I learned to translate Middle Egyptian Hieroglyphs!

Last semester I found myself studying Middle Egyptian Hieroglyphs (to meet my quota of Ancient History units for the NSW IT subject content requirements). It was really interesting! The process of learning two languages at once (symbols and letters/sounds - see below for explanation) re-ignited my interest in languages and I learned some pretty cool things. 

Here are some of the things I learned:

Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs were written to be read both left-to-right and right-to-left. In some ancient tombs (see photo to the right) hieroglyphs were written left-to-right on one side of a doorway and right-to-left on another side of the doorway to emphasise the passage or 'opening' which must be passed through. Whichever way the symbols are facing is the way that they should be read, this is easiest to spot with hieroglyphs of birds or other animals: if a hieroglyph of a heron is facing to the left, then the hieroglyphs should be read left-to-right (and vice versa).

The so-called 'hieroglyphic alphabet' used to translate Middle Egyptian hieroglyphs into letters/sounds does have some letters which look and sound the same as (or similar to) letters in the English alphabet. However, there are quite a few differences, some of which relate to the fact that the English has less glottal (deep or 'throaty') sounds. 

Egyptian hieroglyphic writing does not normally indicate vowels, and for that reason has been labelled by some an abjad alphabet, i.e., an alphabet without vowels (This fact is courtesy of Wikipedia)

The process for translating Hieroglyphs has two parts: first hieroglyphs must be transliterated to the corresponding letters of the alphabet to produce written words, then those 'transliterated' words must be translated into English words to form phrases/sentences.

Due to the fairly limited number of symbols available to Middle Egyptian scribes, they needed a way to distinguish different meanings from the same group of symbols. They therefore devised the 'Determinative' group of symbols: these were primarily used to indicate the 'category' or 'type' of the word. E.g. The word 'Ebony' would be followed by the symbol of a tree, which is a determinative to indicate that the word has something to do with trees (in this case, Ebony was a type of wood). A 'Determinative' symbol is found at the end of a word, so a 'Determinative' symbol not only hints at the nature of the thing represented by that word, it is also a handy 'marker' when trying to separate a line of symbols into distinct words.

The course I studied focused on Hieroglyphs from the Middle Kingdom period (2030 - 1640 B.C.), which are slightly different to those that came before (Old Kingdom: 2649 - 2150 B.C.) and those that came later (New Kingdom: 1550 - 1070 B.C. and later). Interestingly, Middle Kingdom hieroglyphs do not feature a symbol for the letter 'l', whereas New Kingdom hieroglyphs do (otherwise it probably would not have been possible to represent a name like 'Cleopatra'!)

After c.2000 BCE, the pharaoh had five names: four throne names and the name he had received when he was born.

1. the Horus-name (i.e., manifestation of the heavenly falcon)
2. He of the two ladies (i.e., the twofold country Egypt, represented by the cobra-goddess Wadjet and the vulture-goddess Nekhbet)
3. the golden Horus-name (expressing eternity)
4. He of the sedge and bee (e.g., Upper and Lower Egypt)
5. Son of (the sun god) Ra (i.e., personal name).

Generally, modern scholars use the 'personal names' to refer to each Pharaoh. You can find more info and examples about this here.

Most papyri and inscriptions that were written in hieroglyphs (at least those that have survived!) were written by male scribes about male subjects - usually the King, his sons, officials, priests etc. There are very few references made to women in these texts - usually these are in the context of their role as mother/as having given birth to important men.

Hieroglyphs weren't only used for official use, such as documenting the dynastic succession of Kings, the achievements of a Kings life (on their tomb) or religious beliefs (especially relating to the Egyptian gods and goddesses). They were also used to document stories, such as The 'Dispute Between a Man and his Ba' and the 'Tale of the Eloquent Peasant'. The latter is a story that says a lot about the daily life of peasants, the hierarchy of that society, the process of law/justice, and the value that was placed on 'beautiful language' (i.e. eloquence) by those occupying the highest levels of society. At its most basic form, it shows a 'lowly' peasant using his wit to achieve a higher position in society. You can read more about the eloquent peasant story here.

Below you will see the beginning section of the 'Tale of the Eloquent Peasant', rendered in electronic form (much easier to read than the original papyri fragments!) 

Typeset by Jenny Carrington - found at http://www.rostau.org.uk/ep/ep1.html