Egyptian hieroglyphs

Jean-François Champollion's hieroglyph translations recorded in La Grammaire égyptienne

Egyptian hieroglyphs were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt. Hieroglyphs combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with a total of some 1,000 distinct characters. Hieroglyphics were used as sacred writing, appearing on monuments, statues, and religious papyrus texts.

Etymology

The word hieroglyph comes from the Greek adjective ἱερογλυφικός (hieroglyphikos), a compound of ἱερός (hierós 'sacred') and γλύφω (glýphō 'Ι carve, engrave'). Ancient Egyptians referred to the language as the "Writing of the Gods."

History and evolution

Origin

The earliest found symbols that resemble hieroglyph were found on pottery dating back to 4000 BCE. The written language was considered difficult and was intended for people of significance such as pharaohs and priests. The mythological aura around the language was persistent in their culture as most Egyptians were considered illiterate. Hieroglyphs can be read left to right, right to left, horizontally or vertically, but never bottom to top. Thus it was confusing to read.

Mature writing system

Hieorglyphs were not only ideograms but also phonograms. The language consisted of phonetic glyphs, single characters, and logograms. Essentially being a combination of phonetics, alphabet and full words which in total formed a language. The Middle Egyptian period contained a little more than 700 signs. By the time of the Grec-Roman period, there were over 10,000 signs.

Late period

As the language became more commonplace with civilians, more variations were derived from the base language and it evolved further. The different languages are known as; Old Egyptian, Middle Egyptian, Late Egyptian, Demotic, and Coptic. Coptic was the only language of the five to survive until modern times to be deciphered. After Alexander the Great's conquest of Egypt the official language was changed to Greek. However, as a result of Greek and ethnic Egyptian tensions, and as the Greeks felt resentment at not being able to read the hieroglyphs the Rosetta Stone was made. It was written in Egyptian hieroglyphs, Demotic, and Greek scripts.

Late survival

Due to the spread of Christianity, the pharaonic culture ended and many pagan monuments were destroyed. This also marked the end of hieroglyphic writing and understanding.

Decipherment

Between the 5th century BCE and the Renaissance, knowledge of hieroglyphs was entirely lost. Many experts attempted to decipher the language with little success. Some groundwork was made in discovering the grammatical structure, and in the confirmation that coartouches were markers for the names of royalty. The next big breakthrough in deciphering the language came with the unearthing of the Rosetta Stone.

In 1799, a soldier from Napoleon's army found the Stone. The fact that the stone was written in three different languages; hieroglyphics, demotic, and Greek, meant that experts could finally translate it from something else. The hieroglyphic section of the stone was only fully translated more than twenty years after it had been found by Jean-François Champollion. Champollion's research was compiled in an autographical manuscript La Grammaire égyptienne, published posthumously in France in 1836.

By the 19th century, more progress had been made on the language. Jean-Baptiste Bigant created multiple charts with all known hieroglyphs on it. The English scholar Sir Alan Gardiner created a list classifying the common hieroglyphic signs and their variants. His findings were later publisher in Egyptian Grammar, first published in 1927.

Examples

Bayek
(bw-y3-k)

Aya
(3-y-ꜥj)

Ptolemy XIII
(?)

Ramesses II
(rꜥ-ms-sw)

Tutankhamun
(twt-ꜥnḫ-jmn)

Neferneferuaten Nefertiti
(Nfr nfrw itn Nfr.t jy.tj)

Medunamun
(b3.d-w-ı͗-mn.n)

Cleopatra
(Qlwpdrt nṯrt mr(t) jts)

Behind the Scenes

As the Ancient Egyptian spoken language was lost to time, Ubisoft opted to just use English as the spoken language in-game. The small amounts of Egyptian that are spoken in-game are based upon Alan Gardiner's Egyptian Grammar.

Appearances

• Assassin's Creed: Origins
  • The Hidden Ones
  • The Curse of the Pharaohs