Hieroglyphs | ancient-egypt

The Looking Glass into Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs

Ancient Egypt has always seemed like a majestic place with delicate qualities and historical facts just waiting to be discovered by all who are willing. The tranquility brought on by nearly two thousand years of slumber of the religious texts were finally given their chance to be awoken and tell their mysterious tales of ancient Egypt in 1799. The serendipitous discovery of the Rosetta Stone led to Thomas Young deciphering the first five letters, in 1814, of one of the three languages used on the stone. In the following years, Jean-Francois Champollion studied the Rosetta Stone and, in 1822, was the first to decipher a complete list of hieroglyphic signs. With the newfound data and capability of the Rosetta Stone began the massive studies of Egyptology and the curious nature and questioning of hieroglyphs. Some, including myself, ask how did Egyptian hieroglyphs develop over time and what is the importance of hieroglyphic study?

Hieroglyphs are the beautifully complex pictorial language that was used by mainly priests and the scribes for the Pharaohs due to the highly religious affiliation (Manley, p. 32). Thanks to the hieroglyphs inscribed on artifacts like the Rosetta Stone, the Narmer Palette, and inside many tombs we have been able to learn about the Pharaohs and the hierarchy (among other things) of Ancient Egypt. For hieroglyphs that were found in tombs, it was most often the case that they depicted stories and names for those inside. This is one reason we have come to assume that the use of hieroglyphs was so sacred. It is obvious that those whom are capable of inscribing went through intensive training and/or grew up within a known scribe family. The use and training of hieroglyphs are believed to have begun early on in Egyptian culture but it wasn’t until the Third Dynasty that it began to be frequently used (Gardiner, p. 62). Being able to read artifacts like the Rosetta Stone, Narmer Palette, and many tombs and walls, we can see a sense of importance and self-worth, not only with the King’s and Queen’s but with their religion and use of language as well.

Knowing how to read and write was not only highly respected in ancient Egypt but it was also the number one ambition for parents upon their children. There were strict rules when it came to seeking out a profession: “a boy in ancient Egypt entered the same profession as his father. Only by learning how to read and write hieroglyphs could a boy break from the family tradition, and by becoming a scribe, he was able to enter the higher ranks of society” (Katan, p. 38). This also meant that learning to read and write was strictly for males, although, “we know that some girls were taught to read and write, because writing tools were found in the tomb of two of King Akhenaten’s daughters. It is unlikely, however, that girls from less important families were taught” (Katan, p. 38).

The schooling for becoming a scribe was even stricter than the rules for seeking its profession. Starting anywhere between age four to six, they were entered into a “special school at a royal palace. There the boy was taught with children of the royal family. Children from noble but not necessarily rich families were sent to schools attached to temples, where they were taught by priests. Children from poor families, if they were talented, were taught by the village scribe, who usually taught his own children and those of his relatives” (Katan, p. 38). The boys memorized “the signs or letters of the hieroglyphic alphabet. He used pieces of pottery or limestone, called ostraka, and wooden boards that were covered with a white coating called gesso, a mixture of plaster and glue, on which to practice writing “letters,” or signs, with a brush” (Katan, p. 39). As the students became more advanced they were able to use papyrus, but only if they became highly skilled due to its expensive nature. The tools used by the scribes consisted of a palette, one red ink and one black ink, a pot of water, a brush holder, and various sizes of brushes. The brushes were made from the papyrus reed by cutting the tip at an angle and sucking it, softening the tip. In the schools for scribes, they not only learned to write hieroglyphs but also hieratic. Hieratic writing is to hieroglyphs what our “script handwriting” is to our “printing” (Katan, p. 39). The hieratic form was used mostly for everyday business matters. The hieroglyphic form “is a picture of something that was familiar to the ancient Egyptians” (Katan, p. 7). There are over seven hundred pictorial signs to learn; learning the abundance of letters and texts was done simply by copying and recopying but in doing so the scribes also “became educated in literature, religion, mathematics, and medicine” (Katan, p. 39). Due to the tremendous amount of learning and memorizing to be done, the ancient Egyptians found it necessary to beat the scribe students who they caught resting or doing nothing.

Though it was not an easy task to becoming a scribe, the work and effort was definitely seen as “worth it.” Today, we are lucky for this because without the progression of hieroglyphs we wouldn’t have been able to learn all that we have. When looking at the hieroglyphs on general artifacts and walls of worn or torn down buildings we can see stories of certain events that have happened in the past. Through detailed research and educated guessing we can not only see the shifts in Dynasties and Pharaohs but we can also learn about what storms, pyramid labor, and other major events that they felt were important. We can read about the Nile River and its importance on the Egyptian society, economy, and agriculture. We can read about how the Pharaohs conducted the building of the pyramids and the differences in how they went about that process.

As stated in the previous paragraph, hieroglyphs can give us a sense of the Ancient Egyptian economy and its rise and falls throughout the changes of the Dynasties. In learning about the economy we learn more about the agriculture, trading, and lifestyles of both the upper and lower classes of the people in Ancient Egypt. The economy, in any culture and country, depends on what you can provide for the people and the surrounding areas. We have been able to learn about who Egypt was conducting trades with and which areas they saw as more beneficial for them to strengthen the economy. In learning how to read hieroglyphs we have been able to learn about the Ancient Egyptian agriculture and the process in which they used the flooding of the Nile River. Along with that, we can take notice in which animals they thought more useful for domestication and the progression, in general, of their agricultural state of being. When it comes to learning about the trading and lifestyles, it is all about what we find as grave goods and in the letters we find. Their number one source for trading was through Palestine but with the change in Dynasties came change in trading as well. Same with the lifestyles; in some of the graves we have found clay artifacts that seem to be a model version of homes. In these small clay homes resembles a family doing one specific task though there have been differences in the tasks in different models. Another change that has been noticed is the use of hieroglyphs and hieratic writing; as time went on the “common people” of Egypt protested against the singling out of their knowledge on the language. This, of course, lead to an agreement and progression of languages.

As we dig deeper into the hieroglyphic telling of Ancient Egyptian agriculture we also see the types of tools they used. The hieroglyphic symbols for the tools can and have been proven by the discovery of some of the tools through some findings in the excavation process. It is easy to connect and see the advancement of tools and technology once you can compare the artifact to the image as well as other images to what we believe they represent. Advancements in tools, food supply, animal domestication, architecture, and process of building can be seen through the well-documentation of hieroglyphs.

One of the reasons that words held such a high “power” to the ancient Egyptians is because “in Greek, hiero means ‘holy’ and glyph means ‘writing’”(Katan, p. 10). The word hieroglyph wasn’t even used until in 300 B.C. the Greeks saw the images carved onto temple walls when they came to Egypt. Luckily for us, another reason we can find such an abundance of hieroglyphic use is because the Egyptians held a magical belief to words. It was believed that the Egyptian writing were “words of gods” and that as long as the dead had their name, profession, and an offering list written on and in their tombs they would not only exist in the afterlife but they would prosper in it as well. It was highly important that the hieroglyphs be on and in the tombs because they saw it as a security measure against grave robbers. Ancient Egyptians believed that if “robbers stole the dead person’s possessions they would still “be” there” (Katan, p. 10).

All-together, it is simple to see the intricate beauty within hieroglyphs and the hard work that must have gone into them. Hieroglyphs can tell us so much about Ancient Egypt and without the deciphering of them it would be highly difficult to say for sure some of the facts that we have been able to discover. Without hieroglyphs, we would just have artifacts, architecture, and mummified and non-mummified remains without being able to say any specifics towards what they are, what they mean, or what their importance is. Hieroglyphs are stories of a lifetime that lead to other languages that broke barriers between the royalties and “commons” along with the surrounding living areas. The intrinsic quality of hieroglyphs combine art, survival, and greatness to produce the beautifully and finely tuned pictorial symbols. Hieroglyphs are definitely not to be disregarded as having an immensely valued importance on Ancient Egyptian history because they can be seen as the connection into learning about the four thousand years of silenced secrets of the scripts.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Black, Linda A., Cutler, Kenneth E. “Applied Hieroglyphs.” Public Historian. Vol. 3, No. 2 (spring, 1981): 71-74.
Davis, Chas H.S. “The Ancient Egyptian Language,” Science. Vol. 21, No. 542 (1893): 345.
Gardiner, Alan H. “The Nature and Development of the Egyptian Hieroglyphic Writing.” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 2, No. 2 (Apr. 1915): 61-75.
Griffith, F. Ll. “Archaeology, Hieroglyphic Studies, Etc.” Archaeological Report (Egypt Exploration Fund). (1908-1909): 8-47.
Katan, Norma Jean, Mintz, Barbara. “HIEROGLYPHS, the Writing of Ancient Egypt.” Atheneum, New York. 1982.
Manley, Bill. Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Egypt. England: Penguin Group, 1996.
Millmore, Mark. “Egyptian Hieroglyphic Alphabet.” WordPress. 1997. http://discoveringegypt.com/egyptian-hieroglyphic-writing/egyptian-hieroglyphic-alphabet/
Millmore, Mark. “Egyptian Hieroglyphic Writing.” WordPress. 1997. http://discoveringegypt.com/egyptian-hieroglyphic-writing/
Price, Barbara Pradal. “Ancient Egypt from A to Z.” Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc. 1971.
“The Rosetta Stone.” British Museum, 1999. Accessed 26 October 2014. http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/writing/rosetta.html

Final Edit: November 29, 2014