CyberWorld

The Egyptian hieroglyphs have been fascinating people since thousands of years. It consisted of a system that used a series of 'picture' words. Writing hieroglyphs was a very complex system, which involved a lot of labor and hard work. The Egyptians developed this system around 3000 BC.

Hieroglyphs contained no vowels, it contains only consonants. While writing hieroglyphs, the Egyptians did not use any punctuations or spacing between words. There are over 700 hieroglyphs in the Egyptian alphabets. Hieroglyphs were written vertically as well as horizontally. Egyptian hieroglyphs could be written in both directions - right to left or left to right. In order to understand which side to begin reading, the scribe would place the figures involved in writing in one direction.

Some pictures represented words, while some were alphabets. The symbols which represent alphabets are divided into categories, which include ideograms and phonograms.

Ideograms represented the words. For example, if a picture looked like a man, it represented the word 'man'. Phonograms were used to spell the sound of the words they represented. Usually, the pictures had no relation with the word sound. A phonogram or ideogram could have similar symbols. The scribe would place a straight line after the word, so that it could be differentiated into a phonogram or ideogram.

During that time, the majority of the people of Egypt did not read or write. The scribes and priests were the ones who did all the writing. Young boys of wealthy families were sent to school in order to learn to write in Hieroglyphs. Learning hieroglyphs was a very long process. The scribes were considered royal servants and were exempted from paying tax. Scribes were also excused from military services.

The ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs evolved and developed into a complex system over thousands of years. They were used on buildings and tombs, like the Tutankhamen sarcophagus symbols. Over time, they were used to record events, decorate jewelry, and form a kind of signature for the royal blood and deities on oval stones called 'cartouche'.

During the 9^th and 10^th centuries, the first attempts of deciphering the hieroglyphs was carried out by Arab historians. The hieroglyphs were already a lost art and were replaced by Arabic and Coptic alphabets. Dhul-Nun al-Misri and Ibn Washiyya, were the first historians who deciphered the hieroglyphs partly.

The breakthrough of deciphering the hieroglyphics came with the discovery of the Rosetta Stone by Napolean's troops in 1799. It was a stone message written in three languages, all saying the same thing. The languages included Hieroglyphs, Demotic and Greek. If you were able to read one language, you had the key to the other two. Even with this clue, it took 20 years for historians to translate the hieroglyphs. The hieroglyphs were finally translated by Frenchman named Jean-Francois Champollion in 1820's.

Trivia

• A wavy horizontal line means water. Three horizontal wavy lines, one on top of the other represents the River Nile.
• The picture of an eye could represent the human eye or I (first person).

Hieroglyph are a part of the rich Egyptian legacy, which reminds us of the glorious past which included the Pharaohs and Mummies.