you have read and applied yourselves to deciphering my real name.
Here is my first name:
And here is my last name:
So I will be waiting for your answers and accepting them no matter what they are. Thank you very much. I hope you enjoyed this very brief overview of Egyptian hieroglyphs because there is a lot more where this came from but it might be in another post.
I am fascinated with ancient history and here you have provided a simplified, easy-to-understand version of Egyptian writing.
I have to warn you: it is definitely a very simplified version as they had several more signs (in fact more than a thousand apparently) that I do not know about. Also, apparently Egyptians did not use vowels so the vowels presented above were infered by the Egyptologists from what I can understand. Thank you very much for digging up this old post, reading it, commenting on it and definitely for upvoting it. I appreciate it very much.
Thank you. If they did not use vowels it is strange how they communicated by using only consonants. With time on hand for the time being I am doing much of digging into old posts as I love reading and learning new things.
You really have given me additional knowledge, my friend
Thank you for stopping by and reading and definitely for your up vote of my little article. I appreciate it very much.
You are very much welcome, my friend
Your writing is great, I like the pictures, they are beautiful. This is my best post, and look forward to your visit https://virily.com/other/hello-all-members-on-virily/
Thank you for stopping by, reading and your awesome compliment. I will right now go and visit your link.
Very fascinating. Really enjoyed reading this. I think I mentioned to you about John West and his intricate interaction with the Sphinx. He did manage to show that there is evidence that standard Egyptology is way off the mark . Then the mainstream Egyptology is basically acting like religious clerics protecting their canon.
I am having a hard time with your real name. I am not sure if it is your real name, Ms. Labelle. I really screwed up with your first name, Frankene? Okay, Francine. I will try to figure it out. There was a saying among the ancient Egyptians. Be a scribe so as not be a soldier. Obviously from the scribes. But looking at it, I am not sure if I could have made it to be a scribe.
Well you got it right Francisco. You could have been a scribe after all. Thank you for stopping by, reading, commenting, up voting and of course taking the test. I agree with you that standard Egyptologues may have gotten Egyptian artifacts, dates and times off the mark. The reason I am saying this is because the Egyptians, apparently, had no signs for vowels. The alphabet that I presented above is one of the new types of alphabet, whether deciphered or not, I am not sure. But I just wanted to present a simplified version of the Egyptian alphabet and not all its intricacies.
lol nice one indeed something I read with a lot of interest today..and guessed your name as well to the point…..TFS
Thank you Glower4. I am happy I caught your attention and that you enjoyed it. So what is my name without looking at other comments?
lol I would like to be dishonest here and would go ahead with what comments say…underlying logic never break head on duplicate efforts..lol
I’ve always wondered what all these signs mean. I am also amazed by the mathematics. We now use “I” when we write, for example, the first century.
Actually lacho, the diagram of the Egyptian sits that I presented contains vowels. The Egyptians themselves did not have signs for vowels per we but the today’s linguists inferred them and added them on. Again a big thank you for reading, commenting and up voting.
I didn’t know about the bidirectional nature of hieroglyphs, what a nightmare
That is a great description: nightmare. I tend to agree. Thank you for your comment and up vote.
Also this is in reply to your answer to my comment about the red skirt on your posting. I cannot seem to be able to reply on your answer to my comment. Yes it is because of her fiery personality, her free spirit, her vagabond way of life that I associate the red skirt more than the green one to your beautiful vixen. But there is also the fact that I do NOT like the color green as it reminds me too much (I am sorry to mention this coming statement) of bile that patients often threw up when I was a registered nurse (for 21 years). Again I apologize for being so blunt but I just felt compelled to explain my disgust for the color green.
No need for your apology; in fact you are the only user who has taken the time to explain their bias (not that there is any real need to do so)
An interesting post, I learned something new again
Thank you for your comment and your up vote vidocka.
It is a fascination for sure. You explained it very well.
Thank you Carol and also thank you for your up vote.
I think you are, approximately, Frankie Labelle..hah..Maybe this is totally wrong, but it was fun for me to try to decipher your name.
Well my gosh you got it marija64. Only one precision. Frankie is my English name, my first real French name is Francine. Thank you for trying out reading hieroglyphs.
Yeah … I knew it was not exactly the correct name..I’m glad that I was very close to the solution.This is very interesting to me.
I am happy you enjoyed it. Thank you also for your up vote.
I am also fascinated by ancient Egyptian culture. I always wonder how they were able to be ahead of their times.
Yes it is true that they were way ahead of their times. But most ancient civilizations were, for example the Mayas, the Minoans etc. BTW thank you for your up vote and for commenting.