An Explanation of Hieroglyphics
Hieroglyphs, characters in any system of writing in which symbols represent
objects (such as tools, animals, or boats) and ideas (such as motion, time,
and joy). The ancient Greeks first used the term hieroglyph (meaning
"sacred carving") to describe decorative characters carved on Egyptian
monuments. The term is now mainly used to refer to the system of writing
used by the ancient Egyptians.
Archaeological discoveries suggest that Egyptian hieroglyphs may be the
oldest form of writing. The earliest evidence of an Egyptian hieroglyphic
system is believed to be from about 3300 or 3200 BC, and the Egyptians used
hieroglyphs for the next 3,500 years. They were most prevalent during a
1,700-year period when the Egyptians spoke and wrote Old Egyptian (3000
BC-2200 BC) and Middle Egyptian (about 2200 BC-1300 BC). Only a small
portion of the Egyptian population, primarily royalty, priests, and civil
officials, used hieroglyphs because they were difficult to learn and time
consuming to create. Ancient cultures in China, Mesopotamia, and the
Americas used similar writing systems, but these systems were not related to
Egyptian hieroglyphs.
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS AND FORM
The hieroglyphic system used in ancient Egypt had between 700 and 800 basic
symbols, called glyphs. This number grew in the last centuries of
ancient Egyptian civilization, because of an increased interest in writing
religious texts. Egyptians wrote hieroglyphs in long lines from right to
left, and from top to bottom. They did not use spaces or punctuation.
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.
Phonograms represented the sounds of
single consonants and combinations of consonants. A phonogram that
represents the two consonant sounds s (on the right) and r (on
the left) is:
The Egyptians did not write vowels, so
it is impossible to know exactly how they pronounced hieroglyphic texts.
When speaking, they may have expressed vowel sounds to distinguish various
words that, in writing, look identical.
Ideograms could represent either the
specific object written or something closely related to it. For example, the
hieroglyphic symbol of a pair of legs might represent the noun movement.
When combined with other glyphs, the symbol could represent the verb to
approach, or the concept to give directions.
When speaking, the Egyptians might
have differentiated between these words by adding vowel sounds—for example,
by saying sor, ser, or sur. Because they did not write
vowels, however, they used the determinatives that appeared to the left of
the phonograms to specify each word’s meaning. Writing phonograms and
determinatives in different combinations enabled the Egyptians to develop
thousands of words without having to create a single distinct glyph for each
thing, action, or concept.
USING HIEROGLYPHS
The ancient Egyptian word for hieroglyphs, literally translated as "language
of the gods," indicates their importance. Priests used hieroglyphs to write
down prayers, magical texts, and texts related to life after death and
worshiping the gods. When preparing their tombs, many people had
autobiographies and hieroglyphic guides of the afterworld written on the
surfaces of tomb walls and on the insides of coffins. The Egyptians believed
that these texts helped guide the dead through the afterlife.
The use of hieroglyphic inscriptions was not limited to religious purposes.
Civil officials used them to write royal documents of long-term importance,
to record historical events, and to document calculations, such as the depth
of the Nile River on a specific day of the year.
The Egyptians also used hieroglyphs to decorate jewelry and other luxury
items. They carved the symbols into stone or wood, and incised or cast them
in gold, silver, and other metals. They painted hieroglyphs on various
surfaces, sometimes putting down simple figures in black ink, and other
times using detail and bright colors. Occasionally artists carved
semiprecious stones or rare woods into hieroglyphic shapes and then inlaid
them into walls or pieces of furniture.
HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT
A standardized form of hieroglyphs developed rapidly in the earliest years
of Egypt’s Early Dynastic Period (2920 BC-2575 BC)). Little change in the
system took place during the following 2,600-year period of Egyptian
civilization.
Hieroglyphs were very time consuming to create, so the Egyptians developed a
cursive script called hieratic in the early years of hieroglyphic use. The
characters of the hieratic script were based on the hieroglyphic symbols,
but they were simplified and little resembled their hieroglyphic origins.
Hieratic was used for the bulk of writing done with reed pens and ink on
papyrus. In the 7th century BC the Egyptians began using a script called
demotic, which was even more simplified than hieratic. After this point
hieroglyphs continued to be used in carved inscriptions on buildings,
jewelry, and furniture, but hieratic was used for religious writings, and
demotic for business and literary texts.
A major change in hieroglyphs took place under the Ptolemaic Dynasty (305-30
BC), when Egypt was ruled by a Greek dynasty. During this time the Egyptians
created many new glyphs. Priests were especially interested in writing
religious texts in more mysterious and complex manners. The priests often
used new glyphs to form specialized codes and puns understood only by a
group of religious initiates. After the Romans conquered Egypt in 30 BC, the
use of hieroglyphs declined, and eventually their use died out. The last
firmly datable hieroglyphic inscription was written in AD 394.
DECIPHERING HIEROGLYPHS
After the fall of ancient Egyptian civilization in 30 BC, the meaning of
hieroglyphs remained a mystery for about 1,800 years. Then, 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. This stone
bore an ancient inscription containing 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.
French Egyptologist Jean François Champollion was the first modern person
who was able to read hieroglyphs. It had been noted that certain groups of
hieroglyphs on the Rosetta Stone were surrounded by a carved oblong loop.
The loop, called a cartouche, separated the names of kings and queens
from large bodies of text. Champollion knew enough of hieroglyphs to confirm
that the cartouches on the Rosetta Stone contained the name of one of the
Greek rulers of Egypt, Ptolemy V. As Champollion examined more cartouches,
he observed that some of the glyphs matched between Ptolemy’s cartouche and
the other cartouches. Champollion determined that certain glyphs in the
cartouches phonetically spelled out the names of certain Greek rulers of
Egypt. Using this knowledge and an ingenious reading of ideograms in other
cartouches, he deciphered the names of the native rulers Ramses and
Thutmose.
Champollion’s discovery showed him
definitively that there were two categories of glyphs, phonograms and
ideograms. Champollion then began to use this information to decipher the
large body of Egyptian hieroglyphs on objects that had been taken to Europe.
In 1828 he led a group of artists and architects to Egypt with the goal of
drawing pictures of tombs, temples, and monuments and copying down as many
hieroglyphic inscriptions as possible. He later translated the hieroglyphs
from the drawings. 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.
