Scribes

The scribe was a very important part of ancient Egypt. He was the only person who could read and write, and therefore in high demand.

The Job Description

Scribe 7kb
Pyramids 16kb
Painting 37kb

Message Creator

Ancient Egyptian Language
Writing in Hieroglyphs
Jean F. Champollion
Papyrus
Timeline
Language
Communication

Nom en hieroglyphes
This page, in English and French, will automatically translate your name into Hieroglyphs
Egyptian Language and Script
An in-depth tutorial
Letter to hieroglyph encoder
Simple and colourful

The Job Description

In North America today, most of us can read and write. But in ancient Egypt, most of the population was illiterate . Reading wasn't a necessary part of these people's lives. They never had to read books or signs. They learned everything from other people. You now know more about hieroglyphs than they did!

The only people who could read and write were called scribes. Reading and writing was their job. A lot of scribes worked for the government and were very important. They would take dictation , translate letters, and decorate tombs, walls, and other structures.

There is a special hieroglyph for "scribe." It looks like this: Scribe
It shows a palette and brush, and a man holding them. For a larger version of this hieroglyph, click "scribe" under "pictures" at the left.

Pyramids servants worshipping a mummy
Hieroglyphs
Scribes would decorate walls and tombs as well as reading and writing official documents.
...

Sources
Click here for a list of sources used in this project.
Glossary
All the words in bold are found in the Glossary. If you don't understand a word, click on the beside it, to go directly to the Glossary Page.
[/10005/library/scribes.html]
Unless otherwise stated, information on this site was created by The Unica Island Team, and may be reproduced for educational purposes without permission. For complete information, please see the copyright information pages.