Hieroglyphics

Hieroglyphics
By Caitlin

When someone mentions the word 'hieroglyphics,' most people think of Egypt, Hieroglyphics at Memphis Museum the sphinx, pyramids and mummies. Some people think about those words being on the spelling test they failed last year. But does anyone know what hieroglyphics really are, and why they are such an important part of the history of communication?

The word hieroglyphics actually comes from the Greek word meaning sacred carvings. This term refers to the beautiful inscriptions on Egyptian monuments.

Hieroglyphics may be one of the first forms of communication. It was first used in 3200 BC, when the Egyptians were thought to have begun speaking old Egyptian.

Scribes were some of the few people at the top of the hierarchy table who wrote using hieroglyphics. This was mainly because they took time to learn and paper (made of a plant called papyrus) was expensive. Scribes recorded important dates and aspects of the religion for people in years to come to read. They worked for the pharaohs, and it was usually a hard job to obtain. Only scribes' children became scribes and so on.

The hieroglyphic system used between 7 and 8 hundred symbols, both phonograms and ideograms. Phonograms represent sounds, like th, bl, or ch. Ideograms represent actual nouns, verbs and adjectives, such as motion, joy or bird. A picture of an eagle could mean bird, but a picture of a bird with the glyph meaning the sound ‘ch’ could mean chick. The Egyptians did not use vowel sounds, so they must have added sounds like ar, or, or ur to define some words.

They also added specific symbols stating belonging which included words such as of or from. For example, once some archaeologists found a mummy case stating in the inscription: “I am the daughter of the great king Xerxes.” But when the inscription was closely inspected, the stonemason had missed a vital part of the dedication. It really said, “I am the daughter Xerxes great king”, and was immediately found to be a fake. (The adjectives come after the noun or proper noun.)

The first person to decipher hieroglyphics was Jean-Francois Champollion. Some diggers found a slab of rock with writing in three different languages: the two forms of Egyptian, Demotic and hieroglyphics, and Greek! Both the hieroglyphics and demotic text were unreadable, but after surrendering the stone to a British museum, Champollion was able to decipher the text through the Greek words and read inscriptions on tombs, scrolls, etc.

Chinese used hieroglyphs also. That was called calligraphy. It was especially popular in the Yuan dynasty. Just like hieroglyphics, calligraphy was considered an important part of the scholar-gentleman’s training; samples of it were often given to friends or relatives as an acknowledgement of hospitality or kindness, or to mark a special occasion. Just like we use greeting cards today! Calligraphers painted like the Egyptians; holding the brush vertically. Characters were illustrated in a variety of styles, ranging from the ancient glyphs to the more modern freeform glyphs of the Zen painters.

A language you may not have heard of is Sumerian. These people, originally from Mesopotamia, were the first to use cuneiform, an alphabet using short wedge shaped strokes. The civilization most known for using cuneiform were the Babylonians. Unlike Egyptian hieroglyphics, each symbol stood for a word. But Sumerian has many words that sound alike, making its cuneiform difficult to read.

Many cultures used picture and symbol writing. For a period of 2.5 thousand years, the Egyptians used hieroglyphics in honor of their gods and goddesses, and this was the birth of many languages around the earth.

Citations

Book and Online Sources

Guterbock, Hans G. "Cuneiform." Encarta. 1999th ed. N.p.: n.p. CD-ROM.

Hare, Thomas. Egyptian Gods, Goddesses and More. Oct. 2001. Nov. 2004.

Nelson, Dianne M. Encarta. 1999th ed. N.p.: n.p., 99. CD-ROM.

Online Resources

Ferguson, Andrew, and Rafe Kinsey. Alphabet Superhighway. Nov. 2004 <http://www.ash.udel.edu/exhibit/Egypt/rosetta.htm>.

Other Resources

Fincham, J. Speech. G.I.S, Auckland. Aug. 2004.

Images

Permission to use photograph of hieroglyphics outside is granted under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page>.

Copyrighted clip art images from "Microsoft Office Online" <http://office.microsoft.com/clipart/default.aspx?lc=en-us&cag=1> (October-March, 2004-2005). Clip art available only to licensed users for non-commercial purposes.