Hieroglyphs

Hieroglyphs: A Very Short Introduction

Very Short Introductions are for anyone wanting a stimulating and accessible way in to a new subject. They are written by experts, and have been published in more than 25 languages worldwide.

The series began in 1995, and now represents a wide variety of topics in history, philosophy, religion, science, and the humanities. Over the next few years it will grow to a library of around 200 volumes – a Very Short Introduction to everything from ancient Egypt and Indian philosophy to conceptual art and cosmology.

Very Short Introductions available now:

ANARCHISM Colin Ward

CLAUSEWITZ Michael Howard

ANCIENT EGYPT Ian Shaw

THE COLD WAR Robert McMahon

ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

Continental Philosophy

Julia Annas

Simon Critchley

ANCIENT WARFARE

COSMOLOGY Peter Coles

Harry Sidebottom

CRYPTOGRAPHY

THE ANGLO-SAXON AGE

Fred Piper and Sean Murphy

John Blair

DADA AND SURREALISM

ANIMAL RIGHTS David DeGrazia

David Hopkins

ARCHAEOLOGY Paul Bahn

Darwin Jonathan Howard

ARCHITECTURE

Democracy Bernard Crick

Andrew Ballantyne

DESCARTES Tom Sorell

ARISTOTLE Jonathan Barnes

DRUGS Leslie Iversen

ART HISTORY Dana Arnold

THE EARTH Martin Redfern

ART THEORY Cynthia Freeland

EGYPTIAN MYTH Geraldine Pinch

THE HISTORY OF

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY

ASTRONOMY Michael Hoskin

BRITAIN Paul Langford

Atheism Julian Baggini

THE ELEMENTS Philip Ball

Augustine Henry Chadwick

EMOTION Dylan Evans

BARTHES Jonathan Culler

EMPIRE Stephen Howe

THE BIBLE John Riches

ENGELS Terrell Carver

BRITISH POLITICS

Ethics Simon Blackburn

Anthony Wright

The European Union

Buddha Michael Carrithers

John Pinder

BUDDHISM Damien Keown

EVOLUTION

CAPITALISM James Fulcher

Brian and Deborah Charlesworth

THE CELTS Barry Cunliffe

FASCISM Kevin Passmore

CHOICE THEORY

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

Michael Allingham

William Doyle

CHRISTIAN ART Beth Williamson

FREE WILL Thomas Pink

CLASSICS Mary Beard and

Freud Anthony Storr

John Henderson

Galileo Stillman Drake

Gandhi Bhikhu Parekh

PARTICLE PHYSICS Frank Close

GLOBALIZATION Manfred Steger

paul E. P. Sanders

HEGEL Peter Singer

Philosophy Edward Craig

HEIDEGGER Michael Inwood

PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

HIEROGLYPHS Penelope Wilson

Samir Okasha

HINDUISM Kim Knott

PLATO Julia Annas

HISTORY John H. Arnold

POLITICS Kenneth Minogue

HOBBES Richard Tuck

POSTCOLONIALISM

HUME A. J. Ayer

Robert Young

IDEOLOGY Michael Freeden

POSTMODERNISM

Indian Philosophy

Christopher Butler

Sue Hamilton

POSTSTRUCTURALISM

Intelligence Ian J. Deary

Catherine Belsey

ISLAM Malise Ruthven

PREHISTORY Chris Gosden

JUDAISM Norman Solomon

PRESOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY

Jung Anthony Stevens

Catherine Osborne

KANT Roger Scruton

Psychology Gillian Butler and

KIERKEGAARD Patrick Gardiner

Freda McManus

THE KORAN Michael Cook

QUANTUM THEORY

LINGUISTICS Peter Matthews

John Polkinghorne

LITERARY THEORY

ROMAN BRITAIN

Jonathan Culler

Peter Salway

LOCKE John Dunn

ROUSSEAU Robert Wokler

LOGIC Graham Priest

RUSSELL A. C. Grayling

MACHIAVELLI

RUSSIAN LITERATURE

Quentin Skinner

Catriona Kelly

MARX Peter Singer

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

MATHEMATICS

S. A. Smith

Timothy Gowers

SCHIZOPHRENIA

MEDIEVAL BRITAIN

Chris Frith and Eve Johnstone

John Gillingham and

SCHOPENHAUER

Ralph A. Griffiths

Christopher Janaway

MODERN IRELAND

SHAKESPEARE Germaine Greer

Senia Pasěta

SOCIAL AND CULTURAL

MOLECULES Philip Ball

ANTHROPOLOGY

MUSIC Nicholas Cook

John Monaghan and Peter Just

Myth Robert Segal

SOCIOLOGY Steve Bruce

NIETZSCHE Michael Tanner

Socrates C. C. W. Taylor

NINETEENTH-CENTURY

SPINOZA Roger Scruton

BRITAIN Christopher Harvie and

STUART BRITAIN

H. C. G. Matthew

John Morrill

NORTHERN IRELAND

TERRORISM Charles Townshend

Marc Mulholland

THEOLOGY David F. Ford

Available soon:

THE TUDORS John Guy

FUNDAMENTALISM

TWENTIETH-CENTURY

Malise Ruthven

BRITAIN Kenneth O. Morgan

Habermas Gordon Finlayson

Wittgenstein A. C. Grayling

HIROSHIMA B. R. Tomlinson

WORLD MUSIC Philip Bohlman

HUMAN EVOLUTION

AFRICAN HISTORY

Bernard Wood

John Parker and Richard Rathbone

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

THE BRAIN Michael O’Shea

Paul Wilkinson

BUDDHIST ETHICS

JAZZ Brian Morton

Damien Keown

MANDELA Tom Lodge

CHAOS Leonard Smith

MEDICAL ETHICS

CHRISTIANITY Linda Woodhead

Tony Hope

CITIZENSHIP Richard Bellamy

THE MIND Martin Davies

CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE

NATIONALISM Steven Grosby

Robert Tavernor

PERCEPTION Richard Gregory

CLONING Arlene Judith Klotzko

PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

CONTEMPORARY ART

Jack Copeland and

Julian Stallabrass

Diane Proudfoot

THE CRUSADES

PHOTOGRAPHY Steve Edwards

Christopher Tyerman

THE RAJ Denis Judd

Derrida Simon Glendinning

THE RENAISSANCE

DESIGN John Heskett

Jerry Brotton

Dinosaurs David Norman

RENAISSANCE ART

DREAMING J. Allan Hobson

Geraldine Johnson

ECONOMICS Partha Dasgupta

SARTRE Christina Howells

THE END OF THE WORLD

THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR

Bill McGuire

Helen Graham

EXISTENTIALISM Thomas Flynn

TRAGEDY Adrian Poole

THE FIRST WORLD WAR

THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Michael Howard

Martin Conway

For more information visit our web site

www.oup.co.uk/vsi

Penelope Wilson

HIEROGLYPHS

A Very Short Introduction

1

3

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford o x 2 6 d p

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.

It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in

Oxford New York

Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai

Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi São Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto

Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries

Published in the United States

by Oxford University Press Inc., New York

© Penelope Wilson 2003

The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker)

First published as an Oxford University Press Hardback 2003

First published as a Very Short Introduction 2004

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organizations. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above

You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Data available

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available

ISBN 13:

–

978 0–19–280502–7

ISBN 10: 0–19–280502–9

3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Typeset by RefineCatch Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk

Printed in Great Britain by

TJ International Ltd., Padstow, Cornwall

Contents

Acknowledgements viii

List of illustrations ix

1

The origins of writing in Egypt 1

2

Hieroglyphic script and Egyptian language 17

3

Hieroglyphs and art 38

4

‘I know you, I know your names’ 56

5

Scribes and everyday writing 70

6

The decipherment of Egyptian 86

7

Hieroglyphs in the modern world 103

Notes 111

Chronology 118

Further reading 120

Index 123

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank George Miller at OUP for first approaching me to write this book and Emily Jolliffe for helping me through the process.

I was lucky enough to be taught by Professor ‘Peter’ Shore and some of the discussions here stem directly from him, though some years ago now. I was especially glad to track down the Nekau II scarab discussed in Chapter 7 as I remembered it as a Christmas homework exercise from my first year at university. It has taken until now for me to realize how interesting it was. I would like to thank Roger Dickinson, Wendy Kinder, Karen Exell, Don Wilson, and anonymous readers for reading the text and improving its readability in numerous ways.

The book is a somewhat personal account based on material I have read or studied. Any omissions are a result of my own limitations and the opinions and any errors in it are my own.

This book is For Roger
r nHH Dt

List of illustrations

1

Rock drawings from

7 Statues of Rahotep

Eastern Desert

4

and Nofret

42

© Mike Morrow

© The Art Archive/Egyptian

Museum, Cairo/Dagli Orti

2 Drawing of Den from

Abydos, drawn by

8 Stela of Seru

44

the author

9

Oriental Museum,

University of Durham

3 Meriotic Stela, drawn

9 Man catching fish,

by the author

36

Tomb of Kagemni,

photo by author

46

4 Meriotic cursive script,

drawn by the author

36

10

Scene from the

Tomb of Pashedu,

5 Hieroglyphs from the

Deir el-Medina,

Tomb of Amenemhet,

Thebes

47

Thebes

39

© E. Strouhal/Werner

Courtesy of the Egypt

Forman Archive

Exploration Society, London

11

Stela of Montuhotep

6 Offering scene from

from Er-Rizeiqat

54

Temple of Esna,

Egyptian Museum,

photo by author

40

Berlin/Staatliche Museen

zu Berlin-Preussischer

Kulturbesitz. Photo © bpk 2002

12

Erased names,

15

Hieratic letter of the

Luxor Temple,

scribe Butehamun

75

photo by author

59

© The British Museum

13

Crocodile hymn

16

Scribes from the

to Sobek, Temple

Tomb of Horemhab,

of Esna, photo

photo by author

79

by author

65

17

The Canopus Decree

88

© The Art Archive/Egyptian

14

Examples of the

Museum Cairo/Dagli Orti

owl sign, drawn

by author

73

The publisher and the author apologize for any errors or omissions in the above list. If contacted they will be pleased to rectify these at the earliest opportunity.

Chapter 1

The origins of writing

in Egypt

Setting the scene

The civilization of Ancient Egypt existed between around 3500 bc and 30 bc. It occupied the area of the valley and delta of the River Nile northward from its First Cataract in the north-east corner of Africa. With desert to the west, east, and south and sea to the north and further east, the Nile Valley delineated the Egyptian state. It was also incredibly rich in all kinds of resources including abundant fish, birds, wild and domesticated animals, many varieties of stone in the desert quarries, and metals, especially gold, in the eastern wastelands. Most importantly there was a flood which revitalized the agricultural lands every year with fresh mud.