1 Hieroglyphs

2 Outline  Introduction  Part I. Hieroglyphs deciphered  a. The Rosetta Stone  b. Champollion  Part II. How to read the hieroglyphs  a. The hieroglyphs  b. Alphabetic signs  c. Syllabic signs  d. Determinative signs  e. Numbers  Conclusion  References

3 Introduction  Hieroglyphs are pictures that were used to write the ancient Egyptian language  The language consisted of more then 750 individual signs  Since the ancient language has never been heard, we are not sure how words were pronounced  The picture signs can be written from right to left; from left to right; or vertically, reading downwards  If they are facing right, the inscription is read from right to left

4 Part I. Hieroglyphs deciphered  The ancient Egyptian word for hieroglyphs, literally translated as “language of the gods”  Priests used hieroglyphs to write down prayers, magical texts, and texts related to life after death  When preparing their tombs, many people had autobiographies and hieroglyphic guides of the afterworld written on the surfaces of tomb walls  The Egyptians believed that these texts helped guide the dead through the afterlife  Civil officials used them to write royal documents of long-term importance, to record historical events

5 a. The Rosetta Stone  After the fall of ancient Egyptian civilization in 30 BC, the meaning of hieroglyphs remained a mystery for about 1,800 years  During the French occupation of Egypt from 1798 to 1801, a group of French soldiers and engineers uncovered a large stone now known as the Rosetta Stone  It contains the same text written three different ways—in hieroglyphs, in the demotic script, and in ancient Greek.  The stone was taken to Europe, where scholars translated the ancient Greek and used the information to decipher the other two texts

6 The Rosetta Stone British Museum, London

7 b. Champollion  In 1822, a French Egyptologist named Jean François Champollion figured out how to decipher hieroglyphic writing  He realized that the hieroglyphs that spelled "Ptolemy" were enclosed in a cartouche, so he was able to match it up to the Greek spelling  This discovery enabled him to equate the unfamiliar hieroglyphs with familiar Greek words and to translate the entire message  The writing was a message about Ptolemy V, who was ruling Egypt at the time

8 II. How to read the hieroglyphs  THERE are three forms of writing that were used to write the ancient Egyptian language:  Hieroglyphs: From the Greek meaning "sacred writing." this is the picture language that was used most often to decorate temples and monuments  Hieratic: cursive form of writing, as script is to printed letters; quicker to write since the picture quality of the language was reduced to a pattern of lines  Demotic means “the people's writing”; shorthand version of the Hieratic script which was used during the Late Period

9 a. The hieroglyphs  Egyptian glyphs are divided into two groups: phonograms, which are glyphs that represent sounds, and ideograms, which are glyphs that represent objects or ideas  The Egyptians constructed words by using a combination of the two types of glyphs  Readers must generally use both phonograms and ideograms to determine the significance of a word or phrase

10 b. Alphabetic signs  A single sound the Egyptians took most vowels for granted and did not represent them

11 c. Syllabic signs  represent a combination of two or three consonants

12 d. Determinative signs  A determinative is a picture of an object which helps the reader. if you have a name, Bob, and it is followed by the "man" glyph, you can assume that Bob is the name of a man  King  Man  Woman

13 e. Numbers

14 Conclusion  After the fall of ancient Egyptian civilization in 30 BC, the meaning of hieroglyphs remained a mystery for about 1,800 years  The work of deciphering the hieroglyphs went on after Champollion’s death and continues up to the present day, continually providing new information about life in ancient Egypt

15 References         le.aspx?refid= le.aspx?refid=