Guide to reading Egyptian Hieroglyphics

[Nafretiri]

Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics
A simple guide to help you understand the ‘sacred text’

The Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs (hieroglyphs meaning ‘sacred writing’ in Greek) has been used by the Ancient Egyptians for thousands of years. The hieroglyphs have mainly been found on temple and tomb walls and often on rocks beside the Nile. A simpler version of the hieroglyphs is hieratic, which was used when writing on papyrus scrolls.

In this thread I will go over some hieroglyphs. You can use them to decipher inscriptions yourself or you can use the 1, 2 or 3 consonant signs to create your name in a form of a cartouche.

I found the hieroglyphs on Wikipedia (List of Hieroglyphs) but there are some hieroglyphics which I had to create or modify myself.

Before we start, I just want to make this clear. Unlike this alphabet, which is read from left-to-right, hieroglyphics can be read in both direction, thats right-to-left and left-to-right. Don't worry though, I will provide you with some help on which direction to read. You always read into the face of the animal. All the hieroglyphs in this thread need to be read the same direction as this text, but here is an example below on to to read hieroglyphics in different directions:

The hieroglyphs says dj-ay-d (pronounced as Jade ... my name whee ). So depending on the which way the animal/human/body part faces you read into it. It's pretty confusing at first but as soon as you get used to read in one direction (start with left-to-right) you can easily do it the other way round. With collumns you always read from top to bottom.

Contents:

arrow 1, 2 and 3 Consonant signs and Transliteration symbols
arrow Determinatives and Ideograms
arrow Cartouches  

[Nafretiri]

1, 2 and 3 Consonants Signs
and Transliteration Symbols

1 Consonants signs:

The list below is in three column, the first column is the hieroglyph, the second is the transliterate symbol (there are more sounds then letters in our alphabet so it’s like an extra letter with a dot, dash or wave to indicate what other sound it makes, details below) and the third is the letter it represents in our alphabet.

2 Consonant signs:

Here is where you try and practice Transliteration. Transliteration is when you try to pronounce the word. It is obviously difficult to read them without vowels but depending on the consonants used the vowels appear when you speak e.g. nb = neb.

3 Consonant signs:

These are the last of the consonants signs. Like before, keep practicing with the transliteration.

Transliteration:

There are more sounds then there are letters in our alphabet so to extend the variety of letters in our alphabet we can cover more sounds. Below is a table of the transliterate symbol and the sound in makes:

 

[Nafretiri]

Determinatives and Ideograms

Determinatives:
Determinatives are signs which tell the reader what the hieroglyphs mean to reduce confusion. These signs do not have sounds. Here are some examples of determinatives below:

Ideograms:
Just like determinatives, they determine the meaning of an inscription, but unlike determinatives they have sounds, these are known as ideograms. Many signs are depicted as ideograms because of the vertical stroke. Here are some common ideogram signs below with their transliteration and meaning.

 

[Nafretiri]

Cartouches

This is what tells us the names of the most important people of Ancient Egypt, the Cartouche. It is a round shape with a base at the bottom (or side, depending on the order which the text is written) which contains many 1, 2 and 3 consonant sounds to create a name. Below are some example of cartouches (Pharaoh’s name first, then throne name):

With most Pharaohs (like Tutankhamen and Rameses II) we only know them by the first half of their name as many Pharaoh’s names were incredibly large so I have put the name that we all know the Pharaoh by in red so you know who he/she is. Also I decided to put the full name down because if you decide to decipher the cartouche then you can know if you are on the right lines when deciphering.

NB: Even though the sun disk (‘ra’) is at the beginning of the cartouche it is not read out first (for example Ra-menkhepper, when it should be Menkhepperra) instead it is read out last. I thought I better point this out before people get confused, I certainly did before I stopped the pattern.  

[Nafretiri]

And that is the very basics of hieroglyphics! I got the information from my book called How to read Egyptian Hieroglyphics (information on book here), I got the single sings from Wikipedia (I did create a few myself either because I either couldn't find them or it was easier to do so) and the cartouches from here. There is still alot more to talk about with hieroglyphics, like the tenses (which is incredibly confusing at first), dates, plurals, deciphering formulas, weak and strong verbs etc.

If you would like to continue to learn more on hieroglyphics then I highly suggest that you buy a book that teaches you them, mainly because it is wrote by Egyptologists who have studied Hieroglyphics and I’m just a college student with an interest in Egypt, and they explain these things better then what I do.

If you spot anything wrong with the information I have provided then please let me know ASAP so I can correct it, although all of this information is from my book and two websites, just in my own words, so there should not be any mistakes.

I hope this has helped you!

Nafretiri heart  

[tharens]

Thank for the hard work.  

[Shokai]

Thank you for your hard work and making this thread possible. I have a book called "Write like an Ancient Egyptian" that I once brought from the Metropolitan museum. It has the "alphabet" just like posted above (it comes with the stencils too ^_^) and many pictures of tomb paintings. However, the book is intended to write in hieroglyphs IN English..nevertheless, it is a fun book.  

[Rennie`]

Shokai

Thank you for your hard work and making this thread possible. I have a book called "Write like an Ancient Egyptian" that I once brought from the Metropolitan museum. It has the "alphabet" just like posted above (it comes with the stencils too ^_^) and many pictures of tomb paintings. However, the book is intended to write in hieroglyphs IN English..nevertheless, it is a fun book.

At the time there was not an alphabet but we kind of treat the 1-consonant signs like an alphabet today, for example:
A = Vulture
B = Leg
C = Basket
D = Hand
E = Reed
F = Viper
G = Funny looking basket

and so on.  

[Lunai]

Thank you for posting this. It is very helpful.  

[Neshumurru]

omg wow, It's like looking into my book all over again. (I wish I could find it :[ )  

[Inspector Javert 1820]

Wow awesome thread, lots of information biggrin heart  

[Katie Tatie Tot]

yay! Thanks for posting this! I've always been really fascinated by languages and even more so I kinda day dream about discovering something in an ancient tomb and being the first to read the hieroglyphs! how cool that would be!! mrgreen