Download HIEROGLYPHS

HIEROGLYPHS
Good readers use headings to help guide their reading so that they can predict and question while they
read. Because the following text has no headings for each section, it is more difficult to read. Your job is
to read the following information and determine the best heading for each section. Write your heading
on the line above each section.
The early Egyptians used a form of writing called hieroglyphics. The writing was
made up of about 750 signs, which included pictures of people, animals, plants and
objects. For years researchers believed that every sign only stood for the thing it was a
picture of, but they know now it does not. For instance, the picture of an owl can
represent the sound “m” as well as the bird itself.
M
Since Egyptian scribes did not use vowels between consonants in writing
hieroglyphs, the English words “sun” and “son” would be written the same way, with
the hieroglyph for the sounds “sn”.
To distinguish between the two meanings, scribes wrote determinatives, a
hieroglyph written at the end of a word to give a clue to its meaning. The son, who
has a mother or father, would be represented by the sound spelling, followed by the
determinative of a seated man.
The sun in the sky would have the sound spelling followed by the determinative
of a circle with a hole in the center.
Hieroglyphic inscriptions were arranged in vertical columns or horizontal lines.
They were normally read from right to left, although in some instances, they were
read in reverse. The signs that represented persons or animals normally faced the
beginning of the inscription, a key as to the direction in which it should be read.
Sometimes two hieroglyphs would be stacked on top of each other so that the whole
arrangement was prettier.
As you can imagine, it must have been hard to write quickly with hieroglyphs. That is why Egyptians
developed two other writing systems that were easier to scribble down in a hurry. They were called
hieratic writing and demotic writing. The hieroglyphic system was used mainly for tombs or temples,
while the other languages were used for keeping records. However, hieroglyphs have also been found
carved into stone and pottery and written with black ink on scrolls of papyrus.
For more than a thousand years the ability to read, much less write, hieroglyphic text was lost. No
one was able to decipher what the hidden language meant. Then in 1799, some soldiers of Napoleon
Bonaparte uncovered a slab of rock from a crumbling brick wall near the town of Rosetta in the Nile
delta.
The surface of the rock was divided into three sections of writing. Each section of writing was
written in a different script. The top fourteen lines were in the mysterious Egyptian hieroglyphs. Directly
below were thirty-two lines of the Egyptian script known as demotic that no one knew how to read either.
At the bottom were fifty-four lines of Greek, still spoken and written throughout the Mediterranean area.
Eventually, it was determined that all three sections of the stone said the same thing, The stone was
ordered to be created as an honor to the Greek, Ptolemy, for all he did for Egypt. It took 23 years for
Jean-Francois Champollion to figure out what the writing said. Because of his work, we are now able to
read hieroglyphs.
Your assignment:
1. Use the hieroglyphic information handout to write your name in a “cartouche.” A cartouche was a
pharaoh’s signature. It was an oval with a horizontal bar at the bottom. Generally a king or a god's
name was written within. It was believed to act as a protector of the king's name, seeing that his or
her name was never forgotten. The sign represented a loop of rope that was never ending.
2. If your name has vowels between the consonants, you can eliminate them as the scribes in ancient
Egypt would have done. However, if you choose to include them, that is fine also.
3. Organize your symbols in a pleasing manner. Place symbols next to each other if it makes your
cartouche appear nicer.
4. Have all symbols of animals and men face the direction your name begins. This is important if you
are going to stack symbols or place symbols next to each other.
King Tutankhamen’s
cartouche