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| Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics |
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The ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics are a
fascination to many people. The term hieroglyphics
refers to a system of writing using ancient Egyptian
symbols. The hieroglyphics involved a series of
'picture' words. Consisting of several hundred words,
this system of writing was intensely complex and very
labor intensive. The first hieroglyphics were used on
buildings and tombs. It is believed that the Egyptians
first began developing this system of writing about
3000 BC. |
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| Facts about Hieroglyphics |
| In AD 391 the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius I closed
all pagan temples throughout the empire. This action
terminated a four thousand year old tradition and the
message of the ancient Egyptian language was lost for
1500 years. It was not until the discovery of the
Rosetta stone and the work of Jean-Francois Champollion
(1790-1832) that the Ancient Egyptians awoke from their
long slumber. Today, by virtue of the vast quantity of
their literature, we know more about Egyptian society
than most other ancient cultures. |
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Hieroglyphs are written in rows or
columns and can be read from left to right or from
right to left. You can distinguish the direction in
which the text is to be read because the human or animal
figures always face towards the beginning of the line.
Also the upper symbols are read before lower.
Hieroglyphic signs are divided into four categories:
1. Alphabetic signs represent a single sound.
Unfortunately the Egyptians took most vowels for granted
and did not represent them. So we may never know how the
words were formed. |
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2. Syllabic signs represent a combination
of two or three consonants. (Click the images -
right, to download Gifs or if your browser does not
support image maps use the table - below)
3. Word-signs are pictures of objects used as the words
for those objects. they are followed by an upright
stroke, to indicate that the word is complete in one
sign.
4. A determinative is a picture of an object which helps
the reader. For example; if a word expressed an abstract
idea, a picture of a roll of papyrus tied up and sealed
was included to show that the meaning of the word could
be expressed in writing although not pictorially.
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The Egyptians had a decimal system using seven different
symbols.
1 is shown by a single stroke.
10 is shown by a drawing of a hobble for cattle.
100 is represented by a coil of rope.
1,000 is a drawing of a lotus plant.
10,000 is represented by a finger.
100,000 by a tadpole or frog
1,000,000 is the figure of a god with arms raised above his
head.
(Click the image, above, to download Gifs or if your browser
does not support image maps use the table left)
The conventions for reading and writing numbers is quite
simple;
the higher number is always written in front of the lower
number and where there is more than one row of numbers the
reader should start at the top.
Mathematics Problems
This section is a brief test to see if you could survive in
the world of Egyptian numerals and mathematics
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