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Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs

The Rosetta Stone

Rosetta Stone

The Rosetta Stone is our key to understanding the meaning of hieroglyphs.

The Rosetta Stone was a black basalt slab with the same piece of writing carved in three different languages: Hieroglyphics (top), Demotic (middle) and Greek (bottom).

Scholars were able to make sense of the hieroglyphic version by comparing it with the Greek which they already understood

The Rosetta Stone was discovered in 1799, during the French Revolutionary Wars, by one of Napoleon's officers near the town of Rosetta (now called Rashid) . In 1801, it was captured by the British and, since 1802, has been on show in the British Museum.

In 1822, a French Egyptologist called Jean Francois Champollion (1790-1832) was the first person to translate all the hieroglyphs on the stone. He discovered that it was a piece of writing in praise of the good works of the pharaoh Ptolemy V and that it was carved in 196 BC.

Thanks to his work, we now have a knowledge of the language of the Ancient Egyptians and an appreciation of this great civilisation through the many hieroglyphic writings that have survived.

 

 
A
B
C
D
E
F
 
G
H
I
J
K
L
 
M
N
O
P
Q
R
 
S
T
U
V
W
X
 
Y
Z
CH
PH
SH
TH
 
Ankh
Cartouche
Horus Eye
Pectoral
Rosetta
Scarab
 

The A to Z of Hieroglyphs
Click on one of the hieroglyphs above for more information

Our simplified Hieroglyphic Alphabet is designed for fun to let you translate English words into Hieroglyphs.

Before you translate your words into hieroglyphs, break them down into their basic sounds of their syllables. For example, the word hieroglyph itself has ten letters but only eight sounds: h-i-r-o-g-l-y-f. Therefore, you would only need eight hieroglyphs to represent it.

Treat all double letters as single sounds. That should help you cut back on the number of hieroglyphs you need to use.

Sometimes the same hieroglyph is used to represent different letters. If that happens, change the colour of the hieroglyphs to avoid confusion.

Arrange your hieroglyphs to create interesting designs rather than the straight lines that we use to arrange our letters and sentences.

 

Egyptian Art Index

 

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