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Egyptian Hieroglyphics
Hieroglyphics was a way of writing formed by Ancient
Egyptians during their development stages. Ancient Egyptians used pictures
that stood for different letters. Hieroglyphs formed the basic writing
system of Ancient Egypt, took shape around 3000 BC, and reached an
accepted form as early as the First Dynasty. There were thousands of
signs, described by the Egyptian as "divine words."
Writing texts are concerned with everything intended to be captured
in writing for eternity, in particular religious texts, historical and
political inscriptions, and biographies.
Hieroglyphs were carved or painted on the walls of temples and tombs, on
burial equipment, on pieces of
Egyptian jewelry, and on false doors.
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Each symbols in Egyptian Writing alphabet represented an actual thing that existed in ancient
Egyptian life, plants, geometric figures, body parts, and birds. These signs
could be used either to write the words they depicted, called ideograms, or
to spell out the sounds of the words, called phonograms.
Scribes had to learn more than 700 signs representing ideas and objects; others representing sounds. Because the language was so complex, young scribes-almost always boys from wealthy or royal families-would attend school for years to become adept at writing and reading. And the training was rigorous. Boys as young as six or seven would practice writing on ostraca-flat stones or broken pieces of clay pottery
or
cartouche . Archaeologists have found many ostraca with texts of amusing animal tales or stern moral tracts that were dictated by the scribal teachers. Students also had to learn mathematics so that a number of high-level professions would be
open to them: tax collector, treasurer, quartermaster or architect.
Rosetta stone
The meaning of the Egyptian Symbols comes from the discovery of the a basalt rock inscribed with a message written in three languages: Egyptian Hieroglyphic, Egyptian Demotic and Greek.
The Rosetta stone founded by Napoleonic soldiers in 1799
the stone is a compact slab
of basalt with dimension of (114x72x28 cm) ,and found in July 1799 in the Egyptian village
called Rosette (Raschid), located in the western delta of the Nile.
the stone is kept at the British Museum in London.
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