Ancient Civilizations

1. Language - Hieroglyphics Ancient Civilizations

2. hieroglyphics was the original writing system of ancient Egypt an alphabet that consisted of hieroglyphs - or picture symbols look easy to understand – many ways to use them earlier times – a picture of a bird would mean ‘bird’ eventually they could also be used as a sound or syllable – the way we now use a letter or a combination of letters from our alphabet a picture of a bird might be a syllable in a word that had nothing to do with birds some hieroglyphs represented more than one letter for example, a horned snake (viper) was both the letter F and the letter V some letters could be represented by more than one hieroglyph – H was sometimes a shelter and other times what looks like a twisted rope

3. at first there were about 700 hieroglyphic symbols – grew over time vowels and punctuation were not represent in hieroglyphics most Egyptians were not literate - they could not read or write only government officials called scribes were literate must have been hard to write quickly Egyptians developed two other writing systems that were easier to scribble down in a hurry called hieratic writing and demotic writing hieroglyphic system was used mainly for tombs or temples other languages were used for keeping records began using hieroglyphs soon after the First Dynasty began – 3100 B.C. last hieroglyphic inscription historians have found is dated 394 A.D. – soon after that it became a ‘dead’ language

4. wasn’t until the early 1800s that the modern world learned how to translate hieroglyphics – thanks to an amazing archeological find called the Rosetta Stone 1799 a broken piece of stone unlocked a great mystery a French soldier accidentally uncovered the unusual slab of stone outside Rosetta, a city near Alexandria in Egypt it dated back to 196 B.C. text had been carved into it in three languages: hieroglyphic (pictures and symbols), demotic (everyday language of the people) and Greek Egyptologists at the time knew how to read both Greek and demotic – they could tell that the text was identical in both languages deduced that the text must also be the same in hieroglyphic they studied the Rosetta Stone to figure out how to read hieroglyphics