How do you write Sara in hieroglyphics?

Answer 1

Hieroglyphs did not write any vowel sounds (despite what some modern web pages claim). Naturally the ancient Egyptians knew how to say their words with the vowels included, but only the consonant sounds were written.

So in hieroglyphs you write srh, but you say Sarah. The direction of writing was normally right to left, but sometimes left to right; signs were always arranged neatly to fit inside an invisible rectangle or square.

There were several signs with the value s, but we shall use the "door-bolt" sign because it is long and thin (to fit neatly with the next sign). This is a horizontal line, thickening slightly at each end and with two very short vertical lines crossing it in the middle.

The sound r was represented by the mouth-sign, viewed from the front; this was simply two curved lines meeting at each end. We place this directly under the s.

The sign for h is the plan of a reed shelter, looking a bit like a spiral but made of 5 straight lines, starting with a downward stroke. This is paced on the left of the first two signs because we are reading from right to left. It is drawn almost as tall as the first two signs put together.

Last, to indicate that this is the name of a person, we draw the kneeling woman sign on the left of the others - she must face towards the right (towards the start of the line of writing). This sign is the same height as the first two signs put together, so the finished word looks neat and fits inside that invisible rectangle.

Answer 2

The ancient Egyptians had a clever system for writing foreign names, using the nearest single-consonant signs in their writing system. They did not write any vowel sounds (exactly as in ancient Phoenician, Hebrew and Arabic) so the name Sara could be written with just two signs: s and r.

Hieroglyphs have several signs with the sound s, including a horizontal line with two short uprights crossing it in the middle (representing a door-bolt), a vertical line curving over at the top and reaching down about two-thirds of the way down to the base, representing a piece of folded cloth. The sound ris written with the front view of a mouth, simplified so it is two shallow curving lines meeting at each end.

To indicate that this represents the name of a person, a determinative sign is placed after it - the picture of a seated woman.