HIEROGLYPHS

The ancient Egyptian system of writing, one of the oldest written languages in the world, was developed late in the fourth millennium BCE, with the earliest inscriptions composed before the First Dynasty began, about 3100 BCE. Different types of writing were used for different purposes throughout Egyptian history, but the picture writing known as hieroglyphs (Greek for “sacred sculpture”) that were carved on monuments were intended to survive the ages.

The act of writing was perceived to be magical by the ancient Egyptians. They believed that the god Thoth invented writing, so they called hieroglyphs “the god’s words”. Only a small proportion of the population was able to read or write, perhaps as little as four percent, with priests and high officials among the most literate. Scribes specifically, were revered by pharaohs because of their ability to read and write hieroglyphs. Funerary objects were covered in hieroglyphic prayers, spells and dedications. Offerings for the deceased were often written descriptions rather than physical items. Writing “loaf of bread” on an offering was as good as leaving the real item. Hieroglyphs were painted or carved and there were several hundred signs in regular use.

Hieroglyphs generally combined characters representing sounds with picture symbols that depicted entire words or ideas. Inscriptions were generally written from right to left, but sometimes they were written from left to right or even from top to bottom. You could tell which direction to read by looking at the picture symbols that had faces. If the face looked to the left, you began reading from the left. The name of a pharaoh was always enclosed in an oval ring called a cartouche. The individual picture symbols, or hieroglyphs, were drawings of nearly everything the Egyptians saw and used in daily life.

After the decline of the ancient Egyptian civilization, the ability to read hieroglyphs was lost. The language remained indecipherable until 1799 when a group of soldiers in Napoleon’s invading army discovered a large stone fragment while digging the foundations for an addition to a fort near the town of el-Rashid (Rosetta). This fragment, now known as the Rosetta Stone, was inscibed three times with the same decree, first in hieroglyphs (Egyptian picture symbols), once in demotic (an Egyptian script used for daily purposes), and once in Greek (the administrative language used in Egypt in the third century BCE).

The French scholar of ancient oriental languages, Jean-François Champollion, revealed the final secret in deciphering hieroglyphs when he realized that the picture symbols recorded the sound of the Egyptian words, not the letters that make up the words. By 1822, Champollion had deciphered the entire text of the Rosetta Stone which was a decree affirming the royal cult of the 13-year-old Ptolemy V on the first anniversary of his coronation.

Although the French discovered the Rosetta Stone, after Napoleon’s defeat the stone became the property of the English under the terms of the Treaty of Alexandria (1801). It has been exhibited in the British Museum since 1802.