Hieroglyphics In Ancient Egypt

By: G6B Yukino Higashiyama

Introduction

Before the current Latin alphabet was used, there were several writing systems invented, in the ancient times. One of them, is cuneiform which was invented in Mesopotamia. Another example is the written system invented in ancient Egypt, called hieroglyphics.

Cuneiform

The writing system that Mesopotamia made was called cuneiform. Shaped pieces of clay were used as tokens or symbols, before Sumerians made writing. To keep track of the amount of animals bought and sold, or the amount of food grown, the tokens were used. This way of keeping records, had developed into writing, near the 3100B.C. The representation for objects, were written words that were symbols at the beginning. Then, the symbols changed,

It was used from at least 3100B.C. Hieroglyphics were symbols like pictures that are written down. Some pictures represented ideas or objects, in this script. The reason for why the Egyptians started using this writing system because they had to have a way to keep track of the country’s growing wealth. Despite to the fact that the empire grew, they need to invent more pictures for more complex ideas. Egyptians wrote writings on clays and stones, at the beginning. Then, they needed a more useful surface, so they used papyrus. It is a paper made from reeds that are found in the marshy places of the Nile delta, in the ancient days. It is said that hieroglyphics is the most difficult writing to read. The form of writing was used on gravestones, non-religious texts, like songs, legal documents, and historical inscriptions. Hieroglyphics, had two main types, and the first one is objects portrayed as ideograms or pictures. The second one is picture signs, which is phonetic, or sound, which the value of the words is symbolized with an object. Within hieroglyphics, there were several developments. At first, there were only important symbols, which were about 700 hieroglyphics. Then, by increasing the amount of signs using determinatives, made it easier to read the writing. Finally after approximately 2,000 years, the symbols increased to several thousands.

Rosetta stones were first found, when soldiers in Napoleon’s army, dug a fort near the Nile river. On the huge black stone, there were three different forms of writing. The top part had hieroglyphics, the middle part had demotic, and the last part had the Greek letters. The writing on the stone were in different language, but all of them had the same meaning. Because scholars couldn’t read hieroglyphics anymore, so many people tried to find out what it says, by using the Greek letters on the stone. At last, a French scholar called Jean-François Champollion, in the 1820s discovered the meaning. This discovery, made people realize the sound of hieroglyphics, and made us learn about the ancient Egyptian language and