What comes to mind when you think of Ancient Egypt? The pyramids. The Sphinx. Mummies. What about hieroglyphics? ‘Hieroglyphic’ comes a Greek word which means sacred carvings. These carvings which were inscribed into stone and papyrus all across Egypt are another early form of communication. In 3200 BC, Egyptians began using a language called Old Egyptian. It is around the same time that they began using hieroglyphics. There are between 700 and 800 different symbols which represent words, ideas and phrases. They even had their own form of proper grammar! However, they did not use punctuation. They were written in perfect columns and rows. Interestingly, hieroglyphics can be read from left to right, as well as, right to left depending on which direction the symbols are facing. Not everyone was able to write in hieroglyphics. Only scribes were given that chance. It was time consuming to learn and the papyrus (paper from a papyrus plant) was expensive. Scribes often worked for the kings or pharaohs. They were responsible for recording important dates, events, and religious information. The job was passed from generation to generation, only the children of scribes could then become a scribe.
The link below is an overview of the alphabet in hieroglyphics. Take a look!
Please let me start off by saying this is the most aesthetically pleasing blog out of the entire class. In fact, I better go ramp up my group's blog after this! :) Anyway, that's very engrossing information about hieroglyphics. I wonder what they spoke before 3200 B.C. I am not surprised their writings died though, due to the difficulty in physically drawing the symbols properly, and the fact that they only allowed a select group of people to write it. That is the wrong move if you want to spread your culture.
ReplyDeleteCan you imagine how much easier it was covering up information back than. Only the extremely wealthy were capable of hiring scribes and any information that they passed down would have to be taken as fact because the poor losers/victims would not be able to pass down their version of the history.
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