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Hieroglyphics
Hieroglyphics is a formal system of writing used by the ancient Egyptians. It is generally figurative, representing real or illusionary elements in a perfectly recognizable form, though the same symbol can be interpreted in diverse ways, based on context.
764 Questions
Why were hieroglyphics important to the ancient Egyptians?
Hieroglyphs told stories about a Pharaoh's life, or a god's. That tells us what life was like back then, and gives a better representation of Egyptian life.
What did Egyptian scribes write about?
They wrote about everything and anything.
Naturally there were many official and religious texts that used set phrases and standard wordings (much like modern legal documents), but the "caption" texts accompanying scenes of daily life in tomb paintings often record ordinary people saying ordinary things, such as you might have heard on the fishing boats, in the fields, in the streets or in people's homes at the time.
There are poems and stories, prayers and questions for the gods, military messages, estate accounts, records of the flooding of the river Nile, legal documents, maps and many more kinds of texts.
One surviving legal statement from the Late Period says:
"The master of harbours despatched a military officer saying 'Arrest anyone Peteese tells you to arrest'. The officer came to Teudjoi and Peteese had two priests arrested. He took them north to the royal palace. In Pharaoh's presence Peteese recounted everything they had done. Pharaoh passed sentence on the two priests."
How did egyptians develop writing?
The period when hieroglyphs were being developed has to be prior to 3,100 BC (or 5,100 years ago) since we know that hieroglyphs had been fully developed as a writing system by then. At the same time the hieratic script developed as a cursive (quicker) version of the same signs, so they appear to have exactly the same origins. Each sign in hieratic is exactly equivalent to a sign in hieroglyphs, but much simplified and easier to write with a reed pen. Both these scripts were used only by an educated minority of Egyptian people.
Very much later the demotic script appeared - around 650 BC or 2,650 years ago. This became the standard documentary script by the time of the Rosetta Stone. Demotic comes from a Greek word meaning "in common use", but it was still only used by a small minority of the people. Demotic is based on the hieratic signs, but it is far more complex, often using a single sign for a whole group of hieratic signs and including many strange abbreviations and complex signs.
By the Late Period, from about 500 BC onwards, hieroglyphs changed dramatically (and unnecessarily), becoming far more complex and strange than they had been during the previous 2,600 years. Many new signs were added and the existing signs changed in sound and meaning, deliberately making the system far more difficult and obscure. It was as if the priests were frightened that foreigners might begin to learn the writing system and understand Egyptian texts, so it was deliberately made more mysterious and complex to keep it secret.
The final development was from around 350 AD (only about 1,650 years ago) when the Coptic script appeared. This used 24 Greek alphabetic letters, plus 6 signs borrowed from demotic; it was used to write the very last form of the ancient Egyptian language which helped scholars to decipher the earlier hieroglyphs.
How did Jean-Francois Champollion decipher the Egyptian hieroglyphics?
Champollion used the Rosetta Stone to translate hieroglyphics.
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Jean Francois Champollion, the father of Egyptology, used the Rosetta Stone to decipher and understand hieroglyphics. This artifact is a pillar of black granite with three inscriptions.
How did the Rosetta stone help scholars historians in their study of hieroglyphics?
It's from the Egyptian temple were Ramses the Great wrote a Rosetta stone.
How are hieroglyphic symbols similar to alphabetic letters?
The modern western alphabet is largely derived entirely from hieroglyphs, but with a very long and complex development over time. It is often extremely difficult to trace the connection.
Two reasonably clear links are the letters N and M. In hieroglyphs the sound n could be expressed with a short, horizontal zig-zag line indicating water - this evolved into the modern N which is simply a part of that zig-zag. The sound m in hieroglyphs could be expressed by the picture of an owl with its head turned towards the viewer - the top of the owl's head is shaped like the modern letter M because it is an owl with "ears", showing its ancient origin.
In general terms, hieroglyphs are a far more complex and sophisticated writing system than any modern alphabet.
Who was the first scholar to decipher the hieroglyphs?
The translation of hieroglyphics was only possible because of the discovery of the Rosetta stone. The stone contained a single passage written in three languages, hieroglyphic, Demotic, and classical Greek. Using what scholars knew of the Greek and Demotic they were able to translate the hieroglyphics
From Wikipedia:
"In 1814, Briton Thomas Young finished translating the demotic text, and began work on the hieroglyphic script. From 1822 to 1824 the French scholar, philologist, and orientalist Jean-François Champollion greatly expanded on this work and is credited as the principal translator of the Rosetta Stone."
What were the Hieroglyphics of Cleopatra's name?
this link has got all letters in hieroglyphics http://www.jimloy.com/hiero/yourname.htm
How do you pronounce hieroglyphics?
Hieroglyphics is pronounced: High-row-gliff-icks.
Hope this helps!
Pictures of King Tutankhamuns wife?
King Tutankhamun was married to his half sister. She was slightly older than him. Together they had two still born daughters both born premature. They were mummified and buried in the tomb with their father.
Hieroglyphs is usually written on papyrus or slabs of rock. On papyrus, hieroglyphs is generally written using black ink or for more elaborate use, such as religious means the Egyptians use colored ink. Hieroglyphs on slabs of rock is generally found in tombs, so they use colored ink to write over the hieroglyphs which have been carved into the rock.
Do Egyptians use hieroglyphics today?
No, modern Egyptians speak and write Arabic using the Arabic script.
When did hieroglyphics first appear?
The ancient Egyptians did not record the time when their writing system was developed (not invented), nor was there anyone else present to record that event. It was long before the first pharaohs and the unification of Egypt.
By the time of the pharaohs the original development of writing was attributed to the gods, not to humans, and it had become part of the Egyptians' religious beliefs.
How was writing used in ancient Egypt?
writing in acient Egypt was called hyroglifics, only special people knew how to write, these people were called scribes, they were usiualy a kings son. scribes would record everything that went on on a peaice of clay then let it dry.
How many pictures and symbols Hieroglyphic script consisted of?
Around 700 common symbols.
Actually, taking into account all the centuries during which Egyptian hieroglyphs were used, there were more than 5,000 separate characters, or glyphs. However, many of these were late developments and/or rarely used. Estimates of the number of glyphs used during the classical "Middle Egyptian" period of the language (roughly 2000 - 1300 BCE) run much smaller, between 700 and 800.
Did Pharaohs learn hieroglyphics?
Quite possibly. The Egyptian word for hieroglyphics was mdw nTr, which means "divine words." Our word means essentially the same thing, from the Greek hieros "sacred" and glyphe"carving."
What did the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics look like?
Some texts look better than others and inscriptions on walls tend to look very different to texts in manuscripts. In general, hieroglyphs form neat columns or rows of signs that represent many different physical things: buildings, animals, humans, pots, waterways, foodstuffs, plants and tools - and much more.
These signs represent not only sounds but also concepts and activities; learning to read them takes considerable time and effort.
See links below for images:
Why did the Egyptians wear death masks?
The Egyptians wore death masks because they believed in the afterlife. They believed that the soul only came back to the body if it could recognize it. The death mask was a picture of the person inside the sarcophagus so that the soul would go back to that person in the afterlife.
How do you spell King Tutankhamun's name in hieroglyphics?
First, the word Osiris is not Egyptian but a Greek form of the name which was written in hieroglyphs with signs spelling 3sir, where the 3 and the i are sounds not found in English.
This is written in various ways, but the most commonly seen is the sign showing the side view of a throne over an eye, followed by the determinative sign for a god. The name means "He of the throne".
See link below for an image of this word:
How was cuneiform and hieroglyphic writing the same?
it is the same because their are both writing systems
Who are the Frenchmen who deciphered hieroglyphics?
The Rosetta Stone - It was a piece of black stone about the size of a small coffee table which provided a key to the puzzle of the lost ancient Egyptian language. It was discovered in 1799 by French soldiers near the city of Rosetta on the Nile delta. It had three different types of language on it. One was Greek, and the other two were forms of Egyptian language. Scholars were able to read the Greek, but after twenty years, they still were not able to figure out the Egyptian. One of them was hieroglyphics, but they did not know the meaning. Jean Champollin finally discovered that the characters once stood for sounds. This was the key to the mystery language. Scholars were then able to translate the writing off the walls of tombs and pyramids. It's
= Jean-François Champollion =
Of course there were many people in antiquity who were able to read and translate hieroglyphic texts, but this knowledge was lost early in the first millennium A.D. The first person to translate hieroglyphs in the modern era was the French scholar Jean-François Champollion, in 1822.
When did the earliest forms of writing begin?
Cuneiform was first developed in Sumer (Mesopotamia) - and is estimated to have began sometime in the 30th century BC.
How are hieroglyphics used in other places besides Egypt?
The term hieroglyphics is mainly reserved for Egyptian writing, but similar logographic systems were used by:
- Sumerians (Iraq)
- ancient Chinese
- Minoans
- India
- Iran, (the Aryans were Iranians who invaded Northern India)
- Mayans
