2. By: Heather and Erin

3. A hieroglyph is a picture or symbol representing letters of the alphabet. The word “hieroglyph” is Greek for sacred carvings. Jean Champollion figured out what the Rosetta stone said, and he figured out what all the letters meant in 1822. He figured this out by using names like Cleopatra and Ptolemy. Champollion published a book in 1824, which explained how the hieroglyphs worked.

6. The ancient Egyptians wrote about many of the things that we write about today. For example, there is a very different way that they use to do math. They had a decimal system of numeration up to a million! Hieroglyphics were called “The words of God”, and they were mainly used by the priests. Surprisingly, they were not used for day-to-day businesses. There was another form of writing that everyone else used, which was called Demotic. Hieroglyphics were also used to decorate the walls of temples and pyramids. Hieroglyphics are written in columns or rows and can be read from left to right or vice-versa, depending on the way the first animal or human figure is facing.

7. It was written in Egyptian hieroglyphic, Egyptian demotic and Greek because when it was written there was three scripts being wrote in Egypt at the time. The first one was hieroglyphic. The second was the common and most likely to be used, which was demotic. The last one was Greek, which was the language of the rulers at that time. It was written in 3 languages so that every one could read what it said. It was made in 196 BC and was found in 1799 by French soldiers in a small town called Rosetta, which is why it is called the Rosetta stone. Jean François Champollion discovered it in 1822 because he could read Greek and Demotic. In 1824 he published a book about how to read hieroglyphics.

9. Here are the sources we used to make this presentation: http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Cyberia/VideoTestbed/Projects/M ummy/hieroglyphics.html Ancient Egypt. Copyright 1990 Dorling Kindersley. Ancient Egyptians. Copyright 1997 Macdonald Young Books. http://www.si.umich.edu/CHICO/mummy/hieroglyphs.html http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/writing/rosetta.html www.eyelid.co.uk/hiero1.htm