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Very Short Introductions #113
Hieroglyphs: A Very Short Introduction
Hieroglyphs were far more than a language. They were an omnipresent and all-powerful force in communicating the messages of ancient Egyptian culture for over three thousand years. This ancient form of expression was used as art, as a means of identifying Egyptian-ness, even for communication with the gods. In this exciting new study, Penelope Wilson explores the cultural significance of hieroglyphs with an emphasis on previously neglected areas such as cryptography and the continuing deciphering of the script in modern times. She covers topics like the origins of writing in Egypt, hieroglyphic script and the Egyptian language, hieroglyphs and art, scribes and everyday writing. She also examines the powerful fascination hieroglyphs still hold for us today.
This book is the ideal reference for anyone with an interest in the fascinating civilization of Ancient Egypt.
This book is the ideal reference for anyone with an interest in the fascinating civilization of Ancient Egypt.
130 pages, Paperback
First published August 12, 2004
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580 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
April 15, 2020
این کتاب کوچک، برای آشنایی با خط هیروگلیف مفید بوده، پیدایش و تغییرات آن را در طول زمان بررسی و همچنین توضیحات مختصری در مورد دستور زبان و برخی از واژگان هیروگلیف مصری بیان میکند.
همانطور که در کتاب آمده، هیچ انسان زندهای بر روی کرۀ زمین وجود ندارد که شاهد یک گفتگوی مصری باستان بوده باشد در نتیجه ما فقط قادر به خواندن و نوشتن آن بوده و نمیتوانیم بطور صحیح آنرا تلفط کرده و به زبان بیاوریم.
مردم عادی قادر به خواندن هیروگلیف نبودند و فقط به یک گروه کوچک از متخصصین آموزشهای لازم داده میشد؛ در واقع خط، در انحصار پادشاهان و خدایان بود.
در بحث گرامر خط هیروگلیف مصر باستان، این موارد به خوبی شناسایی شده است که از جهت زبانشناسی بسیار جالب است:
اسامی، صفات، قیدها، افعال (گذشته، حال و آینده)، حالات و صداها و غیره.
همانطور که در کتاب آمده، هیچ انسان زندهای بر روی کرۀ زمین وجود ندارد که شاهد یک گفتگوی مصری باستان بوده باشد در نتیجه ما فقط قادر به خواندن و نوشتن آن بوده و نمیتوانیم بطور صحیح آنرا تلفط کرده و به زبان بیاوریم.
مردم عادی قادر به خواندن هیروگلیف نبودند و فقط به یک گروه کوچک از متخصصین آموزشهای لازم داده میشد؛ در واقع خط، در انحصار پادشاهان و خدایان بود.
در بحث گرامر خط هیروگلیف مصر باستان، این موارد به خوبی شناسایی شده است که از جهت زبانشناسی بسیار جالب است:
اسامی، صفات، قیدها، افعال (گذشته، حال و آینده)، حالات و صداها و غیره.
July 2, 2018
A crash course in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs for the general audience. As well as covering some basic vocabulary, grammar, and how the language and script changed over time, Wilson also examines how writing may have been invented in ancient Egypt, what it was used for and who used it, and how it was deciphered in recent centuries. I must admit I didn’t get anything new out of it, but it’s decent enough for the general reader with no prior knowledge of the subject.
7 out of 10
September 12, 2015
OUP's Very Short Introduction series provides excellent introductions to a wide variety of topics. They beautifully made and are a handy size for carrying around. The few entries that I've read have all been excellent. This introduction won't teach you how to read hieroglyphs, But it does provide some basic discussion of script and grammar. It also discusses the history of the development of hieroglyphs, their use alongside everyday scripts, the role they played religion and art. The story of how hieroglyphs first began to be deciphered and the present state of the discipline are also summarized.
May 27, 2024
In Egyptian only consonantal sounds and not vowels are written, so that a basic written word could conceivably have had various permutations of vowel sounds attached to it. For example, the word for a house is written , p-r. It may have been pronounced ‘per’, ‘aper’, ‘pero’, or ‘epre’. The pronunciation of the word might have changed depending on the function of the word within a sentence: ‘the house is big’ = ‘per’ (house is subject of the sentence); ‘the man enters the house’ = ‘epre’ (house is object of the sentence). By extension, nuances of tense may have been rendered in the spoken tongue but not in the written language,
Rosetta Stone or the Canopus Decree, the same text would be written in three different languages: Greek (for the ruling administration of the day), hieroglyphs (for the gods), and Demotic (for everyone else).
‘Old Coptic’ was created principally to write magical texts where the exact pronunciation of the words was all important. The language was effectively Demotic in a final form, but it was written in a different script and for the first time Egyptian was written in an alphabetic (uniconsonantal) script. From the second century AD Greek letters were used to write the Egyptian language, but because there were some sounds in Egyptian which did not occur in Greek, the scribes had to borrow a few signs from Demotic and use them along with the Greek alphabet. This resulting script, the language and culture of Christian Egypt, is known as Coptic.
The rituals activated the hieroglyphs, so that by the scent and smoke of burning incense the very writing could be inhaled by the gods; poured water soaked into the offerings and the fabric of the temple, energizing and bringing life; the provision of food, with its smells and taste, activated the senses and power of the gods. Not just each single hieroglyph, but also the two-dimensional reliefs, the three-dimensional statues, and the physical enactments and rituals were all ‘read’ to fulfil the function of the temple.
after the reign of Akhenaten, his name and images were systematically removed from his city at Akhetaten and also from his monuments at Karnak. 12. Examples of the erasure of the name of Amun from the architraves of a colonnade in Luxor Temple. The damnatio memoriae had been a favourite weapon of Akhenaten himself during his reign when he turned to the worship of the sun disk, the Aten, and apparently away from the previous state god, Amun. He had ordered the removal of the name of Amun from wherever it occurred, particularly in the heartland of the god at Thebes
the administrative bureaucracy used the shorthand, cursive script known as hieratic. The scribe would sit cross-legged on the ground or a low stool, with his kilt pulled tight over his knees to create a table. His papyrus roll would be unrolled at the required place and a page left open. The left end would have been held by the scribe’s left hand; the right may have been weighted down or allowed to fall to the right, keeping the papyrus taut. Taking his reed brush in his hand, the scribe would dip the brush in his water pot, then onto a cake of ink, mix until the black was perfect, and then paint his hieratic letters swiftly from right to left along the horizontal fibres exposed on the open side of the papyrus. The fibres formed a natural ruled line, keeping his lines of writing straight. The beginning of texts or important parts were written in red ink, the other colour on his palette.
The standard greeting formulae, such as ‘may Amun bring you back safe and you fill your embrace with Ne (Thebes) and we fill our eyes with the sight of you when you have returned alive, prospering and healthy’,
The initial training for scribes began in boyhood. Those chosen were lined up in rows, sitting with their texts on their kilts, and they chanted texts learned by heart until they could fit together hieroglyphs, words, and grammatical constructions and then read whole texts. In the New Kingdom they also copied out older, classic, set texts, including the Story of Sinuhe, which was evidently about what it was to be Egyptian, but more popular were the ‘Satire of the Trades’, ‘Instruction of Amenemhet I’, and ‘Kemyt’ (a compendium of model letters).
The Tanis Sign Papyrus has columns for: a hieroglyph, the hieratic equivalent, then a brief note in hieratic of what the sign is; for example, is described as ‘mouth of a human being’. The Geographical Papyrus also found in a charred mass in a house at Tanis has information in hieroglyphs about each administrative area of Egypt (nome): the name of a nome capital, its sacred barque, its sacred tree, its cemetery, the date of its festival, the names of forbidden objects, the local god, land, and lake of the city.
The arrangements of the word lists (‘Onomastica’) are interesting because they suggest the way in which the Egyptians thought about their language and also their world. The Onomasticon of Amenemope is divided into sections of groups of words which refer to the same idea: words for sky, water, and earth; administrative titles and occupations; classes, tribes, and types of human beings; towns of Egypt; buildings and types of land; agricultural land, cereals, and products; beverages and parts of cattle and cuts of meat. If these were used as teaching aids for spelling or for administrative and tax reference, the ‘standard’ terms would then have been consistently used by scribes throughout Egypt
The Rhind Mathematical Papyrus is an exemplary set of mathematical exercises, giving various problems, such as calculating the volume of a cylindrical grain store or the slope of a ramp – essential knowledge in pyramid-building – and then working through them, so that a scribe can follow all the steps of the process and practise it himself. The calculations required the manipulation of fractions which demonstrate a love of numbers for their own sake, but nonetheless with very practical applications.
ibis-headed god Thoth was the divine scribe who recorded the events of the life of the king on the leaves of the divine persea tree and accounted for the years of the king’s reign by notching a palm-leaf rib as each year passed. In his baboon form he is shown wrapped around the head of human scribes, imparting intelligence,
Thoth was on hand to record the outcome of the weighing of the deceased’s heart after death. Standing before Osiris, the ruler of the afterworld, the heart of the deceased was weighed on scales against the feather of maat. If the scales balanced or were light the person was adjudged to be ‘true of voice’ and proceeded to the next life. If the scales sank down, then the heart was gobbled up by a monster and the person ceased to exist. The whole proceeding was recorded in writing
Rosetta Stone or the Canopus Decree, the same text would be written in three different languages: Greek (for the ruling administration of the day), hieroglyphs (for the gods), and Demotic (for everyone else).
‘Old Coptic’ was created principally to write magical texts where the exact pronunciation of the words was all important. The language was effectively Demotic in a final form, but it was written in a different script and for the first time Egyptian was written in an alphabetic (uniconsonantal) script. From the second century AD Greek letters were used to write the Egyptian language, but because there were some sounds in Egyptian which did not occur in Greek, the scribes had to borrow a few signs from Demotic and use them along with the Greek alphabet. This resulting script, the language and culture of Christian Egypt, is known as Coptic.
The rituals activated the hieroglyphs, so that by the scent and smoke of burning incense the very writing could be inhaled by the gods; poured water soaked into the offerings and the fabric of the temple, energizing and bringing life; the provision of food, with its smells and taste, activated the senses and power of the gods. Not just each single hieroglyph, but also the two-dimensional reliefs, the three-dimensional statues, and the physical enactments and rituals were all ‘read’ to fulfil the function of the temple.
after the reign of Akhenaten, his name and images were systematically removed from his city at Akhetaten and also from his monuments at Karnak. 12. Examples of the erasure of the name of Amun from the architraves of a colonnade in Luxor Temple. The damnatio memoriae had been a favourite weapon of Akhenaten himself during his reign when he turned to the worship of the sun disk, the Aten, and apparently away from the previous state god, Amun. He had ordered the removal of the name of Amun from wherever it occurred, particularly in the heartland of the god at Thebes
the administrative bureaucracy used the shorthand, cursive script known as hieratic. The scribe would sit cross-legged on the ground or a low stool, with his kilt pulled tight over his knees to create a table. His papyrus roll would be unrolled at the required place and a page left open. The left end would have been held by the scribe’s left hand; the right may have been weighted down or allowed to fall to the right, keeping the papyrus taut. Taking his reed brush in his hand, the scribe would dip the brush in his water pot, then onto a cake of ink, mix until the black was perfect, and then paint his hieratic letters swiftly from right to left along the horizontal fibres exposed on the open side of the papyrus. The fibres formed a natural ruled line, keeping his lines of writing straight. The beginning of texts or important parts were written in red ink, the other colour on his palette.
The standard greeting formulae, such as ‘may Amun bring you back safe and you fill your embrace with Ne (Thebes) and we fill our eyes with the sight of you when you have returned alive, prospering and healthy’,
The initial training for scribes began in boyhood. Those chosen were lined up in rows, sitting with their texts on their kilts, and they chanted texts learned by heart until they could fit together hieroglyphs, words, and grammatical constructions and then read whole texts. In the New Kingdom they also copied out older, classic, set texts, including the Story of Sinuhe, which was evidently about what it was to be Egyptian, but more popular were the ‘Satire of the Trades’, ‘Instruction of Amenemhet I’, and ‘Kemyt’ (a compendium of model letters).
The Tanis Sign Papyrus has columns for: a hieroglyph, the hieratic equivalent, then a brief note in hieratic of what the sign is; for example, is described as ‘mouth of a human being’. The Geographical Papyrus also found in a charred mass in a house at Tanis has information in hieroglyphs about each administrative area of Egypt (nome): the name of a nome capital, its sacred barque, its sacred tree, its cemetery, the date of its festival, the names of forbidden objects, the local god, land, and lake of the city.
The arrangements of the word lists (‘Onomastica’) are interesting because they suggest the way in which the Egyptians thought about their language and also their world. The Onomasticon of Amenemope is divided into sections of groups of words which refer to the same idea: words for sky, water, and earth; administrative titles and occupations; classes, tribes, and types of human beings; towns of Egypt; buildings and types of land; agricultural land, cereals, and products; beverages and parts of cattle and cuts of meat. If these were used as teaching aids for spelling or for administrative and tax reference, the ‘standard’ terms would then have been consistently used by scribes throughout Egypt
The Rhind Mathematical Papyrus is an exemplary set of mathematical exercises, giving various problems, such as calculating the volume of a cylindrical grain store or the slope of a ramp – essential knowledge in pyramid-building – and then working through them, so that a scribe can follow all the steps of the process and practise it himself. The calculations required the manipulation of fractions which demonstrate a love of numbers for their own sake, but nonetheless with very practical applications.
ibis-headed god Thoth was the divine scribe who recorded the events of the life of the king on the leaves of the divine persea tree and accounted for the years of the king’s reign by notching a palm-leaf rib as each year passed. In his baboon form he is shown wrapped around the head of human scribes, imparting intelligence,
Thoth was on hand to record the outcome of the weighing of the deceased’s heart after death. Standing before Osiris, the ruler of the afterworld, the heart of the deceased was weighed on scales against the feather of maat. If the scales balanced or were light the person was adjudged to be ‘true of voice’ and proceeded to the next life. If the scales sank down, then the heart was gobbled up by a monster and the person ceased to exist. The whole proceeding was recorded in writing
November 26, 2017
An excellent introduction to Hieroglyphs, ancient Egypt, and the various forms of writing that were used during that era. This book was an incredibly worthwhile read, it answered all of the questions I've had about hieroglyphs over the years, and taught me many other interesting things besides. A recommended read for anybody who's ever wanted to learn more about hieroglyphs.
September 26, 2016
Enjoyable précis of a fascinating topic; one of the better short intros I've read. Provided some basics of the language and nicely set the historical and contemporary context.
January 12, 2025
I am so glad I read this book. It's very short, as the title indicates, and is fascinating. I now know that Old Egyptian, Middle Egyptian, Late Egyptian, Demotic, and Coptic languages were written and/or spoken in different ages of Ancient Egypt. There were the formal Hieroglyph forms of writing, and also Linear and Cursive Hieratic. Linear and Cursive Hieratic were simpler and faster to write, and used in everyday writing. The book discusses the basics of written Ancient Egyptian languages, which were much more nuanced than I thought. She talks about how scribes learned to write, how Ancient Egyptian writing was deciphered, and more. The author is an Egyptologist specializing in Hieroglyphs and field archaeology. It fascinates me how different people like different books. Your mileage may vary, but a solid, quick 5-star read for me.
November 13, 2021
As with other Very Short Introductions, I really enjoyed this book. The subject is covered thoughtfully and delves into various facets of the history and what we know of Egyptian hieroglyphs, from their creation, to subtleties like wordplay and grammar, poetry and modern forgeries, and the relevance of such a system both in Ancient Egypt, the modern era and all in between. I learned a lot from this & will read it again.
March 17, 2023
Chapter 1: The origins of writing in Egypt
Chapter 2: Hieroglyphic script and Egyptian language
Chapter 3: Hieroglyphs and art
Chapter 4: 'I know you, I know your names'
Chapter 5: Scribes and everyday writing
Chapter 6: The decipherment of Egyptian
Chapter 7: Hieroglyphs in the modern world
Chapter 2: Hieroglyphic script and Egyptian language
Chapter 3: Hieroglyphs and art
Chapter 4: 'I know you, I know your names'
Chapter 5: Scribes and everyday writing
Chapter 6: The decipherment of Egyptian
Chapter 7: Hieroglyphs in the modern world
May 3, 2023
A very interesting and thorough primer on hieroglyphs. It's not going to teach you how to write or read them - if you think that a Very Short Introduction is going to even attempt that, then this is probably the wrong book for you! - but it does give a lot of overview as to the function and history of hieroglyph writing. Wilson is very good at conveying a lot of information in a way that doesn't feel overwhelming.
I read this in preparation for a visit to the British Museum, and was genuinely surprised at how much it helped me to understand the purpose of the artefacts, and to feel a bit more connected to the people behind them. I'd love to read some more in-depth works on the study of hieroglyphs, because even without attempting to translate them, the particular nature and function of them is just so interesting.
I read this in preparation for a visit to the British Museum, and was genuinely surprised at how much it helped me to understand the purpose of the artefacts, and to feel a bit more connected to the people behind them. I'd love to read some more in-depth works on the study of hieroglyphs, because even without attempting to translate them, the particular nature and function of them is just so interesting.
January 24, 2020
Lovely and accurate introduction into the principle of hieroglyphs. Is not a training book!
July 20, 2021
Never hurts to add a little to the historical information repertoire.
February 7, 2011
Dry, dusty, and looted of the best bits.
March 20, 2021
Read online here.
April 15, 2017
Lots of great information.
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