Hieroglyphics

History of Hieroglyphics Hieroglyphics were used by the Ancient Egyptians for almost 3,500 years, but they took a lot of time and effort to make and were very hard to learn. Hieroglyphic is a Greek word translated as “the sacred engraved letters”. Only royalty, scribes, priests, and government officials could use hieroglyphics. In the early years of hieroglyphics, hieratics were invented. Hieratics were a simplified version of hieroglyphics. In fact, hieratics were simple hieroglyphic symbols written in cursive. In the 7th century BC the Ancient Egyptians started to use demotics. This was an even simpler version of hieratics. Soon, no one used hieroglyphics. By the 1st century AD no one could even read hieroglyphics.

Rosetta In 1798, in a place called Rosetta near the Ancient Egyptian city of Alexandria, Napoleon’s army found a broken piece of rock with three different types of writing on it. Soon scientists travelling with Napoleon discovered there was a message written on the stone. The top of the three pieces of writing was Greek, and the writing thanked Ptolemy V for items given to the Egyptian temples. The middle piece was written in demotic, and the top piece was written in hieroglyphics.

The Characters The English language uses 26 characters that can be combined to make words and combined again to make sentences. Egyptian Hieroglyphics used over 2,000 characters!

Representations Each hieroglyphic represented a common object from ancient Egypt. Hieroglyphics could represent the sound of the object or they could represent an idea associated with the object. Ask what they think this picture represents?? This is the symbol for childbirth

Alphabet Alphabet characters were the basis for hieroglyphic writing. These characters were used to spell out names or anything else that couldn’t be represented by other characters. The alphabet characters were read as the sound of the object they represented. Vowels were used in the spoken language but mostly left out in writing unless a word started with a vowel or if it was confusing to leave it out, like with names. Example: These words in English can be abbreviated without vowels but we say the vowels when we speak them: Mtn Blvd St *Refer to alphabet sheet and write your name in hieroglyphics

Biliterals Biliterals were used as a substitute for a pair of alphabet characters. The sound of the biliterals was the same as what the two letters combined would make. Biliterals allowed for the elimination of large numbers of characters. = + = gm = + = djed

Determinatives Determinatives didn’t represent sounds. Determinatives allow writings to be placed in their proper contexts. These characters help to determine meaning. This could have a few meanings, but if we add the determinative: We now know that the cupid arrow symbolises love!

moisture from sky rain, dew, storm papyrus scroll writing, teach, to know sun sun, day, time scribes tools scribe, to write

Writing Conventions In a civilisation that wanted order over chaos, the Egyptians needed to keep their writing consistent and readable. For example, in English we always read left to right. Hieroglyphics could be written in rows or in columns

Numbers In modern systems of numbering we count in units of 10. A zero written to the right of the number indicates a number has increased 10 times. 10 characters are used in the modern number system to represent all possible numbers (0-9). The Egyptian numbering system was also based on units of 10. Instead of relying on the position of numbers to define their value, Egyptian used different characters to represent different units of 10. To write a number, the hieroglyph representing each unit of ten would simply be drawn as many times as was necessary. *refer to alphabet sheet.

Who’s Ready to start translating Hieroglyphics?