EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH DE-CODER

Welcome to Egyptology Online - Ancient Egypt at your fingertips!

The coffin found in tomb KV55. The mummy case found under the niche was the first example of the royal "rishi" style ever found in the Valley of the Kings that originally had both the internal and external surfaces covered with gold leaf.

Discover the amazingly lifelike Fayoum mummy portraits >>

hieroglyphs - page1 | hieroglyphs - page 2

Hieroglyphs can be logograms, phonograms or determinatives, the symbols representing both ideograms and phonetic values.

Translating hieroglyphs therefore is not as straightforward as a=the symbol for an eagle.

Logograms:
These were individual signs whose meaning was roughly equivalent to their appearance, for instance, a shorthand diagram of the sky actually meant "sky". The symbol of the mouth actually meant the word "mouth".

Phonograms:
These are "sound signs" where the hieroglyph is used to try and picture the sound combination, for instance a bit like the word "belief" being depicted as a picture of a bee followed by a picture of a leaf. Phonograms consist of three types:
	1. 26 signs which each represent a single consonant, for instance the quail chick = w.
	2. Approximately 100 signs called bi-consonants which represent pairs of consonants, for instance the diagram of a house-plan = pr.
	3. About 40-50 signs called tri-consonants which represent trios of consonants, for instance the adjective "good" which was pronounced "nfr".
	Having one hieroglyph that replaced common pairs or trios of consonants would help simplify writing by eliminating large numbers of characters.

Determinatives:
These were pictures of types of things which were placed at the end of words made up of phonograms. Determinatives would essentially "determine" or indicate what type of words they were, attempting to give a general idea of the meaning of the word.

Pronunciation problems

One of the most difficult aspects of pronouncing a section of hieroglyphic text is that there were no vowels in the written form of the Ancient Egyptian language, only consonants. The study of the Coptic language, a direct descendant of Ancient Egyptian, as well as surviving translations of Egyptian words in the languages of Assyrian, Babylonian and Greek has enabled the vocalisation of many Ancient Egyptian words to be partially reconstructed.

The easiest conventional method of making Ancient Egyptian words pronounceable is to read the signs and insert a letter "e" wherever necessary. For instance, the word "s" becomes "se", the word "pr" becomes "per" and the word "nfr" becomes "nefer".

Translation of 1-Consonant signs

Transliterations of words are generally arranged basically according to the following values which are assigned to the Egyptian letters or phonetic symbols:

Letter:	A (eagle)	N (nile/water)	G (stand for jar)
Hieroglyph:

*Letter:*	I (reed)	R (mouth)	T (loaf)
*Hieroglyph:*

*Letter:*	Y (double reed)	H (twisted flax)	TH (rope)
*Hieroglyph:*

*Letter:*	B (foot)	KH (placenta)	W (quail chick)
*Hieroglyph:*

*Letter:*	P (mat)	S (folded cloth)	D (t) (hand)
*Hieroglyph:*

*Letter:*	F (horned viper)	Q (hill)	TCH/DJ (snake)
*Hieroglyph:*

*Letter:*	M (owl)	K (basket)	L (lion)
*Hieroglyph:*

Although a total of over 6000 hieroglyphic signs have been identified, the majority of these were introduced during the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. Prior to this, during the main Pharaonic era of Egyptian history, fewer than a thousand symbols are actually attested, with an even smaller number being in regular use. With a nucleus of frequent basic signs, others were simply invented as they became necessary.

Enrol on our easy to learn hieroglyph course and learn the secrets of the ancient Egyptians >>